Months and Seasons: Stories by Christoper Meeks
“Months and Seasons” is a particularly refreshing book of short stories. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book of short stories whose characters and situations seem so varied, even though most were males in the United States. Even the narration style was varied, alternating between first- and third-person, even a story in second-person narration, which is fairly unusual.
From the very first story, I felt close to the protagonists. It was as if a friend or close acquaintance was recounting a night, day, week, or year from his or her life. The characters all seemed quirky and easy to relate to. Meeks is very talented in being able to flesh out his characters in very few pages. Actually, perhaps a better analogy than a friend or acquaintance telling you the story, they seemed like stories one might overhear on a train or in an airport. They were stories that did not always give you a large degree of background on the characters, but still made them seem like real people.
Overall, I think this is a lovely story collection and it is one that I can definitely recommend.
I love the cover. Enjoyed your review, Jen. I’m always impressed when an author can really develop characters in so few pages.
Yours is the 3rd positive review I’ve read of this book in the past few weeks. I’m looking forward to reading it.
I will be posting my review tonight. I agree with what you say, but I think I’m just not a short story person, or at least not right now. I kept wanting more. I’m going to link to your review in mine, because my whatever attitude about the book has nothing to do with the author and everything to do with me.
I am trying to learn to appreciate short stories better. So this is another one to put on my list to consider- it sounds better than some of the others which I have read- flatness of character being a common disappointment.
Thanks for a fine review. I look forward to reading this one.
I wish I appreciated short stories more.
Cute cover. I haven’t read many short story collections but this sounds good.
As a rule, I don’t like short stories; but this book sounds intriguing.
i wanted to enter the contest to win this on the book lady’s blog but i had just won gargoyle, so didn’t think it would be prudent. but it sounded so great!