Well, SOME of it's Good... (The Jealousy Man short stories REVIEW)

I'm a fan of protein bars. You can grab one, throw it in the microwave for a few seconds (or not), and wolf it down—keeping your blood sugar up and the hangries at bay—in a couple minutes, flat.

Short stories, to me, are the protein bars of the reading world. When life is too crazypants to devote (or even have) the time and concentration a novel requires, a collection of such is nice to have on hand; select a quickie, dive into it on your lunch hour, Uber ride, or when you crawl into bed but aren’t quiiiite sleepy enough to turn your brain off, and voila, you've entertained your brain. 

No, a short story isn’t my favorite thing to read… but sometimes, it's a good option. (And, in some cases--think Stephen King, or Edgar Allen Poe--it can even be a brilliant art form, letting an amazing tale unfold in an almost-unbelievably short space.)

So, when I saw that Norwegian mystery/thriller writer Jo Nesbø had a new book of shorts out—around the busy holiday season, no less—it seemed like a cool thing for me to have on hand.

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The Jealousy Man is divided into two sections—entitled “Jealousy” and “Power”—each of which contains several stories of varying, abbreviated lengths. (Interesting to structure the book thusly, giving a hint as to the stories’ themes.) 

Things started off quite well for me, with “London”, a tight little tale of two strangers on a plane (and quite possibly my fave out of the entire book). “The Jealousy Man”, which followed, was considerably longer, but had a really interesting premise—a detective who specialized in cases involving jealousy as a motive--and some neat twists.

Five more tales rounded out the “Jealousy” section… each holding my interest somewhat, but none really compelling me to rush through. 

So, after (finally) finishing that first section--which had started so promisingly but wound up less-than-compellingly--it took me at least a week to even consider picking the book back up. <sigh> This didn’t bode well, I thought.

When I finally convinced myself to tackle the second section—“Power”—my hopes went up again, though, because the lead story there—the dystopian “Rat Island”—had a very au courant feel, set in a world facing an epic pandemic. (It dragged on a bit in places, but overall, was a really interesting read. Yay!)

Unfortunately, that same story also turned out to be the high point of the second section; the remainder of the tales in “Power” were overlong, not engaging, and just not enjoyable. [Imagine a very-sad emoji face here, because that's how I felt.]

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Coming from an author whose full-length thrillers I’ve always really enjoyed, The Jealousy Man and Other Stories was, on the whole, a big disappointment for me. (So much so, in fact, that it took me a full month to even pick up a different book, after I’d finished it… something that NEVER happens to me.)

Are there short stories worth reading in The Jealousy Man? Yes, there are (and of course you, dear reader, may feel entirely differently to how I felt about them, anyway). For me, though, this collection was akin to unwrapping a protein bar… only to find out that two-thirds of it had gone bad.

~GlamKitty