Short stories, some with few recurring characters and occasionally odd/experimental writing. ( )

Hmmm...well...you know how you are hungry and you keep eating and getting fuller but just aren't satisfied? You just end up bloated and angry? This is how "The Surf Guru", reads. Each story seems like a fragment of something bigger that never satisfies. Maybe that was Doug Dorst's intention. To give us just a taste. Hmmm...well... ( )

Had a hard time getting through this book. I didn't particularly like the opening story, The Surf Guru, or many of the other stories. For some of the stories, such as Twelve Potraits of Dr. Gachet, the style was distracting. I'm sure there must have been some point to the stories, but I just didn't "get it". I disliked The Candidate in Bloom and What is Mine Will Know My Face the least. This was definitely a struggle to get through. ( )

I finished this book relatively easily. The stories had a range of narrative styles with distinct characters, making it a pretty suitable read for my morning commutes. I enjoyed "The Candidate in Bloom" the most and "Vikings" the least. The vivid and impressionistic quality of Dorst's writing made them fun to read individually but seemed to lack a narrative depth, which shows if you try to read more than two stories at a time. ( )

I really enjoyed this collection of short stories. There was everything in the book from quite dark to humorous. The author, Doug Dorst has a great way of describing things and seems to be able to articulate the human condition in a way that I haven't seen before. He is not afraid to tackle the difficult emotions which make his characters more real. ( )