Each character the reader is introduced to deals with some sort of everyday struggle, with relationships, sanity, and heartbreak, so much so that the reader often feels they are reading about their own lives. The stories themselves are snippets into what humans deal with on a daily basis, while always somehow revolving around a car, such as in Inclines when a Mennonite man loses his son and the only thing left to remember him by is his shiny, red Camaro, or the woman whose car breaks down and is left to contemplate her sanity and dementia in a dinner while the car is fixed in One Thousand Count. Each story is filled with human emotion juxtaposed with the hard constant of the vehicle they drive or interact with, perhaps suggesting that though these vehicles will get you from place to place with ease and assurance, human life and emotion is not so simple and direct.
The intent behind each story can be seen and is commendable however, some fail to relate the point of what is attempting to be said. The author sets up most stories well, like in Chew Toy, a couple living together with a dog fall so much out of love that they only say three sentences to each other, or in Holding Patterns, in which a couple wait for a diagnosis from the doctor but try to go about their normal life as if they weren’t waiting for it to come. These stories hold plenty of emotion, the feeling of not loving someone any more, or of waiting for some dreadful piece of news, is one most can relate to, however the end of these stories come so abruptly you feel as if you didn’t have enough time with the characters to understand them in the first place. More often than not, you feel as if you understand the road you’re travelling and where it will take you until the story suddenly ends and you are left confused and wondering why you’ve reached a dead end. What’s more, the few grammatical errors and odd structuring of some pieces do not foster much trust in the road or the road signs directing you to the point.
CARS AND OTHER THINGS THAT GET AROUND has great potential overall, the meaning of the book somehow gets lost and leaves you with trying to recall exactly how you got here.
~IndieReader.