Death Is Not an Option

Seven quirky stories tied together by Catholic guilt and existential angst about stumblers and fumblers. Rivecca would seem to have the bleakest of outlooks, except that she makes you laugh, and, because her voices are so dead on, keeps you reading. Her principal characters, some of whom narrate, are too smart to let their sorry situations be taken too seriously, or to believe in salvation. Whether children or youngish adults, they accept 'a contant sense of futility' that has its own rewards. T [...]

I loved this book. I read an interview with the author in which she stated the stories were about disaffected Catholic Midwesterners which may be why the stories resonated so strongly with me. Recurring themes are also the relationship between victim and victimizer, the moment when emotional insight and honesty occurs and the emotional terrain of contemporary young women. Rivecca writes with piercing insight as well as grace and creates memorably complex and flawed young women. Her prose is trul [...]

I would probably do 3.5 stars if that were an option. I thought the writing was good (I read the whole thing on a 2.5-hour flight) but these short stories do that thing that sometimes irritates me about short stories but sort of seems to be a convention of the genre: make themselves slightly implausible and leave you with more questions about almost all parts of them -- plot, character, etc. -- than a novel would. Maybe that's inevitable because of their length but I don't feel like it has to be [...]

First of all, let me just state here that I won this book on Good Reads via the First Reads giveaway. When I received this book in the mail, I tore open the package in only what could be called a 'bodice ripping' movement. I was that excited to read this collection of short stories that I had heard so much praise about and you know what?I actually really enjoyed the seven stories that make up this collection and felt the praise it's been getting was pretty accurate.The stories that make up this [...]

Five word summary of this book? Distances from self and others. Or: Seven stories about deep alienation. Or (six words this time): Life as a string of near misses. Or (seven words, just as there are seven stories in the book): go away, no come back, go away Or (eight, not including parentheticals): about how many letters (written and/or sent) live in this book. (Including: the suggestion of letters to Claire in the opening story--I'll count all the possible letters between Claire and Emma as one [...]

This book had some nice literary writing, but overall it was not my taste. The first story was the best because the author had enough distance to look back. All of these stories had a very autobiographical feeling to them, which in itself is not a bad thing, but these stories felt adolescent - like a manuscript written for a graduate thesis chapbook. I also felt that the way she often portrayed herself (in character of course) was a bit repetitive and frankly self aggrandizing. I mean, the main [...]

Rivecca is a dynamic new writer with a wit tinged with heartache and deference for human nature. Not nature as it relates to all people, but to her characters, to whom she lowers her ear and lets them speak through her. This collection of short stories is interesting in its finesse of various topics and narrators with threads of theme. However, to mention such themes or ideas is to ruin the quality of her prose and diminish its value.So I will take a stand against the literary analysis approach [...]

I almost gave up on these stories because I had a negative reaction to the first in this collection, the actual story "Death Is Not an Option." It is the weakest here. It felt like I had to be just out of college to think about life in line with a narrator who spoke in such a sarcastic, smartass way, let alone the references to pop culture that I did not want to investigate (Free Willy theme song?). But I started the next story, and I progressively gained a real appreciation for the rest of the [...]

I'm not sure where I read about this book first, but I was eager to read it. I'm thinking about that now because I don't know what the review could have said about this collection that encouraged me to pick it up. The stories are fine and some are quite interesting, but it's not a book I would suggest to anyone, although I would consider anything she writes in the future since there are glimmers of something I'd like to read in this collection. I might just be a little disappointed since the sto [...]

I really liked this collection of short stories, and I'm not sure exactly why. Many of the stories have underlying sexual themes, and the author references Catholicism much as a lapsed Catholic would do. Many of the stories take place in Michigan, a state I know and love. These are some of the reasons I liked this book. The author also writes about female roles and victimhood. Her turn of phrase with images is quite impressive and memorable. I will follow this writer's work with interest.

