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    Touchy Subjects
    Touchy Subjects
    Touchy Subjects
    Audiobook8 hours

    Touchy Subjects

    Written by Emma Donoghue

    Narrated by Caroline Lennon, Daniel Coonan, Jennifer Woodward and

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Touchy Subjects is about things that make people wince: taboos, controversies, secrets and lies. Some of the events that characters crash into are grand, tragic ones: miscarriage, overdose, missing persons. Other topics, like religion and money, are not inherently taboo, but they can cause acute discomfort because people disagree so vehemently. These stories are about the spectrum of feeling that runs from awkwardness through embarrassment to shame.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherW. F. Howes Ltd
    Release dateApr 4, 2013
    ISBN9781471231421
    Touchy Subjects
    Author

    Emma Donoghue

    Born in Dublin in 1969, and now living in Canada, Emma Donoghue writes fiction (novels and short stories, contemporary and historical including The Pull of the Stars), as well as drama for screen and stage. Room, was a New York Times Best Book of 2010 and a finalist for the Man Booker, Commonwealth, and Orange Prizes, selling between two and three million copies in forty languages. Donoghue was nominated for an Academy Award for her 2015 adaptation starring Brie Larson. She co-wrote the screenplay for the film of her novel The Wonder, starring Florence Pugh and distributed by Netflix.

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    Reviews for Touchy Subjects

    3.5/5

    60 ratings5 reviews

    What did you think?

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    • 2/5
      Had this out of the library for a while, dipping into it off and on, hoping I'd maybe get into it. Answer: no. The stories feel totally mundane, non-revelatory. They don't have the punchy power that a short story should have (in my opinion and to my taste). And now there's a book I want more in at the library, and I need to make space on my card. 'bye, Emma Donoghue.
    • 4/5
      A strong showing by the author of "Room" -- a collection of tales showcasing her uncanny ability to create an genuine and nuanced internal life for her characters, whether in mundane or extraordinary circumstances. These tales are immensely varied: they include narrators or every stripe and sexuality, settings in North America and Ireland, and personalities large and small. My favorite was is impossible to discuss here without a spoiler, so I will only mention that it involves love in an all-female co-op and a young anal retentive grammatically correct lesbian virgin who falls in love with a mysterious and unlikely figure.
    • 5/5
      These are marvelous stories, full of humour and life. I recommend, in particular, the story called Writor for a good laugh.
    • 4/5
      This collection of short stories had some standouts, and others not so much. I thought it was a fortunate coincidence that I read this directly following Flannery O'Connor as the two seem to have a similar theme to their stories. However, I thought Donoghue wasn't quite as good. I would be interested to read a novel from her to see what she would do with more time to develop a character. Overall, it was worth the read, but it wasn't something to be overly thrilled about.
    • 3/5
      I found this collection of short stories a little disappointing. Not that they are dull or badly written - they aren't - but rather that they seem to be missing the wit and originality I've come to expect from Emma Donoghue's other work. There wasn't much here that really took me by surprise. Good, sound, workmanlike stories, told from a wide range of viewpoints, but nothing to make you want to read it a second time. Guessing from the settings and subject-matter, I suspect they were written in between seminars during a dull stint as writer-in-residence at some minor american university. One story - "The Writ-Or" - actually takes a bored writer-in-residence as its central character, but doesn't do very much with him except make him complain about the quality of the work his students show him.