Florida
FINALIST FOR THE 2018 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER OF THE 2019 STORY PRIZEONE OF NPR S BEST BOOKS OF 2018The universally acclaimed return of the New York Times bestselling author of Fates and Furies.In Lauren Groff s Florida, the hot sun shines, but a wild darkness lurks In her thrilling new book, Lauren Groff brings the reader into a physical world that is at once domestic and wild a place where the hazards of the natural world lie waiting to pounce, yet the greatest threats and mysteries are still of an emotional, psychological nature A family retreat can be derailed by a prowling panther, or by a sexual secret Among those navigating this place are a resourceful pair of abandoned sisters a lonely boy, grown up a restless, childless couple, a searching, homeless woman and an unforgettable, recurring character a steely and conflicted wife and mother The stories in this collection span characters, towns, decades, even centuries, but Florida its landscape, climate, history, and state of mind becomes its gravitational center an energy, a mood, as much as a place of residence Groff transports the reader, then jolts us alert with a crackle of wit, a wave of sadness, a flash of cruelty, as she writes about loneliness, rage, family, and the passage of time With shocking accuracy and effect, she pinpoints the moments and decisions and connections behind human pleasure and pain, hope and despair, love and fury the moments that make us alive Startling, precise, and affecting, Florida is a magnificent achievement. Free Download [ Florida ] By [ Lauren Groff ] For Kindle ePUB or eBook – kino-fada.fr The truth might be moral, but it isn t always right. Snakes, gators, swamps and storms form the backdrop of these exquisitely human stories.I have to say I enjoyed Florida so muchthan Fates and Furies Groff s writing style is dense and wordy, metaphorical and poetic and sometimes exhausting Reading her full length novel was a chore, but for me at least, Groff seems born to write short stories Small, hard hitting snippets of lives that still make you feel emotionally drained, but al The truth might be moral, but it isn t always right. Snakes, gators, swamps and storms form the backdrop of these exquisitely human stories.I have to say I enjoyed Florida so muchthan Fates and Furies Groff s writing style is dense and wordy, metaphorical and poetic and sometimes exhausting Reading her full length novel was a chore, but for me at least, Groff seems born to write short stories Small, hard hitting snippets of lives that still make you feel emotionally drained, but also thoughtful and satisfied.The natural wonders and dangers of Florida play into almost all these stories A snake devotee meets his en...3 starsI loved Lauren Groff s Fates and Furies I thought the writing was absolutely brilliant and the story and characters were really original So I was pretty excited to get my hands on Florida, which is Groff s latest short story collection Unfortunately, I can t rave about the stories in the same way I raved about Fates and Furies I recognize her talented writing, but there was a flat clever feel to her stories that made it hard for me to feel engaged Most of the stories focused on wome 3 starsI loved Lauren Groff s Fates and Furies I thought the writing was absolutely brilliant and the story and characters were really original So I was pretty excited to get my hands on Florida, which is Groff s latest short story collection Unfortunately, I can t rave about the stories in the same way I raved about Fates and Furies I recognize her talented writing, but there was a flat clever feel to her stories that made it hard for me to feel engaged Most of the stories focused on women, often with young children, often in Florida, often with distan...My full review, as well as my other thoughts on reading, can be found on my blog.A collection of eleven short stories set mostly in the titular state, Florida examines the inner lives of young women and mothers afflicted by malaise, alcoholism, and, occasionally, despair Abusive men, neglected children, unbearable storms, and the southern wilderness recur throughout the collection the pieces gathered here feel like variations on the same set of themes Groff writes lush sentences, full of palp My full review, as well as my other thoughts on reading, can be found on my blog.A collection of eleven short stories set mostly in the titular state, Florida examines the inner lives of young women and mothers afflicted by malaise, alcoholism, and, occasionally, despair Abusive men, neglected children, unbearable storms, and the southern wilderness recur throughout the collection the p...Here s the thing I really do love Groff s writing These short stories are no exception she is a master craftsman She paints so well with her words and phrasing It s just that..I don t do so well with dark, and all eleven of these stories are pretty dark I don t think Lauren Groff likes Florida very much Here s what I took away from this collection Florida is mold, feral cats, snakes, bugs, humidity, rot, spanish moss, vines, gators, sinkholes, homelessness, tent cities, termites, mos Here s the thing I really do love Groff s writing These short stories are no exception she is a master craftsman She paints so well with her words and phrasing It s just that..I don t do so well with dark, and all eleven of these stories are pretty dark I don t think Lauren Groff likes Florida very