The Angel's Game--Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Let me just say that I LOVE Carlos Ruiz Zafon. His writing is beautiful. He has a way with words. I love his stories too! This one was no exception. The story was engrossing and captivating, and beautifully written! It is kind of a mystery, but more just suspenseful. At one point I thought  I had it figured it out and then there was a twist and I thought something else was going to happen and I was so worried! But then there was a turn to the twist, and, well, I don't want to give anything away, but it was a great story. I honestly couldn't put it down.

The Vintage Books of Contemporary Short Stories --Tobias Wolff

I love short stories. You can read something with a beginning, middle, and an end, and because they are "short", the language tends to be beautiful, concise, and what could be said in 300 pages is usually told in 100. I also like them because sometimes I just don't want to read a full blown novel. Short stories are great because it's a small commitment!

That being said, this collection of short stories is incredibly depressing. I was assigned this book in my senior seminar class in college. It was rough because like I said, a lot of the stories were sad and hard hitting, so having to read 4-5 stories in a sitting for review was no fun. I felt like I needed to watch Disney movies after each assignment to get my spirits back up! But even with all that, the stories were beautifully crafted and always enthralling, just not in a happy-go-lucky kind of way. It was a good thing these were short stories, because if they were novels, I don't think I would have made it through any of them!