This is a disturbing book and a difficult one to read if you know beforehand how it ends (and it's pretty easy to figure out the outcome from the narrator's early comments).

Knowing so much about this book before I picked it up (I read about the real life case it is based upon on crimelibrary.com), I figured I'd be able to handle the content but it was so unrelentingly brutal near the end that I had to put it down and watch a silly movie (The 40 Year Old Virgin, if you must know) to help me temporarily forget. This is one of the most tragic books I've ever read.

I can't bring myself to pick it back up to read the two short stories that follow "The Girl Next Door".

Later:
Okay, I did manage to work up the courage to read the two short stories and of them I enjoyed the last "Returns" (I think?) the most. It tells the story of a dead man's return from the dead for one last visit with his wife and cat. It's a sad story about lack of compassion that will hurt any animal lover's heart.

The other "Do you love your wife?" didn't move me nearly as much and I can't remember much about it at this point.