much Here s what I took away from this collection Florida is mold, feral cats, snakes, bugs, humidity, rot, spanish moss, vines, gators, sinkholes, homelessness, tent cities, termites, mosquitos, hurricanes, lizards, panthers, a damp and dense tangle, bleaching sun, dread and heatMotherhood is something to be deeply conflicted about When in doubt, drink heavily.Everyone is lonely loneliness is everwhere and ghosts surround you When lonel...The first line in Florida , never left me. I have somehow become a woman who yells The entire first story was one of my favorites from the collection PersonallyI ve played with manatees taken walks in the scorching heat, spent beach days with our dogs, witnessed thousands of dead smelly fish along the coastline, and survived the panic of my daughter caught in the middle of a nasty hurricane Florida, flat as a pancake, with hurricanes alligators and snakes sticky hot, I miss the The first line in Florida , never left me. I have somehow become a woman who yells The entire first story was one of my favorites from the collection PersonallyI ve played with manatees taken walks in the scorching heat, spent beach days with our dogs, witnessed thousands of dead smelly fish along the coastline, and survived the panic of my daughter caught in the middle of a nasty hurricane Florida, flat as a pancake, with hurricanes alligators and snakes sticky hot, I miss the mountains and redwoods whenever I visit Lauren Groff got me with these short stories..I didn t expect much I haven t been a goo goo fan of her.My fear is she s too brilliant for me to ...Any book called Florida needs to be infused by a thorough sense of place and Lauren Groff does just that I have been a fan since LOVING Fates and Furies a few years back and have been meaning to pick upof her books and this very strong collection of short stories has cemented her place in my heart.While not every story is set in Florida, Groff s protagonists all have a connection to that place, a connection they sometimes strain against and sometimes welcome Her protagonists are women, Any book called Florida needs to be infused by a thorough sense of place and Lauren Groff does just that I have been a fan since LOVING Fates and Furies a few years back and have been meaning to pick upof her books and this very strong collection of short stories has cemented her place in my heart.While not every story is set in Florida, Groff s protagonists all have a connection to that place, a connection they sometimes strain against and sometimes welcome Her protagonists are women, depressed and difficult and wonderfully flawed women, often mothers with a difficult and believable relationship to motherhood I lo...3.5 4 When she was pregnant with Jude s sister, she came into the bathroom to take a cool bath one August night and, without her glasses, missed the three foot albino alligator her husband had stored in the bathtub The next morning, she was gone Florida Hot, sticky, treacherous, or as one character says damp, dense tangle An Eden of dangerous things I have spent time there, and I now live in a similar climate in Australia, so I can easily imagine myself in many of these stories Moving 3.5 4 When she was pregnant with Jude s sister, she came into the bathroom to take a cool bath one August night and, without her glasses, missed the three foot albino alligator her husband had stored in the bathtub The next morning, she was gone Florida Hot, sticky, treacherous, or as one character says damp, dense tangle An Eden of dangerous things I have spent time there, and I now live in a similar climate in Australia, so I can easily imagine myself in many of these stories Moving in the humidity was like forcing my way through wet silk The Florida storms are horrific and frightening and wonderfully des...Two major, connected threads in this superb story collection are ambivalence about Florida, and ambivalence about motherhood There s an oppressive atmosphere throughout, with environmental catastrophe an underlying threat Set ups vary in scope from almost the whole span of a life to one scene A dearth of named characters emphasizes just how universal the scenarios and emotions are Groff s style is like a cross between Karen Russell s Swamplandiaand Cormac McCarthy s The Road, and her une Two major, connected threads in this superb story collection are ambivalence about Florida, and ambivalence about motherhood There s an oppressive atmosphere throughout, with environmental catastrophe an underlying threat Set ups vary in scope from almost the whole span of a life to one scene A dearth of named characters emphasizes just how universal the scenarios and emotions are Groff s style is like a cross between Karen Russell s Swamplandiaand Cormac McCarthy s The Road, and her unexpected turns of phrase jump off the page.The narrator of The Midnight Zone, staying with her sons in a hunting camp 20 miles from civilization, ponders the cruelty of time and her failure to be sufficiently maternal, while the woman in Flower Hunters is so lost in an eighteenth century naturalist s book that she forgets to get Halloween costumes for her kids A few favorites of mine were Ghosts and Empties, in which the narrator goes for long walks at twilight and watches time passing through the unwit...If these stories are anything to go by Lauren Groff is almost comprehensively disillusioned with men Men in these stories are either absent, inept, in another world or downright