3 out of 4 stars
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Short Shorts, by Alex Apostol, is a collection of humorous short stories about the friendship of two young women in their 20’s who decide to move across the country from Norfolk, Virginia to San Diego, California. It’s available for Kindle. (Note: The copy I received for review contains only four stories, although the Kindle edition promises six.)
Each chapter is its own story about a specific event in the lives of Triss and Hailey. They aren’t necessarily in chronological order, as the first story takes place in the summer of 2015, while the second takes place in 1994, when Triss and Hailey first meet in second grade. In the following chapter we read about an event from 1997, and the final chapter is “present day.” Whether this type of format will be retained remains to be seen.
From the start, the two young women are portrayed with quite distinct personalities. While Triss is rather wild and carefree, Hailey is a bit more conservative and serious. Triss is impulsive and impetuous, and more than once Hailey comes to her rescue to extricate her from a sticky situation. This includes helping her to get her favorite sweatshirt back from an ex-boyfriend and rescuing her from mean boys with snowballs on the schoolyard playground. Whenever Triss has a hairbrained plan, Hailey usually goes along with it reluctantly. She either ends up having fun or has to step in and save Triss from herself.
It’s fun to read the dynamic between the two women. They seem to be quite different in personality, but it’s easy to see why they are best friends. Their characters are well defined and well written, and I liked them both. One particular passage (from the chapter that takes place when they are in second grade) nicely defines their relationship:
Hailey sat on one side of the teeter-totter while Triss took the other. They bounced up and down, up and down. As one shot up, the other rushed back to the ground, just as they would do throughout their lives and friendship. But without the other, they both knew they would only be sitting on the snow covered ground staring at an empty seat high up in the air.
Alex Apostol is a good writer, and I found myself chuckling through several passages. One chapter tells of their 5th grade experience of looking at sex education books for the first time. While it is difficult to believe in this day and age that 5th grade girls know nothing about sex or even what a penis looks like, the story is funny and the reactions of the girls to these “discoveries” will make you laugh. They make breasts for themselves out of play-doh, put them in their training bras, and go for a walk in the park. In sex ed class, the boys and girls are separated, and the teacher “explained [to the girls] what the penis was and what it was going to do to all of them someday.”
I found just a few typographical errors, including a couple of misspelled words and grammatical errors. There are some spacing issues with some of the words in the book. Often, two words are combined to improperly form one word, such as “atleast” (this occurs multiple times), and “infront,” “eachother,” “incase,” “ontop,” and “infact” show up more than once as well. There are a couple of instances of a present tense verb being used in a past tense narrative. But these errors do not inhibit the story; overall, the book is quite well written.
I think this book would appeal more to a female audience, but it is light fiction and would be entertaining to anyone looking for something light and funny to read. The common theme is Triss and Hailey’s adventures, but each chapter is its own story, so can be read, put down, and picked up a few days later without worrying too much about losing continuity with the story. There isn’t anything profound or laugh-out-loud funny, but it’s engaging and entertaining nonetheless. I rate Short Shorts 3 out of 4 stars.
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Short Shorts
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