I’m really behind on my reading goal so far for 2020 (by about 27), so it’s absolutely vital that I just start shot-gunning some quick reads. 2020 hasn’t been the most generous year, but I mainly have myself to blame for the fugue state I’ve been in.
To know me is also to know that I am deeply ambivalent about Amazon in the nicest of terms. Still, desperate times call for desperate measures and I find my hand forced towards the Amazon Original Stories. I’ve also never read anything by Caroline Kepnes until now either, so this is a nice warm-up.
Shelby is a new mom who has been lying to her husband and live-in mother about the job she was fired from. Despite the fact that her husband is loving, if emotionally unavailable, she feels compelled to follow some flirty bread-crumbs a mysterious texter has been dropping for her. She’s also obsessed with Hallmark Channel Original Movies – which the story both takes digs at and glorifies [the type of women who loves them – I can’t really tell which.] Shelby is then kidnapped by her catfisher and sent to live in a dystopian commune meant to turn her into a Hallmark Movie Heroine. – Yes, that’s a spoiler, but the book is literally less than 50 pages long.
Like, obviously this short story is meant to be:
A) Included in a collection of short stories by this already popular fiction writer some years down the road. and…
B) A commentary on The Modern American Woman – wither good or bad, I can’t personally tell. I love short fiction because they carry a heavier burden than novels usually can do: I think of them as conceptual sandboxes for writers. Maybe it’s to hammer out some characterization, or as with this story, make a commentary on a niche aspect of society.
I can see that Kepnes is saying something, but I haven’t taken a college English course in some years and so my interpretation radar is pretty rusty. Would I read more of the titles in this series? Possibly, but it’s unlikely. If I did it would be to get a broader picture of what this project is trying to accomplish, but since the series is very varied and left up to the interpretation of many other authors – rather than a continuation of the one story – it wouldn’t be for much. I honestly read it because I needed something quick to read for my 100 Book Reading Goal (for which I am miserably behind on)
lala poopsie books 