Delicate Edible Birds: And Other Stories Hardcover – January 27, 2009

I purchased Delicate Edible Birds because I enjoyed Lauren Groff's Arcadia. In general I prefer novels to short stores, and more often than not, my reaction to short stories is "that's IT? That's the END?" I find that many writers set a mood, create a vignette, illustrate a (small) point, but that's ALL--- so many short stories are short on plot and lacking denouement. Not so Lauren Groff's. Every one of these stories, as another reviewer said, is as absorbing and complete as a novel. The author is able to write believably in first-person in the voices of many very diverse characters. I won't give any plot summaries, there are plenty in earlier reviews, but I have to give this a very high recommendation. I got sucked into all of these stories and found the book hard to put down.One little caveat regarding Amazon, and not the book: this has a light-colored matte dust jacket, and Amazon is NOT careful about checking things out before they send them. My copy arrived with dirt smudges on the back of the dust jacket. If this had been a gift for someone else, I would have been very annoyed.

Overall, I was disappointed. A few of the early stories were excellent, capturing small town prejudice and an overwhelming sense of melancholy. Most of these short works are more vignettes than traditional short stories, attempting to portray an entire lifetime . I really disliked "Blythe," "Fugue," and the title story, "Delicate Edible Birds." I liked "L DeBard and Aliette" and "Majorette," but a all of Groff's store have a certain thinness, which I believe is the result of trying to capture the entire life of so many of her characters. I will try to read her new novel and see if I like it any better.

I was intrigued by the title and persuaded by the rave reviews. Sadly, the book did not live up to my expectations. Maybe this is a marketing problem -- too much hyperbole. Anyway,the first story, Lucky Chow Fun, has an interesting premise. Groff sets out to describe a community calamity from the perspective of a young girl. But the whole thing lacks verisimilitude, and at times verges on stereotyping. My favorite story was The Wife of the Dictator. Here, Groff has something interesting to say about colonization and dominance. The story has texture and sensuality. Here she seems to know something of what she writes. Groff's language is often lovely, but the works collected here would benefit from more grit, more research, more experience, more sensuality -- less workshopping. No doubt these will come, she's a promising young author.

Nearly everything I've read by Lauren Geoff makes me sad, so why so i read more? She writes so beautifully.

Well written and thought-provoking stories, one of the five best books I've read in the last year. Multi-dimensional, surprising, and insightful.

I purchased this collection based solely on the strength of the story after which the collection is named, "Delicate Edible Birds," eager and optimistic. And though I still stand by the beauty and near-perfection of "Delicate Edible Birds," a story about journalists during WW2, I found many of the other stories boring or completely forgettable. It wasn't that the stories were inherently uninteresting--in fact, Groff has included truly intriguing and interesting situations and characters and her prose is both beautiful and evocative--but that they at times included such convoluted story lines, dragged out, predictable plots, or such dense passages of the aforementioned prose that I, more often than I'd like to admit, found myself eagerly checking how many pages remained until the story ended.Not all of the stories here are bad or boring: "Lucky Chow Fun" was interesting and written with a firm, insightful finger on the pulse of small town life, "L. DeBard and Aliette" was entertaining though painfully predictable, and "Delicate Edible Birds" contains such finely crafted, expertly written characters almost to redeem the tedious and meandering "Fugue" that precedes it. Many of the stories are completely forgettable, unfortunately, including "Watershed," "Sir Fleeting," and "Blythe," stories that contained strong essential elements but that somehow failed in execution.Groff is obviously a talented writer--I just don't believe this collection succeeds in representing all that she is, by the merit of her stronger stories alone, clearly capable of.

Every story is engaging, the prose is like poetry, the subject matter unerringly aims for the deepest part of our souls. This is my first Lauren Geoff book, but it will not be my last.

Many short stories are a moment: these are small novels. The time and place in each is as interesting as the characters.

haven'tt finished reading it. I love Lauren Groff