The Isle of Youth: Stories

Each story in this collection is a mystery-type story. The main character in each story is a young woman trying to figure out what has happened to her life. The first story is of a young newly married couple on their honeymoon who have flown first class to Patagonia. The first thing that goes wrong is with the plane, wherein, they have a hard landing and her husband accidently breaks her nose. This is the beginning of her doubts about who she has married. It gets even juicier as the story goes on.The second story is my favorite of the series entitled "Opa Locka" about a pair of sisters who own and run a private detective firm. One sister is wild and always in trouble and the other one not so much. They're supposed to be watching a man to see if he is having an affair and on their watch he disappears completely. The third story is just okay but it's one of the only stinkers in the book. It's about 4 young adults (possibly 18 or 19 years old) who hold up small places, i.e., supermarkets, delis, etc. for a living. Didn't really care for any of the characters and it just generally wasn't my cup of tea.The next story is superb though. It is entitled "Acrobat" and it's about a woman whose husband has just left her in Paris, of all places, and she is following a group of street acrobats all over the city. It's very enlightening.Next comes "Antarctica" which is a sad story of a sister who goes to the last place her brother was alive - a research station in Antarctica to see if she can find out what happens or perhaps feel his spirit still there.The story following this one is about a young woman (teenager) who is her mother's assistant in a magic show. It is really well written and has a surprise ending.The final story is the one this book is named after "The Isle of Youth" and it is about twin sisters, who are complete opposites in action from each other, but look just alike. The one "bad" sister convinces the "good" sister to swap identities with her for a while because she is running from a drug dealer. This one is very interesting.Wonder and mystery abound in this book. There is no fat in this book - it's all very good. All the situations are somewhat extreme with an inventive twist to them. If you like Karen Russell, Kelly Link, and/or Haruki Murakami, then you will like this book of short stories. Enjoy!

This short story collection presents many great windows in to the lives of women in various stages of youthfulness. From the end of teenage years to the beginnings of marriage, to the start of finding out who you really are and realizing, perhaps, how young you still are emotionally - how much you still haven't discovered, how much you still don't know about yourself or the world in which you've been living your whole life in. This moment can happen at any age, and Laura van den Berg illustrates this point with characters ranging from the teens to the thirties. Each of her protagonists are lost somehow, and these stories are about them realizing it and reacting to that epiphany in some way that is still not entirely conscious. As each character begins to ask themselves just what, exactly, they are doing with their lives, the reader is moved to either ask themselves the same or sympathize with the moment they already did. It is even better, I believe, that often these characters know - or at least act in such a way the reader can know - that they will continue to drift aimlessly for a little while longer. Perhaps for the rest of their lives. But what is changing in these moments is their awareness of this and sometimes their acceptance of it, as well. Each story reads similarly, for all the scene changes and differing characters. This could be my small complaint, but in a way it is very much like reading what could have happened to the same woman had she lived any one of these different lives. You start out, and look at all the possible ways you could go with chance as your main decider? To be sure, it often feels like these women have very little agency over their own lives while at the same time they are very definitely making their own choices. It is an experience in being subject to your own whims. I mostly enjoyed this collection for the realistic, detailed thoughts I encountered with all of her main characters, and how they didn't hide behind any excuses for what they did. It just was.

The young women in these stories seem to share that characteristic: they are committed to making life as hard as possible. Counterintuitively, they are beguiling people to with whom to engage. In language elegant to read, the author spins the web of each woman's story. My favorite line is one in which the author describes her missing father. "She learned 95 percent of the ocean was unexplored and and thought her father must be like that, too: filled with dark, unseen caverns." Each story opens in a setting pregnant with promise and a young woman on the far side of an abyss. The development of the stories is certainly a bleak descent, but somehow still the reading is a pleasure. I think that even people who are not fans of the short story genre will find this book an entrancing experience.

One character after another surprises. Their stories unexpected, their journeys most unusual. All however lonely, grappling with identity and longing, and the shadows of secrets. Simply told in lovely prose. I had not yet read Laura van den Berg, but I will read more of her now.

Brilliant. All the stories in this collection are told from a young female 1st person POV - yet they couldn't be more different or complex. I've admired Laura van den Berg ever since encountering 'Bigfoot' - a short story instrumental to people trying to become 'writers' and used in various writing curriculums as an example of 'accomplished writing'. Accomplished, van den Berg certainly is. But also real. Heartbreakingly so.

Arrived quickly and just like new!

The stories in Isle of Youth are surprising and fun. My favorite story features a second-rate mother-daughter magic act. The elements are pure fun: makeup melting under bright lights, a teenager in a bathing suit and a silk robe, a lot of petty theft, an uncooperative rabbit in a hat, and a twisty ending exposing the truth behind the curtain. Another story has teenage bank robbers, and yet another features French acrobats.

Laura Van Den Berg knows how to craft strong, complex short stories. This is beautiful fiction, but it often falls into the literary fictions oblique endings trap. While her writing style is accessible, her characters complex and interwoven plot stands and metaphors come together wonderfully every time, often her endings leave you wondering. This works for the general theme of women feeling unsatisfied and lost, but as each story comes often to a similar ending, it becomes a little unsatisfying. Thankfully the strength of some of these stories let you forgive her. Don't read all at once and you will enjoy these a lot more. And you should enjoy them, she is a distinctive and accessible voice that speaks to us about all the women you may know.

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