Destination Known

Rating:
Summary: A keeper
Review: I'm guessing that the writer of the previous review probably is disgruntled because he or she entered the Drue Heinz contest and lost... Who knows. I, on the other hand, think Brett Ellen Block is an imaginative and smart writer. Her debut collection is vibrant at every turn. She evokes complex emotions superbly, without breaking a sweat. She also happens to be very, very cute. How long will I have to wait to read a novel by Brett Ellen Block?

Rating:
Summary: A Great First Book
Review: This is a fabulous book of short stories. Very complex and engaging.

Rating:
Summary: More of the Same
Review: This is the sort of negligible and pedestrian collection that gets published as the result of the writer's entering a competition and having his or her submission adjudged to be better than the other contest entries. In most cases, the winning entry gives the reader a sense of how god-awful the other entries must have been. The Drew Heinz Prize has a long history of duds and dogs, and this collection is another. It's not that it's outright terrible; it's just that it's a collection of formulaic workshop-style exercises. The prose is uniformly drab. The plots are mechanical. The characters are pale echoes of people you've read about, too often, elsewhere. Prizes like the Drew Heinz are ensuring the increasing marginalization of serious literary writing.