Rating: 
Summary: Promising, but...
Review: Admittedly, my interest in Maile Meloy initially came entirely from my enjoyment of her younger brother Colin Meloy's band, the Decemberists. Meloy's debut short story collection is extremely promising in a lot of key areas: her stories have a strong sense of place, and she's got both a good ear for dialogue and a strong handle on narrative pacing. Things actually happen in these stories, in other words, something that can't always be said about similar short story collections. However, it seems that Colin inherited all of the family's sense of humor genes, as Maile's stories are almost relentlessly bleak and often downright depressing. A wider variety of emotional shadings would go a long way towards enhancing this collection.
Rating:
Summary: Promising, but...
Review: Admittedly, my interest in Maile Meloy initially came entirely from my enjoyment of her younger brother Colin Meloy's band, the Decemberists. Meloy's debut short story collection is extremely promising in a lot of key areas: her stories have a strong sense of place, and she's got both a good ear for dialogue and a strong handle on narrative pacing. Things actually happen in these stories, in other words, something that can't always be said about similar short story collections. However, it seems that Colin inherited all of the family's sense of humor genes, as Maile's stories are almost relentlessly bleak and often downright depressing. A wider variety of emotional shadings would go a long way towards enhancing this collection.
Rating: 
Summary: Compelling
Review: I attended a reading of one of Maile Meloy's short stories from "Half in Love" at the Getty Museum and was swept away. The title was "Red", a captivating tale of aloneness. While each of the stories takes the reader along swiftly and emotionally, there is a beautiful sparseness to Meloy's writing that takes the reader into her world before you realize it! And within seconds you are invested emotionally. I purchased this book immediately after the reading and planned to read one story a night...can't do it....One a night is impossible. They are too good to keep!
Rating:
Summary: a great collection from a promising new voice
Review: I first read Maile Meloy's "Ranch Girl" in The New Yorker and loved it, even writing it up and excerpting a passage on my personal site. I had Half in Love on my wishlist for months before it was released and purchased it as soon as it was available.Meloy has a real gift for capturing characters' hovering on decision, change, disappointment, and many other ambivalent emotions that defy judgment or easy answers. Not every story in this collection works -- sometimes you lose track of where she's going or don't really believe the characters -- but the ones that do will make you glad you spent a few minutes with them.
Rating:
Summary: Montana Shorts
Review: I was extremely surprised to find myself reading "Travis," a short story based in Glendive, MT, in the October 28 issue of The New Yorker, in between stories about the Hezbullah, and new New York. Never mind that I had just been in that remote, rural community for two weeks. However, Montana has not yet discovered it's own writer. Nobody in Eastern Montana that I've asked knows anything about Maile Meloy. Maile, please contact the Director, Gail Nagle Librarian at the Glendive Public Library to set up a reading of your works. They are waiting to meet you and discuss your stories.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written for the lover of short stories.
Review: If you enjoy short stories, Maile Meloy is the way to go. She describes people in depth, with just a phrase or two. It's really quite genius.
"She is beautiful, and sparkles like jewels when she is wearing none: skin like gold, white teeth and clear blue eyes." - Aqua Boulevard
"Sometimes my son has a face like a storm, and then it clears, and again he is the most attractive child I have ever seen." - Aqua Boulevard
Beautifully written for the lover of short stories.
Rating: 
Summary: FULLY IN LOVE WITH THIS WRITER
Review: It's not often that a writer of grace such as Maile Meloy comes around. I have not read her second work, the novel Liars and Saints yet, but just judging by this slim collection of stories, she is going to be a writer to watch. My favorite story in here was "Red" in which a soldier fixing to ship out to France during the World War, desperately tries to reach a non-communicative woman. "Thirteen and a Half" is a brief tale about a junior high dance crashed by a murderous gangbanger. "The Ice Harvester" shows the life of a man whose profession has become obsolete due to electric refrigeration. "A Stakes Horse" deals with a woman whose ex-husband is a jockey who she thinks is involved in throwing races. "Ranch Girl" shows the debilitating effects of small-town life on a girl who is afraid to strive for anything better and rejects anything outside her zone of comfort. Meloy is a great writer. She is able to show ordinary people and use them for great tales. Her stories seem to be about awakenings. Or more rightly, realization. Whether it's of awareness of infidelity, of death, or of joy, it's the power of opening your perceptions that she writes about, for good or bad. The best of these stories show that she has the potential to climb the plateau of the best short story practicioners. Hope her novel is just as good.
Rating:
Summary: Gourmet Literature
Review: Like a great dish with finely balanced flavors and hints of the exotic and unexpected, this collection of short stories delivers in satisfying and enticing ways. Not a fan of short fiction, I only put this collection on my wish list after hearing the author read on NPR. A year or so later, I received the slim volume as a gift, and I am so delighted I strayed from the my norm to read it.
Meloy's prose is spare, direct, concise, but so refined and honed that her characters have an immediacy about them. These are people you know, people who walk past you daily. Some of the storylines have similar content -- the West, horses, farm life -- but the characters' stories are uncomparable in content and richness. You want more, but as each story concludes, I was left feeling full, feeling that I had been told the whole story.
I am looking forward to reading her novel next.
Rating:
Summary: A Fine Collection
Review: My only complaint about Maile Meloy's collection of short stories, Half in Love, is that I wish there were more of them. These stories make an immensely enjoyable read, in particular those that take place in the western U.S. One that stands out in my mind is Ranch Girl, a story told in the second person about a young woman fulfilling her destiny as a ranch girl in Montana. These are all strong stories--full of heartbreak--perhaps all the characters can only be said to be half in love.
Rating:
Summary: A Fine Collection
Review: My only complaint about Maile Meloy's collection of short stories, Half in Love, is that I wish there were more of them. These stories make an immensely enjoyable read, in particular those that take place in the western U.S. One that stands out in my mind is Ranch Girl, a story told in the second person about a young woman fulfilling her destiny as a ranch girl in Montana. These are all strong stories--full of heartbreak--perhaps all the characters can only be said to be half in love.
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