This was such a good collection. I guess this is what I wanted Difficult Women and Always Happy Hour to have been, but weren't. Well, some of the stories in Difficult Women reached higher highs than the ones in this book, but on the whole, I prefer Death is Not an Option.I loved everything, all of the stories. But my special love is for Consummation, a letter by an ambiguous daughter thanking, after many years, the doctor who saved her father's life when she was four. I'm not an ambiguous daught [...]

I do think this is an outstanding debut collection, and I did really enjoy it. But I have some issues with it. First, it starts out with the wrong story, I think. When I first started it, I kind of thought, "Wait, this is getting these kinds of reviews? My friends and favorite booksellers [always trust your independent booksellers] are telling me to read this? I mean, it seems decent so far, but it's not 'ferocious' and amazing." That shouldn't happen. I feel like something like the memoir/stalk [...]

Death Is Not an Option is a collection of seven short stories with female protagonists.Generally speaking, this was a decent, quick read. Some stories were better than others. After finishing the book, I didn’t feel any more enriched than before I had started.Catholicism is a prominent theme in this book, and while I am not and have never been Catholic myself, I did attend Catholic school and a decent portion of my family is Catholic. I suppose some of the impact of the religious themes is los [...]

Death is Not an Option by Suzanne Rivecca is a great quick read, perfect for the upcoming summer months. In her compilation of stories about young women dealing with love, sex, and growing up, Rivecca cautions readers to the hazards of life. There are 7 stories in this collection, and each story, though short, has very strong, warm, and detailed characters. The first story is the eponymous “Death is Not an Option.” This story takes us into the world of a high school teenager, Emma, who fight [...]

I was not quite sure what to think when I picked up this book. This is not my genre and even more, this book did not fit in to a definite mold. I think that is what drew me to it.I read this book within 3 days (mind you, I was also doing homework and college applications). It was definitely worth the hour less of sleep a night! Not only was the writing style a breath of fresh air in our world of gaudy works that could barely be considered "literature," its message deeply resonated with me. There [...]

With the exception of the collection's final entry ("None of the Above"), Rivecca's stories aren't exactly memorable, but the writing is. It's thrilling to read the prose of an author my own age; one who's clearly had some adult experiences, yet is able to pepper her works with pop culture references and metaphors that feel fresh and relevant, but also wise. Hopefully in the next few years, as more of my contemporaries break into the publishing industry, such a sensation will occur more frequent [...]

I notice alot of other reviews mention not liking the first story here - for me, the voice in that story grabbed me right away! My favorites were the first and last stories in the collection, with many other fine ones in between. Consumation was the only story I actively disliked.The writing is great and sometimes very funny. The characters are real and interesting. My only problem with the book was that after half way through, I started to feel claustrophobic, stuck in a narrow world peopled on [...]

While envy is my regular life is no wonderful thing, I really enjoy my writer-envy. To read something and wish like hell that you had written it means that you love love love what you're reading. I've always had writer-envy for Suzanne Rivecca's work, even when we were in workshop. And her debut collection is an excellent illustration in why. Super smart, beautiful language, and the best kind of cutting humor. Her main characters are scathing in their judgment on the world but equally scathing i [...]

Still thinking about these. They seem to be loosely organized around the theme of the desire to be believed, the urge to disclose vs. the wish not to have to disclose but be understood anyway. Some worked better than others, but a few were really affecting. An actual review to come Friday at Like Fire.

On the train the other day, a perfectly polished girl set down next to me. You know the type – perfect black day cut at the appropriate lengths, string of pearls around her neck, ponytail so cleanly composed it looks unreal. The girl bosses want you to look like. A few stops later, a sweaty looking guy, spiked hair, basketball shorts and a black hoodie even though it’s July gets on. The girl sitting next to me sees him and they begin talking, innocently at first, about her new job, where he� [...]

