A review by birdbrainreads
The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson

medium-paced

3.0

 The stories in this collection had a bit of a slow start but quickly garnered my interest in book two which had some of my favorite stories. My rating is as follows for the top five stories in this collection: 1. Charles, funny seemingly lighthearted, and a little disturbing how much parents believe about their children and the behavior they exhibit while not in their care. 2. The Witch, purely because of the strangeness of it all and the complete 180 that the story takes halfway through. 3. The Renegade, Jackson does the ‘long suffering housewife’ extremely well and although the message of the story is a little more blatant in the end, I love the build-up. 4. The Daemon Lover, had me feeling BAD for this lady, like bad bad, the terror, humiliation, and paranoia, its all too MUCH. 5. Trial by Combat, Jackson writing politeness as people's undoing is TOO good. Also the subtle war going on between these two women, is unspoken but not and its so crazy when you consider that what the older woman is doing is an extreme violation of privacy like WHAT? The best part in her writings is when you can clearly see where the other has won even if it is not expressed outwardly.