Review: The Unauthorized Biography of Michele Bachmann by Ken Brosky

Title: The Unauthorized Biography of Michele Bachmann
Author: Ken Brosky
Publisher: Brew City Press
Publish Date: November 21, 2011
Source: I received a copy from the author. This did not affect my review.

Why You're Reading This Book:

• You like short stories.
• You like humor. 

What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "A white man lost in Darfur. Phone hackers. Honey thieves. An Iraq War veteran searching for his missing leg in the dead of night. These are just a few of the characters inhabiting Ken Brosky’s first short story collection, which features short stories that have been published in magazines including Gargoyle, Cream City Review, Barcelona Review, Pif, and more. If there's one theme running through all of the stories, it's survival. Every character approaches this theme in a different way. For the couple stuck inside a coffee shop during the Apocalypse, "survival" means getting through the next hour. For the middle-aged man who fears he might be downsized, it means going out on your own terms. How do you survive? Will you?"

My Two Cents:

I'm not usually much into short stories. I think it can be really difficult to tell a great story in a small amount of space and time. I sometimes find myself dissatisfied about what is able told under such constraint. I definitely did not have a problem with that in Brosky's book. He tells good stories quickly.

This book covers a variety of topics and has tons of different characters in each of short stories within this book. The various characters of the book are what really stood out for me. Brosky does a great job of using the limited amount of space that you have in a short story to really draw a good picture for the reader of who the character is and what they are like. This can be incredibly difficult to do in a very small amount of space.

One of the stories that I enjoyed most in this book is Apocalypse Wow. It's literally about the Apocalypse happening and one of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse stopping by an indie coffee shop for a bit of coffee (hey, apparently even demons need a cup to get going when they're faced with tough work like ending the world. It's a hard job but someone has to do it).

There's also a hilarious essay about Amazon, the crazy products you can find on it, and the crazy (crazier?) user reviews that struck me as very funny. Have you ever read any of the user reviews for some of the more... uh... off the beaten path products? Pure humor.

Just a warning: if you don't like rough language, this book may not be for you. While the language (in my opinion) is not excessive, it's there and may not be for some readers.