Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage - Alice Munro

When it comes to short story collections, I go in phases. Sometimes I just love them, and other times I find myself anxiously awaiting the ironic twist and unable to just simply enjoy the storytelling. And, for some reason, I find it necessary to read collections all the way through instead of allowing myself to read a story here and there when I decide I'm in the mood for one. It's something that I'm going to work on...but in the meantime...this collection of Munro's showcases female leads - most of whom have come from less than perfect pasts. Some of them find themselves married, others with children. But each one is perfectly real (at least to me) in her ambivalence and exasperation over her situation. I found myself captivated by Munro's writing, she's one of those authors whose passages you read again and again just to marvel at how perfectly they capture an emotion. In many ways her characters are depressing, and even the ones who got their happy ending seem to do so only because they didn't know what they should have been wishing for. Great stories to read with a pint of ice cream after a trying day.