Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction and Illusions

I'm frustrated! Frustrated, I say! It took me exactly one entire month to finish this book, and I didn't like it as much as I expected to. In fact, I would be giving it 2 stars if it weren't for the last two stories. Two stars. Neil Gaiman. Two. Stars. See? Frustrated.

I've had lots of people telling me how hit-or-miss Gaiman can be, how his stories' formula starts to get old after a while, but I didn't quite believe that. I mean I hadn't seen this in Neil Gaiman at all—until now. See, it's not that S&M's stories are bad, they're just... weak. Meh. So so. Wishy-washy. Come on, it's Neil fucking Gaiman we're talking about, I sure as Hell expected more than wishy-washy. Also, I'm not sure that I got them? Maybe I'm being paranoid, but the point went way over my head in some.

The two very last stories saved it for me: Murder Mysteries, and Snow, Glass, Apples. Snow, Glass, Apples was, in fact, the reason I picked S&M up, to begin with—and I was terrified it would suck. It didn't. I'm happy.