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    Refund: Stories
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    Refund: Stories
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    Refund: Stories
    Ebook293 pages5 hours

    Refund: Stories

    By Karen E. Bender

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    A NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST

    We think about it every day, sometimes every hour: Money. Who has it. Who doesn’t. How you get it. How you don’t.

    In Refund, Bender creates an award-winning collection of stories that deeply explore the ways in which money and the estimation of value affect the lives of her characters. The stories in Refund reflect our contemporary worldswindlers, reality show creators, desperate artists, siblings, parents who try to answer the question: What is the real definition of worth?

    In Theft,” an eighty-year-old swindler, accustomed to tricking people for their money, boards a cruise ship to see if she can find something of true valuea human connection. In Anything for Money,” the creator of a reality show is thrown into the real world when his estranged granddaughter reenters his life in need of a new heart; and in the title story, young artist parents in downtown Manhattan escape the attack on 9/11 only to face a battle over their subletted apartment with a stranger who might have lost more than only her deposit.

    Set in contemporary America, these stories herald a work of singular literary merit by an important writer at the height of her power.

    Editor's Note

    Powerful & probing…

    Bender’s powerful and probing stories examine how money — the lack of it, the need of it, the use of it — defines our relationships, in a collection that’s especially relevant in the wake of recent recessions.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCounterpoint
    Release dateJan 1, 2015
    ISBN9781619025011

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    Reviews for Refund

    3.5/5

    21 ratings3 reviews

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    • 3/5
      "Refund: Stories" compiles thirteen unique short stories centered around narrators who are struggling in some way, most often with financial difficulties and trying to make ends meet. Almost all the narrators, save one, are women who are unhappy with how their lives have turned out. Overall, I liked this book. I initially only read it to review for a blog, but it was an interesting read. Bender has a refreshingly honest perspective on how people really are in their daily lives and how they react to different challenges. I could see some people viewing this book as a bit pessimistic at times, but I find that the stories more often than not showed a real beauty in the human condition. My only real complaint is that I would've liked to see a bit more diversity among the narrators, as mentioned, they were mostly women, which is fine, but over half the stories were about white women who were married and had 1 or 2 kids.
    • 4/5
      This book was a national book award finalist and she has just come out with a new book so I thought I would read this. The subject matter for the most part of these short stories revolved around money and all the attending issues. It mainly deals with women narrators who are struggling with family issues that revolve around their kids, money, work, bad marriages etc. Overall it is not a happy book but it was very creative and the writing was excellent. Because 2-3 of the stories did not work for me, I did not rate it higher. However if all of the stories had the quality of the best ones then I would have rated this a 5 star. Short stories are not for everyone because they tend to have no real conclusions in many cases. Because you can pick and choose the stories here, this is definitely a worthwhile read. I will check out her new book.
    • 5/5
      A wide variety of thought provoking short stories by a master of the genre. These are virtually twenty five page novels such is the depth of the characterizations and plot. The book's title story deals with a couple who are trying to sublet their New York dwelling space un fortunately during the period of 9-11. Others involve a game show where people were willing to do "Anything for the Money" and another is about a pair of sisters one of which has an impaired hand she must compensate for. I can certainly see why this book garnered all the acclaim that it did.