A review by disreputabledog
The Best American Short Stories 2008, by Heidi Pitlor, Salman Rushdie
2.0
The Best American Short Stories of 2008 is about on par with the previous year's collection, which is to say that none of the stories in here are bad, but there are few that I would actually consider "great." Salmon Rushdie, the editor for this one, has chosen stories with a wider range of tone than Stephen King did in 2007, so I give Rushdie props for that, but overall I was still disappointed with how uninspiring most of these stories were.
The stand outs:
Rebecca Makkai, "The Worst You Ever Feel"
Alice Munro, "Child's Play"
Miroslav Penkov, "Buying Lenin"
Karen Russell, "Vampires in the Lemon Grove"
There are also a couple in here that I thought had the potential to be very good, but were not fully realized; these include Kevin Brockmeier's "The Year of Silence" and Katie Chase's "Man and Wife."
The stand outs:
Rebecca Makkai, "The Worst You Ever Feel"
Alice Munro, "Child's Play"
Miroslav Penkov, "Buying Lenin"
Karen Russell, "Vampires in the Lemon Grove"
There are also a couple in here that I thought had the potential to be very good, but were not fully realized; these include Kevin Brockmeier's "The Year of Silence" and Katie Chase's "Man and Wife."