Tag: #reading

  • Short Story Review: “Rate Your Happiness” by Catherine Lacey

    (The short story “Rate Your Happiness” by Catherine Lacey appeared in the April 13th, 2026 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Photograph by Tobias Nicolai

    When I finished reading Catherine Lacey’s “Rate Your Happiness” I was reminded of driving a car with a manual transmission. Especially when you don’t put the car in gear and still step on the gas which causes the engine to rev really high, but you don’t go anywhere. In this story, the narrator calls this “meaningless motion” and they’re right. And it’s also very frustrating.

    I understand that the theme of this story was existing in atrophy, and motion that leads to nowhere. Unfortunately, having a protagonist that doesn’t make a decision or choice leaves the ending of the story empty and unsatisfying. There is one sentence in the last paragraph which I think attempts to bring about a conclusion: “Louise returned to the street with real intent, finally carrying her contradictory desires with total clarity…” but I have to say that this sentence is being asking to do a whole lot of heavy lifting for this story. It implies that Louise has made a choice to accept who she is when it comes to how she has reacted to the situations the story has presented. Yet, is it truly a choice when the character is only acknowledging that they don’t make choices? Though an interesting philosophical question, it doesn’t work narratively.

    What “Rate Your Happiness” presents is something that feels akin to the first one or two chapters of a novel. There are a lot of moving parts here, and Lacy does a good job of balancing them in the narrative. No one idea, theme, or character dominates, and it all flows and ripples over each other creating the feeling of a very real and complicated character in the protagonist of Louise. In fact, I enjoyed all the characters that were presented in this story, and wanted to see and hear more from them.

    Like I said, if this was the first chapter of a novel, I’m hooked and I want to see how this plays out. As a short story, the engine is revving up, but we didn’t go anywhere.

  • Short Story Review: “Something Familiar” by Mary Gaitskill

    (The short story “Something Familiar” by Mary Gaitskill appeared in the March 2nd, 2026 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Photograph by Billy Dinh for The New Yorker

    “Something Familiar” by Mary Gaitskill is one of those short stories that feels like it’s from another time, like the 70’s or 80’s. A contemporary set story, but the setting, a late-night taxi ride with two strangers conversing, feels quaint, and even a little nostalgic. And I do think that this choice was deliberate, as the story also involves these two people reflecting on the life they lead back in the 80’s.

    Overly Simplified Synopsis: A taxi drive and his passenger converse with each other, which causes both to reflect on their lives. Also, there is a possibility that they shared an important moment with each other, though they aren’t aware of this coincidence.

    This is a competent story. The characters feel lived in, and make decision on how they present themselves to the others. Perhaps it is a coincidence that these two people find each other in a cab, and I wouldn’t disparage a story using coincidence as a plot device, though I did enjoy that Gaitskill never fully says that these two people met before, which keeps the story feeling tactfully undefined – rough on the edges. I also appreciated how, when the two characters split up and go their separate ways, the woman has someone in her life she can be open and honest with, while the man lives a life in a lie with some regret added on top.

    Yet, it never felt like this story went anywhere, or progressed in some way. The characters are the same from start to finish. They do reflect on their past, but that reflection doesn’t lead to growth in the present setting of the story, which leaves the piece in a sort of unfulfilled status bubble.

    Things happen, yet nothing happens, making the story feel incomplete and unresolved.

  • Snow Day!

    Schools canceled! Making time for reading, watching movies, playing games, and sledding!

  • One More Before the Year is Over

    I have a good feeling that I won’t get back to blogging until the New Year. Even then, the first week back, I’ll post all the “Best of…” for 2025. So, it’s more like I won’t really be back to writing for about two weeks.

    It’s time to wrap up 2025, and I did just get back from Christmas in Texas. It was a good trip. Got to see all the family, and even had a chance to hang out with the old college gang. The only thing that wasn’t so great was the fact that it was in the 80’s the whole time we were there. It was Summer in December. And all we had to wear was winter clothes. Oh well… I just can’t escape the heat sometimes…

    As for 2025 –

    Personally, my life is pretty good this year, and I really can’t complain. We’re all healthy, doing well, getting by, and having fun.

    Professionally, things aren’t too bad either. Blog is still growing – this was the best year in views and visitors, “likes” were up compared to last year, and the number of comments were exactly the same as the previous year. I got a review published at Split Lip, and though I wrote fewer stories, I felt that my quality is improving.

    Doing all of this probably will never not feel like screaming into a void, but I do appreciate those of you that took the time to read what I wrote. You shared with me the most precious thing of all; your time. And for that, I am deeply honored.

    Moving on to 2026 – sure would be nice to get another thing published. Oh, getting out of debt would be cool, too! Completing the writing of a book, maybe losing ten pounds, getting to see a World Cup match live would be neat. But I think I would like to improve as a husband, and as a father. Also, be a better son, brother, and uncle. Oh, and growing and being a better friend as well. I guess I would like to be the type of person I would like to hang out with. Oh, and read more. Always could read more.

    So, I hope 2025 wasn’t too hard on ya, and I sure do hope your 2026 is a hell of a lot better.

    Thanks again for reading this little squeak is a world of squawks.

    • Matt Groff

  • Short Story Review: “Marseille” by Ayşegül Savaş

    (The short story “Marseille” by Ayşegül Savaş appeared in the April 7th, 2025 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Illustration by Virginie Morgand

    Old friends are the best friends you can have! There, I said it, and I am willing to die on this completely uncontroversial hill! See, I know that my old friends, some that I have known since grade school, have made my life better, funnier, and have given me perspective in immeasurable ways. Mainly because we have grown older together. Reading “Marseille” by Ayşegül Savaş reminded me of the virtues of having old friends.

    Here’s an Overly Simplistic Synopsis: Amina, who recently had a baby, goes out for a weekend in Marseille with two of her old university friends, Alba and Lisa.

    I try to keep an open mind, and not to jump to conclusions when I start reading a story, but by the time I made it to the third paragraph, and read that this was going to be a story about three old friends going away for a weekend, the cliché and trope sirens started going off in my head. And I can admit that I was totally wrong for doing that. Though, I feel that this “red herring” of a situation was part of Ayşegül Savaş’ plan all along, lulling us in to the story.

    The story’s opening paragraph describes how Amina and her husband have been trying to give each other space and time away from each other, in an attempt to reclaim their lives, “which had been on hold since the baby was born.” So, from the start, the premise of the work is reclaiming one’s self, even after change has occurred. And as we follow Amina and her friends around for these few days, that theme is repeated, in which change is coming, or has already occurred.

    And Ayşegül Savaş handles this theme very smartly. Again, so many times this story could have fallen into the land of middle-aged people tropes, but it never goes there. For one reason, our three characters aren’t that old, perhaps just entering into their thirties. The other way this theme is handled well is that Amina comes into contact with three women, two in the setting of the story and one as a memory, over the stretch of the piece; the first is a new mother on the train out to Marseille, the next is an older woman that explains that desire goes aware after giving birth but will return, the third is a young woman on the ferry ride. It’s as if Amina encounters her present self, her future self, and her past self – these interactions don’t represent warnings of the future, or regrets of the past, but are more like mile posts signaling the changes that happen in life. But what I appreciated most that this was a story about three friends who discover that they have changed by getting older, and still remain friends.

    In the end, “Marseille” is a story about that moment that we all know is coming – that moment when we get the first hint that we aren’t young anymore.