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    Off Somewhere
    Off Somewhere
    Off Somewhere
    Ebook201 pages3 hours

    Off Somewhere

    By Z. Z. Boone

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Off Somewhere, Z.Z. Boone's debut story collection, is populated by characters who seek recognition and empowerment in a world that has suddenly become baffling. The tone of these eighteen stories ranges from a humorous account of a young student obsessed with an unobtainable fast-food worker, to a cartoonist forced to face the fact that brotherly hatred runs deeper than brotherly love, to a young woman hoping a homemade cake will keep her parents' marriage intact. The characters are, for the most part, ordinary people driven to exceptional actions.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWhitepoint Press
    Release dateNov 17, 2015
    ISBN9780989897181
    Off Somewhere
    Author

    Z. Z. Boone

    Z. Z. Boone's fiction has appeared in many literary magazines, and his story "The Buddy System" was one of the Notables in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2014. His films (written under the name Bill Bozzone) include Full Moon in Blue Water and The Last Elephant, and his produced plays (also written under the Bill Bozzone) include Rose Cottages, House Arrest, Korea, and Buck Fever. Mr. Boone lives with novelist Tricia Bauer and their daughter, and he teaches writing at Western Connecticut State University.

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    Reviews for Off Somewhere

    3.5/5

    21 ratings12 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Clearly Z.Z. Boone is a great writer. He hooks you in quickly, and ends precisely when he should. The stories themselves, however, are mediocre at best. I enjoy reading stories that have not-so-happy endings, but these just didn't cut it for me. Maybe Boone is just too cynical, or the structure too repetitive. Who knows. My lukewarm recommendation is this: read the first story. If you don't like it, put the book down - it won't get much better. If Boone comes up with something a little better, I'll give him another shot.
    • 2/5
      The title story, the first in the collection, describes a man who must deal with is father, who has dementia, and in the process learns an old secret. This story is pretty well told, but none of the remaining seventeen stories live up to it. They depict people, mostly young men, who struggle with situations that they do not understand and cannot control.
    • 4/5
      This is an excellent selection of 18 short stories. The stories cover a wide range of emotions and feelings that are a part of life. Many of the stories are amusing/funny but at the same time poignant and thought-provoking. Highly recommend!
    • 5/5
      Off Somewhere Stories were well written and pulled me in with the characters and situations. The stories were sometimes off-beat, but generally interesting. There were unexpected events in some of the stories. None of the stories were very long (one was only three pages), but they reached a conclusion of sorts or made you wonder what else happened. I really enjoyed reading them and would recommend the book.
    • 4/5
      A wonderful debut collection of unrelated short stories. Boone introduces the reader to different settings and characters and affords the opportunity to witness these small vignettes in these fictional lives.My personal favorites are the following:"Strapless" - a short (3 pages) but powerful picture of the lives of unnamed father and daughter. So much comes through in such a short piece of work. No need for names, the descriptive dialogue and narration speaks volumes about these two characters."Pitching" - the unnamed narrator was a biological miracle. His parents adopted a young black boy just before they found out they were pregnant naturally. The narrator grows in the shadow of his elder sibling who becomes a baseball star in high school and college. Yet our narrator has his own talents that few see. He also knows the family political game - Patrick is most important. What he does for the family is selfless and oddly endearing.
    • 4/5
      While the plots are all that of introspective, depressed character analysis, the writing style makes up for it in my opinion. Boone is able to get the to bleak heart of all of his characters in these short stories. They feel real, though broken, as so many of us are.If, as another reviewer has said, the first story doesn't make you want to read more, I would suggest turning to Wakefield. It was perhaps the most different of the stories, ending on action rather than depression in my opinion. While there might not be a ton of others in the collection that you might appreciate, that one has potential.
    • 3/5
      These stories start well, with situations that seem real and interesting, and characters I want to know more about. The story "Moving," told by a teen age girl as her separating parents meet to divide up mementos, is well done. But there is a lack of flow to some of the selections, where the narration or the dialog doesn't ring true. I read an uncorrected proof. The published edition should be better.
    • 4/5
      A collection of well-written, but not particularly memorable, short stories that in general seem to share a theme of ending relationships. As such, they tend to be bleak pictures of people once bonded, perhaps in the very moment the bond was torn asunder. These are not happy stories. But they are finely crafted, often with a short punch to the gut at the end as the break is acknowledged, dealt with and moved on from.
    • 3/5
      An interesting collection that uses humor to discuss our present world state and the humans who live among us. Some of the stories hit powerfully with pathos, while others fall quite short of the mark. An uneven collection but the author is worth looking at in the future.
    • 4/5
      The majority of these stories were "slice of life" style stories that reflected a specific point in the characters' lives, without a nice, neat story arc. I found the stories to be true to life and relatable, if a bit cynical and depressing. The writing style is minimalist - concise and straightforward with few frills. That style complemented the content of the stories well. Though others have commented that the stories didn't seem finished, I found that the lack of conclusion in most stories contributed to the overall themes. It worked, in my opinion.
    • 4/5
      Some of my favorites:"Off Somewhere""Kat""Sympathy Grades""Lifeline""Mom the Poet""The Buddy System"I wouldn’t necessarily say this is a “good” collection (I mean, it’s not a bad one either); but rather an *important collection. And an interesting one. I laughed a lot, which deceived me at times into thinking that the humor would come at the expense of a story meaning or moral. But this is where the interesting, important part comes in: I think Off Somewhere is great at being able to capture the ambivalent wish-washy and so meaninglessness of human decisions through storytelling via catharsis. Many of the stories in this collection center around a climax, a single decision made by a character or characters. Alternatively, many of the sharp insights about the human condition come from humorous one-liners.I love the East Coast New England feel of many of the stories (great cover). And the commentary on parents, parental relationships, especially from a male (role) perspective, as either a father or friend, boyfriend or son. Looking forward to reading more titles from Whitepoint Press.
    • 1/5
      I made it about halfway through this book and just couldn't finish it. Every story felt the same to me. It didn't feel like there was any real point to any of them. The author also seemed to put in certain things that didn't really add to the overall story just for pure shock value. I didn't get anything out of these stories except for a growing sense of frustration and confusion. They all had a sort of unfinished feel, which left me unsatisfied as a reader. If you don't like the first couple, you probably won't like the rest.

    Book preview

    Off Somewhere - Z. Z. Boone

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