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Government drone by day and book lover and geek girl by night!
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The Lottery and Other Stories
Please note that I gave this book 3.5 stars, however, I rounded it up to 4 stars on Goodreads.Although I liked this collection of short stories, I am not going to lie, I was pretty disappointed that they were not horror stories. And I am even puzzled at people claiming these are Gothic stories too.
Some of the stories I think danced towards that genre, and others were firmly not at all. I think if you ignore that aspect of the book and just focused on the stories you can see a pattern emerging though.
The first story (a young girl questioning a drunk man in her family's kitchen about the world) to the last story (a mother who realizes too late how not fair life is right before she is stoned to death) showcases women at different stages in their lives. Some of the women in this stories have hope, are clueless to their own internal prejudices against other children, women, men, and races. Some of them are just hoping for a nice life and to make someone a nice wife. Others are angry that their lives have not turned out quite in the way that they hoped.
So I would definitely read it if you want to read more of Shirley Jackson's works. But be warned, there's not much horror here if that's your primary reason for picking up these stories.