Book Review: Barrelling Forward by Eva Crocker

One of my 2017 reading goals is to read more short stories. Readers seem to have a love ’em or hate ’em relationship with short stories (especially short story collections) but I fall firmly into the love ’em category. Particularly in my life right now, I enjoy being able to finish a whole story in the approximately thirty minutes I get to myself in the morning before Pearl wakes up.

Eva Crocker’s collection of stories doesn’t disappoint. They’re quirky, sometimes unsettling, sometimes funny, wonderfully detailed. Crocker nails the small details that define every day existence. The things that don’t seem meaningful but are what stand out in our own memories when we look back at years past. As I read through Barrelling Forward I frequently found myself dwelling on the characters and their stories. The new teacher who thinks he might have bed bugs, or the young girl living on a balcony with her brother and thinking about the high school exams she’s missing. The twin sister desperate to differentiate herself and so rebels the only way she knows how. The characters feel true, the kind of people we’d probably pass by in real life. But here Crocker shines a light on all the awkward beauty of real people. I look forward to more from her.