The novel ‘Making Nice’ is a series of 20 connected short stories that were written over 10 years by the author, Matt Sumell. Sumell used the real-life anguish of losing his mother to cancer to craft his characters and settings. The voice of the stories rings true, but this one is a tough read. It does get points for honest gut punches and black humor. I can’t say it any better than this great blurb by Ron Carlson on the back of my ARC copy: “Every story here is two: one the fun, the other the blade.”

Ugh. I try really hard to "make nice" when I'm writing reviews but I just could not stomach this book. When I received it from the early reviewer's program on Library Thing, I was initially captivated. I made my whole family read the first page, which I thought might be the funniest first page I'd ever read. But being inside this character's head literally made my head spin. The sarcastic, inappropriate and ADHD ramblings of the first page never stopped. I make myself read 100 pages of every book before I give up, and I made it, but only because I was trapped in an airport with nothing else to do. I left it on the chair in the airport, and actually felt kind of guilty that some poor person was going to pick it up and be subjected to a book full of f-bombs and drunken sex.