CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders

CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

There are 7 short stories in this book. The first, "CivilWarLand in Bad Decline" is sort of interesting, as is the fifth story, "Offloading for Mrs. Schwartz." The second story, "Isabelle," is super sad and disturbing to nihilistic levels. I know it technically has a happy ending but holy cow, it's rough. I don't even know what's happening in the third story, "The Wavemaker Falters." Feel free to explain that one to me. The fourth story, "The 400-Pound CEO" is another sad time. The sixth story, "Downtrodden Mary...," is even sadder yet as horrible things happen to an old lady. The seventh story, "Bounty," is actually a dystopian novella about a world where the genetically imperfect are vulnerable to enslavement or annihilation. While I love a good dystopian book, this one is crazypants Saunders in action.

I'm a fan of Saunders (this is my 7th Saunders book), but I wasn't a fan of this collection. Saunders's voice is too similar for each of the characters, especially the bad boss characters that love talking in cliches. The writing doesn't seem clear to me and I had to revisit a lot of it to figure out what was going on. Also, the stories meander so you think it's going to be about one thing, then it wanders off to a different idea.

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Fox 8 by George Saunders

Fox 8 by George Saunders
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Kind of sad. It's hard out there for a fox with humans destroying habitats. Very short book to fill my animal-perspective category for Book Riot's Reading Challenge and George Saunders never fails.

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Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Well, I have a lot of thoughts and I'm going to let them settle for a long time. I cried a few times here. Saunders captured personal grief as well as it can be captured.

I didn't find it as difficult to follow as some reviewers said but it did take a while to get the hang of the structure.

At the same time, this novel was deeply weird. This is what you might expect to happen if Tim Burton and Claudia Rankine did a production of Our Town.

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Congratulations, By the Way by George Saunders

Congratulations, By the Way: Some Thoughts on Kindness by George Saunders
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm a deeply biased Saunders fan. This "book" is just one graduation speech he gave at Syracuse University in 2013. It's a really great speech, and as close to conveying the meaning of life in as few words as possible as I have yet read. It takes less than 20 minutes to read so everyone should read it.

It's available in its entirety online, but of course, the book version makes a lovely graduation gift.

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Tenth of December by George Saunders

Tenth of December by George Saunders
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This short story collection is so amazing, there are no words for how great it is. Three of the stories made me cry, and not out of sadness, but because of how beautiful they were. Saunders is funny, inspiring, and turns pure goodness into stories. What a gift to read a book like this.

My favorites were: "Victory Lap," "Puppy," "Escape from Spiderhead," "My Chivalric Disaster," and "Tenth of December." Also really like "Exhortation." "Sticks" is cool in a weird artsy way.

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The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil by George Saunders

The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil by George Saunders
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm shocked that Saunders wrote this in 2005, because it seems like a summary of 2016. Presumably, it's so accurate because it's based on history that we repeat over and over again with very little novelty. But it's still incredibly scarily accurate. This is a very short book; it is in between being a very long short story or a very short novella, so there's no reason not to take a few hours to read it. Read it!

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Pastoralia by George Saunders

Pastoralia by George Saunders
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's hard to write a review when a novel is really good, and even harder when a short story collection is good. The first story felt a little long and depressing, but the stories get progressively better. The stories at the end in particular linger after you've put the book down and continue to demand your attention while you're doing other things. Now I'm looking forward to reading The Tenth of December.

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