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5 out of 5
by
Clifford
from
Staunton, VA | Jan 11, 2009
This book is available for pre-order from Press53. I've read it and it's a terrific collection. Women, especially, will love it, but men will, too, because it's about people who find themselves in places they never expected to be. We can all relate! Mary Akers is a wonderful writer, and I recommend this book to everyone.
1 people found this review helpful
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5 out of 5
by
J.W.
from
Phoenix, AZ | Jan 24, 2009
I sat, one particular afternoon, in the middle of downtown Phoenix, reading Women Up On Blocks. It was lunch hour, so there was plenty of pedestrian traffic, including the expected share of vehicular traffic. Yet there I sat, reading the story "No Reason Not To," all the while almost entirely oblivious to everything around me. Such was Mary Akers' ability to fully draw me into her story.
Her characters have beautiful depth, flesh, and soul. Poignancy and unfiltered honesty are concepts not merely touched upon but treated with broad, colorful strokes of her brush. There's no two-dimensionality to her stories, they all breathe life and emotion one word to the next. She'll break your heart, make you smile. and even nod knowingly. The earthiness that permeates these stories is nothing less than a sometimes poetic extrapolation of little bits of life.
If you care for a genuinely entertaining, thoroughly good read, then you'd do well to add Women Up On Blocks to your list. Wonderfully written, and worth every moment I spent reading it.
1 people found this review helpful
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5 out of 5
by
Sonya
from
Richmond, VA | Feb 26, 2009
I read this collection with no expectations and, therefore, everywhere to go emotionally. Having read it "straight" helped me to find each character within myself. I alternately stroked her, counseled her or shook her violently.
So many women are told so many things about how to feel, who they should be, how they should love, the power they should possess that they forget the woman that can find her reflection in fish guts on a creek bank. Women become obnoxious with the power they find in the health food store or by surviving cancer. They forget that submerging your head in an icy lake while offspring squirm will, indeed, offer clarity, no matter how crazy it seems. Women don't know how tired they will get or how much love they can FOR-get when a crisis leaves them in charge. Women forget that submission can be heady and comforting and, you know what? Sometimes, the very thing they have been looking for.
Mary Akers lays it out for us. All of the above. I suggest reading it "straight." It's excellent.
3 people found this review helpful
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5 out of 5
by
Tania
from
Israel | Aug 5, 2009
I never like to read a whole short story collection in one go, but in this case, during a bout of insomnia, I simply couldn't stop. Each of Mary Akers' stories has a unique voice, a different tone and style, and they are quirky and poignant, thoughtful and thought-provoking. They do not tie up neatly, they linger on long after this slim book has been put down. I don't recommend reading it straight through, only because of the sense of disappointment when you read your last story, that there is no more. Of course, short stories lend themselves most beautifully to being read again, and again, revealing new layers each time, and I am already looking forward to exploring Women Up on Blocks many more times. For a longer review, read what our reviewer on The Short Review had to say: http://www.theshortreview.com/reviews/Ma...
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5 out of 5
by
Pamela
from
The United States | Jan 14, 2009
These stories have wonderfully bold premises--a woman, having impulsively married a man she hardly knows, is left alone in a house covered with mirrors (it was formerly owned by a supermodel); a woman sits naked in a cage as a protest against the mistreatment of animals; yet another woman, dying from cancer, donates her body to be displayed ("flayed" is the more apt word) in a traveling exhibition on anatomy. Akers' tales challenge us to imagine extreme situations: what plunges people into them and how they cope once there. Her more traditional tales--most markedly "Still Life With Shoes," about four siblings coming together after the death of their n'er-do-well dad--are equally successful and surprising, and showcase Akers's humor and her ear for dialogue. Akers may be interested in unusual lives, but her subject is always the love, hurt, and need common to all of us.
1 people found this review helpful