📖 Book Review ~ Sorry Men by Daniel Bird

 

Signal 8 Press
1 March 2024

My thanks to Cameron Publicity for my copy of this book

A father has his daughter’s crayon drawings tattooed all over his body so he can never lose sight of them. A commuter pretends to be Russian in an attempt to avoid being robbed. After a first date, a lovesick man plays it cooler than anybody ever has. The ex-husband of a lottery winner finds optimism in the numbers she chose. Two astronauts scour the solar system for a new home for mankind whilst pining for their exes. The world of Sorry Men is one of earnestness and desperation;fate and farce; hilarity and hopelessness. It absolutely will not restore your faith in men.

📖 My Review..

I read through Sorry Men in the space of an afternoon, dipping into and out of the stories at whim. Some made me smile, others made me ponder and even one or two exasperated me but collectively this set of 35 shortish stories kept me entertained.

The author writes well and gets the gist of the story across with relatively few words something that is not always easy to do, especially in a story which sometimes lasts just a few pages. As with any collection there were definitely some stories which I enjoyed more than others but that's the simple beauty of a collection, if you don't like the story, you can just move on to the next one.

The premise of the story reads that It absolutely will not restore your faith in men which I think is fair comment as none of these stories show men in a particularly favourable way but at least you know what you are getting and it's a quirky read which may appeal to some readers more than others.

About the Author

Daniel Bird grew up in Dorset, England, where he never missed a day of his paper round. He studied Drama and Theatre Arts at Royal Holloway, University of London. His stories are usually comical, occasionally dark, and always short.

His work has appeared in Liars’ League Hong Kong; Litro; Reflex Press; Mono; Fragmented Voices, and Coffin Bell. He lives and works in Hong Kong.

His first book Sorry Men is now available in paperback and ebook.

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