I'm currently reading a book called The Best Short Stories of 2010 which, I assume you assumed, is a collection of short stories that two supposed experts on short stories decided were the best to be featured in their book.
It's a great read, but it seems that every story lacks an uplifting and optimistic ending or tone. It's almost as if the short story writers of 2010 found it naive or out of style to utilize any archetypal optimism, and they all attempted to achieve a sublime realism like it was the new fad. They all seem to try and explicate the vastness of the human soul, but they all see it in a similar shade of gray. Or whatever color it would be if a splash of red mixed with the gray in the far lower corner of the soul.
Not to say they're not good; in fact, they're brilliant. But they're a kind of brilliance that seems to blend together like if I put them all in a clear plastic bag and shook it around really fast. They don't vary; they're just variations of the same thing.
However, I'm being unfair. I'm a good number of pages past halfway, but there are still a few stories left to read, written by some writers yet discovered by me. I just keep finding myself hoping that maybe they subconsciously saved the best for last. I mean, even if you weren't intending to, with a book title like The Best Short Stories of 2010, wouldn't you put the better ones toward the back?
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