What connects a bear in the woods with poisonous shellfish? Everyone Dies Famous In A Small Town by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock!
Everyone Dies Famous – the blurb
Come on a journey across the rural American West . . .
Meet the teenagers who live in the small towns across these states, separated by distance, but whose stories are woven together in the most unexpected of ways.
Whether they are brought together by the spread of wildfire, by the priest who’s moved from state to state or by the hunt for a missing child, these incredible tales blaze with secrets, rage and love.
Short story did you say?
It was the name of this book – Everyone Dies Famous – that initially drew me in. Yet it’s not a murder mystery or thriller. It’s a collection of short stories which isn’t usually my thing (and isn’t usually found in the Teen genre). Hitchcock chooses teenagers as her main characters, each tale focusing on a different issue/event. There are overlaps between characters and towns and (as is SO important) I found myself wanting to know more about the characters and where Hitchcock left them.
It is refreshingly different with each story unique. Hitchcock manages to address things such as climate change without ever really seeming to which I thought really clever. I also really liked the locations, it felt a very different America to what I had read before. It was easy to read yet not flimsy, enjoyable yet emotive. But mostly, in the wake of 600 paged doorstops and 7 plus books in a series reads, it was a breath of fresh air. I really enjoyed it.