4 out of 4 stars
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Illustrated Short fiction of Wiiliam H. Coles: 2000-2016 is a collection of award-winning short stories created by the American ophthalmic trauma surgeon and literary fiction writer, William H. Coles. He is a recipient to many awards from his short stories, poems, and novels including the Flannery O’connor Award for Short Fiction (2010), The Sandhill Writer’s Competition, and others. To hear some of his award-winning works, he created a blog where he recorded and published all his stories on podcast—Story in Fiction by William H. Coles.
In this published book, it embodies different situations in the real world. It revolves around the struggles of humanity and the characters’ strong personality to face those. Furthermore, it includes illustrations to fully picture the setting of the story. Coles portrays perfectly the vivid setting around the characters. They will forcefully drag you to their fiction world and they will make sure you will feel their anguish, grief, excitement, frustration, and surprise. It is really a roller coaster of emotions and every time you finish a story, you may want to stop for a while, recollect your thoughts and recover from the literary aftermath.
One must not expect happy endings in real life, likewise, please expect the same thing in some of the stories in this book. I personally have to step back with my mouth open to slowly internalize the ending. Yes, some are tragic but every now and then, you pick up pieces of lesson that was left in those tragic endings.
I give 4 out of 4 stars to this book. I have not seen mistakes or typos, exhibiting that this was a professionally edited piece. I admit, it is now my personal favorite because it is not your typical book. It is a perfect combination of reality and fiction. It will make you realize that even if it may or may not happen to you, but what if. What if you will experience those kind of dilemmas? Will you be as strong and determined as those characters and what should you do to not end up like some of them.
What I don’t like about the book, is not the author’s fault but mine alone. Because this is a collection of stories and not a novel, there is nothing to look forward to. Stories are not linked nor continuous, but what can I expect? You have to really collect yourself and prepare to yet another roller coaster of dramas. Do not get attach to the characters because it will be hard to move on. As you read to another story, the ghost of the previous character will still linger and you have to shake them and focus on a new setting.
I suggest to all adults to make this book their bedtime storybook. This is highly recommendable book but this is not recommended for kids because it contains gore and sexually-suggestive scenes and made use of strong language—not very suitable for young audiences.
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Illustrated Short Fiction of William H. Coles: 2000-2016
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