threatening The last story and by far the least successful goes the whole hog and deploys Guy de Mauspassant to paint a thoroughly irksome and depressing portrait of masculinity As a Brit one tends to forget how many deadly creatures there are in the US The most scary threat we face from the natural world here is If these stories are anything to go by Lauren Groff is almost comprehensively disillusioned with men Men in these stories are either absent, inept, in another world or downright threatening The last story and by far the least successful goes the whole hog and deploys Guy de Mauspassant to paint a thoroughly irksome and depressing portrait of masculinity As a Brit one tends to forget how many deadly creatures there are in the US The most scary threat we face from the natural world here is perhaps a bee sting Groff s Florida is teeming with aligators, snakes, wild cats, bears And then there s the murderous weather All the stories in Florida are about lonely nameless women stranded close to the heart of darkness There s a constant s...These stories feel to me like a continuation of St Lucy s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell high praise from me as this remains my favorite short story collection , where Florida remains wild and unsettling and the people managing to live there have some of the same traits There are also themes of missing parents, negligent tired mothers, excessive drinking and other escapes, and infidelities that seem tucked away between paragraphs for the careful reader to notice and connect These stories feel to me like a continuation of St Lucy s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell high praise from me as this remains my favorite short story collection , where Florida remains wild and unsettling and the people managing to live there have some of the same traits There are also themes of missing parents, n...Being a Florida native, I had to pick this book up This book solidly places Lauren Groff as an author I must read Short stories are really hard for me I have a hard time connecting to the characters and separating the narratives out from each story Some are stronger than others and some feel like filler I immediately grasped onto Groff s writing Her descriptions of the geography, the people, the relationships, and even the wildlife and vegetation are spot on I appreciate her lens onto a f Being a Florida native, I had to pick this book up This book solidly places Lauren Groff as an author I must read Short stories are really hard for me I have a hard time connecting to the characters and separating the narratives out from each story Some are stronger than others and some feel like filler I immediately grasped o...I m not much of a fan of short stories but something about this book kept pulling at me, insisting I read it Lauren Groff writes beautifully and with many and ever deepening layers A few of the stories I really loved, a few I liked, and 2 I didn t much care for, but I m glad I read this book.During a recent visit, Lauren Groff shared that when her husband proposed moving back to his native Florida, she, appalled, made him sign a contract that they would leave in 10 years years That wasthan 12 years ago In the intervening years, she has come to love the state and all its weirdness, and even gave it the top acknowledgement for this, her excellent book of short stories She knows she is a short story writer, having entered Amherst as an aspiring poet and having the intelligence During a recent visit, Lauren Groff shared that when her husband proposed moving back to his native Florida, she, appalled, made him sign a contract that they would leave in 10 years years That wasthan 12 years ago In the intervening years, she has come to love the state and all its weirdness, and even gave it the top acknowledgement for this, her excellent book of short stories She knows she is a short story writer, having entered Amherst as an aspiring poet and having the intelligence to recognize that wasn t the pa...Ghosts and Empties 3 stars At the Round Earth s Imagined Corners 3 stars Dogs Go Wolf 2 stars The Midnight Zone 2 stars Eyewall 2 stars For the God of Love, for the Love of God 2.5 stars Salvador 2.5 stars Flower Hunters 2 stars Above and Below 2 stars Snake Stories 2 stars Yport 4 stars Each story is slowly smothered by the overwritten prose, characters burdened with the most random thoughts and vaguest gestures You might be spying on strangers and making up th Ghosts and Empties 3 stars At the Round Earth s Imagined Corners 3 stars Dogs Go Wolf 2 stars The Midnight Zone 2 stars Eyewall 2 stars For the God of Love, for the Love of God 2.5 stars Salvador 2.5 stars Flower Hunters 2 stars Above and Below 2 stars Snake Stories 2 stars Yport 4 stars Each story is slowly smothered by the overwritten prose, characters burdened with the most random thoughts and vaguest gestures You might be spying on strangers and making up their stories from the snippets overheard, only to find out they re going nowhere in particular You find yourself reading two paragraphs of food items bought at a grocery store, about candy bars and rotted fruit shimmering with wasps, about overstuffed refrigerators with rotten food and other useless furnishings I ve always considered enumerations redundant, especially in short storiesDo you normally just follow people...
- English
- 26 November 2017 Lauren Groff
- Paperback
- 288 pages
- 1594634521
- Lauren Groff
- Florida