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A Manual for Cleaning Women, By Lucia Berlin (2015)

A Manual for Cleaning Women, By Lucia Berlin (2015)

Rating: 7.7/10


I was able to find two major points from this story. First, the diversity of characters, and second, the manual format of developing the story. But I don't believe that these two points were successful in their task of attracting the readers into the story. I enjoyed how the character is set as a cleaning woman who goes through different houses that carries different stories. But taking the format of a manual actually lessened the impact of the diversity concept of the story. A manual is a generalized instruction given to act accordingly and choosing a manual format to express the diversity of each family back in the time was paradoxical from a certain perspective. As a result, the overall story plot didn't intrigue me as much as other stories so I give 7.7 out of 10.

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Hunters in the Snow, By Tobias Wolff (1981)

Hunters in the Snow, By Tobias Wolff (1981) Rating: 8.5/10      I enjoyed the dark irony and dark humor shown in this story. Each character seems foolish and silly, but when you find out who they are symbolizing, it's not as funny as before. Dirty realism reveals our inner flaws and enlightens us on how stupid we look from an omniscient perspective. And this is not a figure of particular minorities, but the big trend of selfishness or individualism that is rampant in recent society. What I found interesting was the cruelty of modern society as well. In the end, we see that both Tub and Frank are actually happy, or not upset at least. We know what they've done wrong, but we see how they are just moving on to the next path, laughing, and talking among the ones who lived. I think this story felt more refreshing since unlike typical men's problems happening in the 1980s (ex. swimmer or five-forty-eight), we can see individualism in our school, college admission, and with...
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The Student, By Anton Chekhov (1894)

The Student, By Anton Chekhov (1894) Rating: 8.5/10 When I first read this story, I wasn't sure whether The Student is full of unnecessary elements that only confuse the readers or some literary devices that actually entail a message that connects the whole story. But as I read it over and over again, I found out that this piece of hard literature actually does contain deep meaning. It was fascinating to find out that the weather descriptions at the start and the end of the story show the mood. And what was even more impressive was the fact that the author implies a deep message in such normal daily events. Also, as a Christian who had heard of the Peter story since I was young, I have always taken the story as just a moral story that tells you to never lie. But in The Student, I was able to imagine different aspects of the story. Overall, I thought that these kinds of literature should be read over and over again. 
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Puppy, By George Saunders (2007)

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