BITE: An Anthology of Flash Fiction by Katey SchultzMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
A good number of pieces here actually didn't hit me the way I like flash stories to hit me. Possibly I'm a little inured to that these days. And yet when I considered each piece and what I took away, I discovered a few stories with layers of subtlety. Yes, I realize not every piece of flash fiction has to slap me in the face to be effective. And yet, it was a little difficult for me to distinguish some of the slower-burning pieces with pieces that only fit the flash rubric in terms of minimal word count. Those latter pieces might be complete stories, but they could've been told--might as well have been told--in two or three or five thousand words. There were gems from some of "the usual suspects" in flash fiction that I like to read: Bruce Holland Rogers, Tara Masih, Sherrie Flick, Tom Hazuka, et al. But my joy at reading those stories was tempered by the ones that didn't impress so much. I'm rating this 4 stars, but it's really closer to 3.6 for me.
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