An edited version of this article was first published as Book Review: Death is Not an Option by Suzanne Rivecca on Blogcritics.Do you fancy a collection of stories about tragic lives of females and children? If so, then this book is for you. Death is Not an Option is a collection of short stories that center around this theme. I find it funny and intriguing how the author thought of this theme to unify these stories. One story involves a school teacher who obsesses about one of her students as t [...]

This was the very first book I had ever won off a giveaway. As such, I'm really sorry that it's taken me so long to review it. Normally, this is not my type of read, and I spent much of it wondering how exactly I felt about it. So, here's the positives and the negatives of this collection--in my opinion--in a nutshellGATIVE:Several of the stories end in such a way that I felt that the characters were kind of static. They made some discoveries about themselves, but only vaguely, and it left me w [...]

This was an exceptional collection of short stories! I read Suzanne Rivecca's story, “Philanthropy,” in the Best American Short Stories of 2013, and I loved it. I bought the collection of stories because of how impressed I was. This collection was equally impressive. The stories seem to follow "coming of age" and self-identity/disclosure themes from the viewpoints of many different girls and women. Each piece is crafted to the narrator's special lens, and Rivecca also explores with second pe [...]

The emotional honesty here is wonderful. The world is so adamant in telling us how to feel that eventually we start to believe it. Rivecca doesn't. She digs deep to bypass every conscious and subconscious platitude we tell ourselves and each other. Every feeling can be explained. Her plots are always exciting, but never hokey. Frankly, I'm jealous. My favorite is "Look Ma, I'm Breathing." Any writer who feels guilty about preferring to write personal essays will love this one. And (spoiler) it s [...]

I am always interested in breakout short story collections, particularly those written by post-MFA young women in their 20s and 30s. The short story is a tough sell, and so I am always curious to see how new writers are handling them, and what thematic scope they offer. In the case of Suzanne Rivecca's collection, the subject material is so refined and focused on the self-delusions of the female gender (every narrator is a girl or young woman). The stories explore the complexity of savior and vi [...]

So, I'm four stories into this collection, and it's great. The title story's set in 1994 at a retreat for the graduating seniors of an all-girls, Catholic high school--pretty much right in line with my experience (except, of course, for having gone to an all-boys school instead). The Catholic, female voice that anchors the book sounds like someone I knew in grade school, and the stories are hilarious and insightful. For anyone who's in their early-mid 30s and had some sort of experience with Cat [...]

I received this as a giveaway from ; I'm happy I received it, as this collection of short stories was not something I would have chosen. The stories were stark, brutal, and often darkly funny, dealing with such topics as abuse, identity, and self awareness. The writing was superb; Rivecca expertly captures her female narrators' inner lives with a freshness of expression that avoids cliches. My favorites from the collection were Death is not an Option, with all of its teen angst, and None of the [...]

These are powerful short stories, especially the last 4. They ride on the power of emotion, vivid descriptions of feelings, and an examination of what the Catholic religion can do to frighten children in ways that affect their whole lives. In these stories young girls arrive in family and school settings with complicated emotional lives, not the innocence expected by their parents and religious teachers. As a result, the girls feel betrayed and warped by experiences with adults - family, psychia [...]

I love Suzanne Rivecca's voice. How tart and wry and smart these stories are. The narrators (who all seem like the same narrator, splintered) are beyond perceptive, and beyond maladjusted, and the combination is hilarious and often devastating. (To use pop lingo, high iq, low eq). Rivecca is no miminalist, which I appreciated as I read these stories, because she's ornate but almost anally precise at the same time. Female David Foster Wallace comes to mind. For one character, the right word is a [...]

The stories Consummation and None of the Above were stand-outs in this collection, especially the latter, which, for me, had the most suspense and vivid character development, including a level of knowing from a child that was chilling and fascinating. The way Rivecca writes about the tiger in that story is appealing: "What she saw there was neither menace nor bloodlust but something worse: the hard glaze of majestic incomprehension. And everything else about the tiger's posture--the twitching t [...]