Unba//anced

so i got "the best american nonrequired reading 2005" from the library. it's a collection of short stories and non-fiction by authors that the mainstream might pass by. but the funny thing is that most were published in what i'd call mainstream publications like the New Yorker, Harper's and Details (?!?).

while about half of the stories didn't catch me in the first paragraph (so therefore I skipped over them), the other half I gave a chance. I'll give each a one sentence synopsis, my opinion and a grade:

"the death of mustango salvaje" by jessica anthony
a female bullfighter grows weary of being famous because she's the only female. the story is well told, but i didn't feel a connection to the character, so ultimately i didn't care about her. C-

"tiger mending" by aimee bender
a woman with a talent for sewing must help repair tiger whose stripes are peeling off. i'm not a big fan of reimagined fairy tales/fables and the reasoning behind why the tigers are peeling wasn't satisfactory to me. C

"free burgers for life" by ryan boudinot
a loser wins free burgers for life from the loserish establishment next door to the copy place he works at. eh - there was a middle section with him hanging out with some high schoolers which was only there to establish him even more of a loser, and by the end you understood that he's a loser, but what's the point? C+

"five forgotten instincts" by dan chaon
an average guy, who has scars all over him face and body from a dog attack when he was young, tries to find solace in the beds of others. i liked the way this story was told - going back and forth between the present and the past when the attack happened - so i'd be interested in the novel this was incorporated into. B+

"lyndon" by amber dermot
a disconnected monther and daughter tour presidential monuments after the death of the father and discover one another. i liked this one the most because the characters were a good balance between real and quirky, and her take on the modern family being out of touch with one another was well done. A

"my little brother ruined my life" by stephen elliott
an older brother cast out of the family brings his little brother to visit him in San Francisco. another quirky character story, but this one is not as successful as "lyndon" because i didn't feel connected to them, but i did like the storytelling and plot. B+

"tearaway burkas and tinplate menorahs" by al franken
trip notes from his time on a recent USO tour. a great view of what's going on in iraq and afghanistan from an outspoken opponent of the war and the recent administration. the only thing about giving this a grade is that it's not fiction and everything else i read was. A

"the lost boys" by jeff gordinier
young boys are outcast from a mormon community and try to figure out how to live in the outside. there were too many characters to keep track of and the ending just sort of happened without any kind of resolution or point to make. D+

"roadkill" by kate krautkramer
a pregnant woman creates sculptures from roadkill parts and contemplates her pregnancy and future. what lost me was the ending - she was upset that the hospital was going to do certain medical procedures that she questioned, but there are alternative places to have a child, so why didn't she just choose one of those. C-

"catalogue sales" by molly mcnett
two girls speculate about the mail-order bride their father is going to marry. eh. C-

"diary of a journal reader" by lauren weedman
obsessive woman reads her boyfriend's journal and fesses up to it. entertaining, but if she's that odd, then take it up a notch and really make the story a freakshow - it's just words, afterall. B-

so, overall i was disappointed by most of the stories. are people afraid of writing things that are weird or hightened or just real - and when i mean real, i mean exposing emotions and physicality and fragility to the light of day. balls to the wall, in the vernacular ;-)