Change is always with us, in big and small ways. Sometimes we get to direct it, sometimes it drops down shockingly upon us, and sometimes it sneaks up and surprises us. However it appears, the result is that we have to think again about who we are, who we want to be, what we will do next, and how we will go on with our lives. New relationships begin. Established relationships shift. Sometimes they, along with other parts of our everyday lives, end. We can feel adrift, unmoored, afraid, exhilarated, and more. We adapt and go on.

The 12 stories in this collection show us people navigating through changes in their everyday lives. Some of the stories are quietly devastating. Some are hopeful. Some are poignant. All are excellent. Usually in any short story collection there are stories I like better than others and at least one or two that I am not that keen on. Not so with this book! I loved every single story. I did not race through the book, but rather savored one story at a time, before setting the book aside for several hours or a day. Short story as a form can be tricky--there is a lot to do in a small space--and Christine Sneed skillfully and beautifully does it all. With these 12 stories, she has created 12 little worlds inhabited by people going about their daily lives and navigating changes they may or may not have wished for. I felt myself immediately immersed in each world and interested in what was happening to each of these people, sometimes feeling empathy for their situation, sometimes sadness, and sometimes hope. It's not easy for writers to evoke these kinds of feelings, even in long novels. To do so within the confines of the short story form is a particular kind of skill. I had never read any work by this author, but I will definitely seek out past work now. 5 stars

✨Enjoyed✨ With a keenly observant eye, deep empathy, & wry humor, this award-winning author has written a third collection of short stories, that touches on both the emotional challenges and the glimmers of hope often found in everyday life.

✨Over the course of 12 sharply written stories in Christine Sneed's Direct Sunlight, the reader encounters the absurdity and, importantly, the humanity revealed by such life situations as those involving a capuchin monkey newly adopted by an otherwise childless couple; the menacing squirrel residents of a money pit; a guilt-ridden son who - as the anonymous writer of a newspaper column entitled Dear Kelly Bloom - answers his unwitting mother's pleas for help with her family and does so with fresh wisdom and grace; and the panicked daughter of an aging father fiercely devoted to his newest companion and roommate - a pygmy horse he's named Peanut Sundae Pie.

✨I was struck by this collection's array of characters made memorable sometimes by their quirkiness, mostly by the depths of their individual longings and loneliness, and often by their capacity for self-awareness and hope.

✨Direct Sunlight was a refreshing, enlightening, and moving, read.

✨Many thanks to NetGalley and TriQuarterly Books / Northwest University Press, for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.
✨Pub date: June 15, 2023 (out now!)
✨248 pages

from the publisher's description:
✨"Sneed has received the Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction and the Chicago Public Library Foundation’s 21st Century Award, among other honors, and has published stories in The Best American Short Stories and O. Henry Prize Stories."

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