Everybody knows you have to start strong. In particular, when putting together a collection of short stories, the editor should start strong to draw the reader into the rest of the collection. In this collection, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is definitely a strong story. A young woman is slowly engulfed by the room in which she is living. In a subtle way it is frightening. The woman’s madness (at least, it seems to be madness) draws us in with her. And there is a tone that makes your skin crawl without you realizing it has gotten under your skin. It is an excellent, strong story.

And, that makes it the only thing worth reading in this collection. The remaining stories still seem to have this same tone, but they just don’t resonate. They are trite, they lead no where, and, while the first stories ineffectual “heroine” helps build the feeling of impending doom, the bland characters of the remaining stories are just uninteresting and boring.

One great story does not even a mediocre collection make. Find “The Yellow Wallpaper” somewhere and read it. Do not turn to this collection for just that one story. ( )

When Charlotte Perkins Gilman suffered post-partum depression, she was prescribed a "rest cure" that required the complete absence of physical exercise or mental stimulation. Predictably, the "cure" made her disease worse, and when she recovered, she wrote The Yellow Wallpaper to chastise her doctor and suggest that society re-evaluate its view of women. In the story, an anonymous narrator is trapped in a room, staring at lurid yellow wallpaper that becomes a symbol for everything that is wrong in her life. I found the story palatable mostly because it was so short. Her husband's patronizing behavior angered me, and the symbolism at the end of the story was interesting, but the story needed more depth to be truly rewarding. I don't regret reading it, but I don't particularly recommend it either. ( )