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Four Short Stories By Women Writers You Need To Read

High school is a nightmare for any passionate reader. From four hour soccer play offs to endless math homework, SAT prep, club meetings and dance- there is just so much a measly twenty four hours can handle. The result? Almost zero time (or brain space) to devote yourself to a novel. But I’ve been doing this long enough, and I’ve felt my way around a reading schedule that is both rewarding, and also easy enough to not kill my last active brain cell. So here it is. Fleeting, breathtaking, and all do-able in forty minutes, these are four short stories by amazing women that you need in your life right now.

  1.  A Temporary Matter– Jhumpa Lahiri
    A married couple, growing distant on the wake of a tragedy, are forced to spend time together because of a neighborhood electricity cut. The effects are something that takes both the characters and the reader by surprise. It’s a subtle, aching piece on loss and coming to terms with it. What I love the most is how it reaches its crescendo so gracefully yet unexpectedly. Every. Writers. Dream.
  2. Apollo– Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
    A boy. His friend and house help, Raphael. An unending fascination with martial arts. It’s an elegant, vulnerable recollection of childhood and the tender, heartbreaking, and fragile relationships that come with it. And to be honest, the only thing better than listening to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talk (check out here amazing TED talk on feminism) is reading what she writes.
  3.   Ask Me If I Care– Jennifer Egan
    Part of her eclectic novel-short story hybrid awesomeness of a book, The Visit From The Goon Squad, this story accomplishes in ten pages what most coming of age novels fail at in four hundred. It’s angst, loneliness, extreme togetherness, ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ styled misplaced love, sexual tension and heartbreak, all pulled together with startling wit and bucketfuls of nuance. This story is the painful teenage experience you don’t really want but secretly wish for.
  4. The Bear Came Over The Mountain– Alice Munro
    Gentle and heartbreaking, Alice Munro takes you through what it means to watch the one you love fall in love with someone else. Except this someone is your wife. And this someone has Alzheimer’s disease. Not for the gentle hearted, as they say.

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