Souls: A Short Story Collection by Terri BruceMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
Lets talk about that cover. I love the artwork, but the font used is extremely off-putting to me. I almost wish the title was smaller, perhaps subtle between the two figures. It looks like what a middle school boy would use on a school project. Find a nice picture, then search for a cool font to go over it even if the font doesn't really "work." For a middle school student, they can get away with it. For a professionally published book, maybe not. This cover kept me up last night as I laid in bed debating if I really wanted to read this or not, That's how bad that font is. You can't judge a book by it's cover. Except sometimes you can.
Let me just say that I didn't hate this. But I also didn't love it enough to want to own a copy of it. What possible readers have to understand is that this is collected fiction. Not every story will work for everybody. I had Unnatural Creatures on a shelf next to me while I read this and lord knows I did not love every one of those stories. Its really about personal taste. With that being said, i'm choosing not to do a review story by story as I originally planned. For the two or three I really liked, I don't feel like it's necessary to spew negativity over the rest of it since it didn't jive with me.
Now, with that being said...I did notice that the stories I liked the best were the more contemporary ones or the ones written closer to the present date. I liked that each story had a blurb in the beginning explaining when they were written and what for. It showed me that Terri has great potential as if you sorted the stories chronologically then they get better and better. I also feel like the first story was one of the weakest in the book. For a short story collection, you should start with something that is going to make someone want to read the next one. It didn't work. I see the potential and I actually trust Terri as a writer and storyteller. Based on what I thought was good, I would absolutely give her another try if she publishes something new. This particular collection didn't work with me, but I'm interested.
One last thing...I did not like the introduction to the book. It pulled me out right away and made me feel like a student was trying to justify everything we were about to read next by telling us about themselves. The Cover plus the introduction plus the weak first story resulted in a bad combination. This book may be a pass for me, but Terri Bruce is not.
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