A review by jonathanwlodarski
Flying Leap: Stories by Judy Budnitz
4.0
The best story here is "Skin Care," which is the heartbreaking tale of a girl with leprosy looking for love. It's poetic and beautiful and so LONELY. Ugh. What a great bit of writing. My other two favorite are the first two in the collection: "Dog Days," which is a post-apocalyptic that doesn't focus so much on the "why" as it does on feelings, and "Guilt," which is about heart transplants and family and love.
It's overall a very strong collection, and I enjoyed how the stories are all rather short--there are about 250 pages in Flying Leap, but Budnitz packs in 23 shorts. Some of the stories are surreal and some of them aren't, and I liked the mixture. There are a few I found rather dull: "Directions," "Train," and "Burned" didn't do much for me. Had they been cut, I would eagerly award this book five stars.
4/5
It's overall a very strong collection, and I enjoyed how the stories are all rather short--there are about 250 pages in Flying Leap, but Budnitz packs in 23 shorts. Some of the stories are surreal and some of them aren't, and I liked the mixture. There are a few I found rather dull: "Directions," "Train," and "Burned" didn't do much for me. Had they been cut, I would eagerly award this book five stars.
4/5