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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780679729570
ISBN number: 0679729577
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 288
Printing Date: May 07, 1991
Publishing house: Vintage
Release Date: May 07, 1991
Sale Popularity Level: 517648
Studio: Vintage
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
The ten miraculously accomplished stories in Alice Munro's Friend of My Youth not only astonish and delight but also convey the unspoken mysteries at the heart of all human experience.
'[Friend of My Youth is] a wonderful collection of stories, beautifully written and deeply felt.'--Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
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Rated by buyers 
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This is my least favorite of Munro's story-suites, the only one I wouldn't give five stars. Perhaps I'm simply defensive as a male reader, but the men in these stories seem more despicable than most of my friends and I find the women hard to share time with. These stories attend more to Munro's identity as a writer, also, making them annoyingly self-referential and literary. Whatever you do, don't make this collection your very first encounter with one of the greatest writers of our lifetimes.
Rated by buyers -
I was a bit let down by this compilation. I really enjoyed "The Love of a Good Woman", but the stories in "Friend of my Youth" started to sound a bit repetitious after a while. Of the 10 stories, 7 had a cheating spouse in them. There were some variations on the theme, but in the most common it was the wife who committed adultery, usually resulting in her abandoning her children and moving somewhere else.
This common theme became too hard to bear after a while. After reading the book i felt overexposed to this (seemingly) widespread malaise of society. The writing is fine, and the character development is excellent (i can only imagine how hard it must be to achieve this in a short story), but i wish Alice Munro had explored other human passions and/or vices apart from infidelity.
Rated by buyers 
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Reading stories such as "Differently," about a woman's reminiscences and regret about the people of her past made me reflect that life turns out differently than our original aspirations. It isn't always regret, but it is rarely indifferent. As soon as I finished a story, I immediately wanted to reread it, and understand the character better. These are beautiful, gentle stories about lives that sometimes meander, sometimes change abruptly, but that are always determined by the choices and accidents of living. Munro's love, sometimes curiosity, for her characters is a privilege to experience.
Rated by buyers -
Alice Munro certainly has the ability to create complex and fascinating situations, and to make them flow beautifully this way and that in time. Unfortunately, she only succeeds in using this ability about half the time. The other half, she's overly-self-serious, inaccessible, vague and flighty. Here are the stories that make the book worth checking out: Friend of My Youth, Five Points, Oranges and Apples (great story!), and Pictures of the Ice. You can skip Meneseteung and Hold Me Fast Don't Let Me Pass.
Rated by buyers -
I loved this book so much I decided to write my Master's Thesis in Literature on it; we've all got parents, friends, or someone we know that turn up in every one of these stories. Munro's insights into how humans deal with relationships, death, and collective community social consciousness are continually profound and eye-opening. Pay special attention to things "Gothic" in this collection as in Open Secrets: repressed sexuality, pleasurable dread, anxiety, remorse, unnatural silences....the list goes on and on. No-one better captures the paradox of connected everyday surfaces and hidden, underground nightmares than Munro.
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