Click
This novel in short stories is written by ten different authors. The royalties from the sale of the book benefit Amnesty International. All of the stories revolve around a photographer named Gee. The stories range from realism to magical realism to science fiction. Like all short story collections, some of the stories are more successful than others.These are some of the stand-outs for me:
"Jason" by Eoin Colfer is about Gee's grandson, Jason, who considers selling his inheritance to buy a ticket to Tobago to meet his birth father. This story is funnier than it sounds.
"Lev" by Deborah Ellis is about a teenage boy who is serving time in a Russian prison.
"Min" by Tim Wynne-Jones is about a girl who becomes involved in a photography project that ends up changing her life. This is the best-written story in the collection.
"Jiro" by Ruth Ozeki is about a young boy who lives in poverty in Japan after his older brother loses his legs in WWII and is unable to support the family. This is my favorite story in the collection. It's deeper and more complex than many of the others.
None of the stories in the collection are awful, but most of them are pretty bland. I'm usually a fan of magical realism and science fiction, but I didn't think those stories worked in this collection. They were possibly too constrained by the overall story and themes of the collection.
This book is a quick read and benefits a good cause. There's nothing mind-blowing in it, but it's an entertaining way to pass a few hours.
