Rating: 
Summary: a brilliant and impressive debut
Review: Passionately alive, piercingly honest, and brimful of heart. Nice work, Steve.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written, sexy stories
Review: Steve Almond writes lush, poignant and funny sentences about young couples managing to connect -- and not connect -- through sex. The sex descriptions are open and frank -- and interesting because of their honesty. (In many movies/novels, the fadeout begins when the couples kiss and go to bed. These stories prove you don't have to take the "why write about it, we all know what happened" approach. What happens between the sheets reveals so much about the characters involved. The title story "My Life in Heavy Metal" is about a young man who can't fully appreciate the gift of having a beautiful woman fall in love with him. I hate Heavy Metal music, but now after reading the story, I have an appreciation of what its fans got out of it. "How to Love a Republican" is about a younger -- and far more hip -- Mary Matalin/James Carville-type couple. They're perfect for each other -- except for their politics -- but the young Democrat can't get over the fact that his girlfried supports the legal maneuvers Bush took to win the election. The story "The Pass" just won a Puschart prize, it offers a wonderful bird's eye view of couples around the world -- gay and straight -- trying to make connections. It's a tour de force. By the way, Steve is very funny and entertaining at readings. Ask your local bookstore to have him. You'll enjoy it. I promise. You can also check his out Web site, stevenlmond.com. He has a humorous diary of a recent book tour.
Rating:
Summary: Slip These Stories In
Review: Steve Almond's debut collection may be getting attention due to its honest, sexual content, but these fourteen stories show heart more than anything else. Almond is Salinger, T.C. Boyle, Raymond Carver, and all of the Barthelmes rolled into one. These funny, sad, provocative, engaging, and non-safe stories deserve respect. Way to go, Big Steve.
Rating:
Summary: Take it slow
Review: The publisher should advise the reader to take these stories one at a time. Blow through it, and you'll miss the micro details, the nuances of language, the zoom lens observations that remind you of why you love reading in the first place.
Yes, there's sex here. And if that turns you off, by all means take a pass. But if you love the idea of small moments made large with words utterly original, yet never contrived or self-conscious, check it out. My Life in Heavy Metal is rich with jewels
Rating: 
Summary: Highly recommended book, but just ok
Review: The words used by reviewers and readers were stunning, dynamic, monumental, remarkable debut......I found the book to be good, but NOT as great as other short story authors debuts. I was expecting something much better, especially after reviews from when he was here last spring. For a book that was supposed to be very erotic, I found the sex in it very selfish. I also found the men, shallow, gasping for love, gasping for intimacy, but very underdeveloped. Psychologically I wanted to know why each character lost the girl in the end. This is probabally the issue of the author, but I'd rather dive into the characters than the problems the author has with relationships.The strength of this book is the dialog and poetic prose, which were very very strong----actually delightful. The author should beef up his characters just a bit to give them real individualism, and then this book would be stunning, etc.
Rating:
Summary: If you could only see him read...
Review: these stories, you'd realize they were written by a man who inhabits a rare talent for writing, performing, speaking and conjuring. The stories here are a festival of carnalia and musicality and intellect I long for in modern fiction and rarely find. Steve Almond's visions of our condition are sexy and delicious and not just slightly odd. Give this man a drink and for God's sake buy his book!!!
Rating:
Summary: If you could only see him read...
Review: these stories, you'd realize they were written by a man who inhabits a rare talent for writing, performing, speaking and conjuring. The stories here are a festival of carnalia and musicality and intellect I long for in modern fiction and rarely find. Steve Almond's visions of our condition are sexy and delicious and not just slightly odd. Give this man a drink and for God's sake buy his book!!!
Rating: 
Summary: stud goes a-writin'
Review: This book was ok, dabbled with some clever turns of phrase and flashes of insight. However, it frankly got a little old that, regardless of the story's specifics, the narrator (a fella) was going to get some, and the lady was going to fall for him, hard. I mean, I'm happy Mr. Almond is so successful with the ladies, but when that's the only message that's reliably communicated in each story, it becomes the opposite of edgy. that is, dull.
Rating: 
Summary: Raw, funny, moving stories of love & lust
Review: This is a collection of exceptionally honest stories that never shy away from the truths of lust and love and the fine lines that separate them. Almond's prose is sharp, elegant, and often incredibly funny, but never glib. "Geek Player Love Slayer" is a great example of this: the narrator's voice is witty, wired, and sexy, but it's still a story about love, no matter how you slice it, with an ending that will totally whack you upside the heart. If you're squeamish about sex, you might have trouble with some of the stories in this collection -- Almond doesn't beat around the bush...when it comes to his descriptions of the sensual. But it's not gratuitous; these are stories that truly drill down into what drives desire, what we're all searching for, and the sometimes misguided ways we go about getting it. I highly recommend this book, especially to people who are tired of "careful' short stories that sacrifice passion to subtlety for its own sake.
Rating:
Summary: I am here. Now take me in your arms.
Review: This is an absolutely incredible collection of stories. Almond writes brilliant lines and has an expert's feel for pace, transition, and movement. These stories are explicit, but brutally honest. They deal with love, but in the least superficial way I have ever seen. Almond's characters breathe with life, and in an age of inert, situational fiction (of which, don't get me wrong, I love), they truly propel their stories forward. I don't even mind the occasional incursion of the didactic voice of our narrator (an Almond trademark) because it is so consistent throughout this collection, and rather than blowing us over with platitudes, it really warms us with earnest, honest sentiment. I was touched, and you will be too. I also laughed. Really, really hard.
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