Book Review- The Complete Stories of Flannery O Conner

For the Mount TBR challenge, Shelf Love challenge and the Classics Club I read The Complete Stories of Flannery O Conner by Flannery O Conner.

Synopsis from Goodreads: O'Connor published her first story, "The Geranium," in 1946, while she was working on her master's degree at the University of Iowa. Arranged chronologically, this collection shows that her last story, "Judgement Day"--sent to her publisher shortly before her death—is a brilliantly rewritten and transfigured version of "The Geranium." Taken together, these stories reveal a lively, penetrating talent that has given us some of the most powerful and disturbing fiction of the twentieth century. 

As the synopsis hints at, O Conner wrote some very weird stories. For the first half or so I had a hard time getting past the weirdness. Thankfully at about that point my mom handed me an article about O Conner's stories and after that I felt like I could better understand what she was trying to say in her stories. I've probably expressed here multiple times before that I'm not a fan of most of the classic American authors because they write such weird and abstract stories that were normally amoral. O Conner's stories were weird and abstract also but they weren't amoral. In fact that was what they were about... morals, hypocrisy and actually a lot about racism. As that article I read stated, O Conner's favorite victims were the middle aged, good-natured, well meaning, church going ladies. She also liked to poke fun at the "intellectuals" as well though. Her stories aren't written to make you feel comfortable at all but instead have you squirming in your seat. Each story is unique and thought provoking and I definitely think I'll be re-reading them in the future.
Recommended? For sure!

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