Kinda disappointed with this one! It was fine, but definitely not the strongest short stories I’ve read from Schweblin.

The stories are all unsettling in some way. Uncomfortable but usually in an understated way. Even if something more extreme is happening, it still feels understated in terms of how Schweblin writes it. I think she’s good at an eerie, weird concept.

But I also thought most of the stories were too long or had too much setup for little payoff. So I was bored or left like “that’s it?”

The stories that I found the most engaging were Welcome to the Club, A Fabulous Animal, and An Eye in the Throat. I also really liked the character of Joel in A Visit from the Chief - he felt like a uniquely strong character as far as this collection goes.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

The stories in GOOD AND EVIL are the kind that get under your skin and dwell there. In particular, there is one story about a boy who suffers an accident at a young age that will live in my mind forever, the way only the best short stories can. This collection is masterfully crafted.

Samanta Schweblin delivers another mesmerizing collection with Good and Evil and Other Stories—a series of unsettling, tightly written tales that walk the razor’s edge between the mundane and the surreal. Each story is a small, sharp glimpse into a world that feels just familiar enough to unsettle you when something goes wrong. Schweblin's signature style—concise, eerie, and psychologically piercing—is in full force here.

Thanks so much to NetGalley, Samantha Schweblin and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for giving me the chance to read this ARC. I have been a huge fan of this author since reading Fever Dream. That one had me reeling so I was super excited to read these stories. They did not disappoint!!! My head was spinning reading these. The very first story I had to sit and think for a bit afterwards...it sent me. I even had to pull my son aside to discuss what I had just read. I do find as an animal person, the in depth description of skinning rabbits in parts or other things like that sort of had me unsure about finishing it, but I am glad I pushed through that. Her stories all really do feel like real life fever dreams. If you like dark, wild stories then this book is definitely for you!

3.5/5
Some stories were more interesting than others, but I didn't outright dislike any of them. A couple of them flew over my head, but most were good. I especially enjoyed "Welcome to the Club" and "An Eye in the Throat." All of the main characters are South American and the stories have themes of guilt and grief. If you dislike ambiguity, unanswered questions, and things left to interpretation, this book isn't for you. However, if you enjoy short stories with darker themes and like bittersweet or open endings, you might enjoy this.

this book is a collection of short stories. They were good! They each had some pretty good themes. I liked how they were all different but still had some overlap. I was a big fan!

Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complimentary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!

Schwebelian is the right way to describe this writer, she has her own haunting, striking, and precise language that lingers on all her readers long after they've read her works. I loved the note from the author at the end of the book that showed how pieces of her own life inspired these stories. I believe I'll never look at cats and bunnies the same way again. Simply brilliant!

Overall this was a solid short story collection. About half of the stories were pretty good and the other half were just fine. I enjoyed the writing a lot and the premises were interesting but half of the stories didn't really keep my attention so I can't give this higher than a three.

Thank you to the publisher for granting me access to an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

What a ride! I was unsure how I felt going into this book, but it touches on so many personal life issues that actually people are going through. It was hard for me to not read in one sitting! Some stories were confusing and hard to follow, but you want to devour them the same because they hook you!

Schweblin is a master class in dark, atmospheric storytelling. The title story of "Mouthful of Birds" and the novella "Fever Dream" are up there with my favorite pieces of writing about parenthood, identity, and the surreal experience of trying to understand the people who you love most in the world.

This collection is just six stories, dealing with grief and memory, and feels like her most cohesive collection yet. "Welcome to the Club," "William in the Window," and "An Eye in the Throat" were incredibly strong, giving us relatable characters struggling with the reality of their lives and what they have lost. Even the story I found the weakest, "A Visit from the Chief," feels like a bookend to the first in the collection—both featuring violent men delivering messages to women who are, I think, more in need of a good afternoon with a friend than anything else, but for whatever reason cannot access that kind of connection. (I could have done without that story, but it has a place!)

Megan McDowell's translation is fluid and masterful, capturing the sinister universe Schweblin revels in building. I've read so many of McDowell's translations now, and I'm always impressed by how deftly she is able to translate the formality of the spoken Spanish into English. Not all translators take the time to place the language into that context. My Spanish, unfortunately, is limited to a failed Duolingo streak (sorry to our little owl friend), but I've read enough translated literature to recognize when a translator is showing the reader when someone is being addressed formally versus telling us with the actual spoken language.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for this ARC, in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to Netgalley and Knopf for the ebook. These six stories haunt in very unique ways. A woman who claims to be dying calls a friend she hasn’t seen in thirty years to talk about her young son who passed away. Two young girls break into a poet’s house to try and make her stop drinking and write again. A father accidentally leaves his son at a rest station and thinks that an employee at the rest station taunts him for years by calling late at night but never saying a word. These stories get under your skin in the best possible way.