I read the first few stories but based on those stories I won't be reading more of Ian McEwan.

guilty pleasure.

I’ve read all of McEwan’s novels, but this is the first time I’ve read his short stories. While I wasn’t entirely surprised by how disturbing they were, I balked a bit at how far he went with some of them. So I will do a 1-3 word review of each short story:
-Homemade – Perverse
-Solid Geometry – Just weird
-Last Day of Summer – Tragic
-Cocker at the Theatre – What’s the punchline?!
-Butterflies – Sinister
-Conversation with a Cupboard Man – Mental!
-First Love, Last Rights – Huh?
-Disguises – Lonely and odd

Some stories were simply stomach-turning, yet despite inspiring temporary nausea the stories are so well-articulated they become unputdownable!

I was so excited to read this because it seemed like such a departure from the previous work I’ve read from McEwan, and that it is. I love his writing style and found many of these stories to be engaging and easy to read but this is simply not a book I could ever recommend anyone to read because of the content of the first short story entitled Homemade. It is one thing to write a story about such sensitive and frankly offensive subject matter but it’s another to provide no commentary or insight that justifies writing on that topic. It’s such a shame that Homemade was included because outside of that I feel that it’s one of the better short story collections I’ve read and I particularly enjoyed Solid Geometry as well as Conversations With a Cupboard Man. Tbh I can’t view McEwan the same.

I love the way he writes, but I wish the content didn't set my eyes on fire. Damn, Dude!

Read this selection of shorts in an afternoon. Good pace and length, interesting characters. Some of the stories are a bit sickening to say the least, but I particularly liked 'Solid Geometry'.

I listened to this audiobook on my Sunday hike because it was short and this was Ian McEwan's debut collection of short stories. Wow were they perverse and twisted.. definitely not to be read if you are particularly sensitive to the trigger warnings because wow.. it was graphic.

And even though it was really fucked up.. I couldn't stop listening. The way Ian McEwan gets into the minds of these characters is intriguing and I loved his "to the point" writing style.

Ps. Sorry for swearing but that phrase is the only way to describe these short stories

DNF po drugim opowiadaniu, lecz wyjątkowo pozwolę sobie oznaczyć gwiazdką.
Powiem tak - opowiadania miały nieść za sobą pewna puentę, stanowić analizę ludzkiej psychiki, seksualności, procesu dojrzewania i docierania samego siebie. Wyszło marnie, obrzydliwie i odpychająco. Książka robi wrażenie, lecz niestety nie w pozytywnym tego słowa znaczeniu.

What is it with incest and Ian McEwan? And how does it make it seem so literary and not bring the censors down on his head? I really liked this collection and found it remarkably consistent in quality, something rare in short story collections.

Colección de unos pocos cuentos, lo primero que publicó el autor.
El primer relato, Homemade, es tan fuerte que casi abandono la lectura. Todas las historias son terriblemente lúgubres, perturbadoras, con temáticas como el asesinato, la crueldad, muertes accidentales, hasta la pedofilia y el incesto. No aptas para flojos de estómago.
Sin embargo, la escritura es tan buena, que uno se ve compelido a seguir leyendo.
Mi relato favorito de la antología es quizás el más light, Solid Geometry, casi borgeano.

This short story collection was not at all what I'd expected from Ian McEwan, but then, this is some of his earliest work. Seven out of eight of these short tales focus on disparate male characters, and I found all of them disturbing. Actually, I had a hard time getting past the first story, Homemade. I found it upsetting and repulsive. The next story, Solid Geometry, had a particularly gross element about it, Butterflies was sad and scary, and I'm afraid I did not know what to make of First Love, Last Rites . There were a couple stories about little boys that were troubling, to say the least.

And yet, I kept reading because--Ian McEwan does seem to arrange words with a certain flair (he writes well). It's a talent most of us admire, around here.

It was interesting to see what this fabulous writer got up to whilst in his twenties....fair warning.