I absolutely loved this little book. Barbash's stories are haunting and left me thinking about them deep into the night. Simply beautiful. ( )

These stories are good; I'm sure of that. But at the end of each one I found myself thinking "That would make the basis of a great novel". This is the problem for me with this form of story - it isn't long enough to really explore the issues in sufficient depth to satisfy me. Very few writers can achieve this - the best book of short stories I've read would be Elizabeth Hay's "Small Change". I like Barbash's style though, and so I think I will keep his name on my 'to read' list and look for a copy of his novel, "The Last Good Chance". ( )

I received this book from Goodreads.

With a title like Stay Up With Me, one may expect this book to be full of scary stories. In some ways, I think it hits on something that scares most people more than they would admit; losing someone they love.
In this collection of stories, Tom Barbash touches on just that aspect. How does a person handle changes of such nature in their lives?
I enjoyed this collection of short stories, easily being able to picture each of these characters in everyday life. The human emotion is touched on very well within these stories, and the reactions, grief, disbelief, jealousy, denial, all added into life situations. Very raw and straight to it, this is not a "happily ever after" type of book, but rather shows the real sides of humanity and emotion, which aren't always pretty. ( )

These short stories often feature people in pain, people going through the misery that occurs in modern lives, and the entire collection is incredibly well done. I just finished the book and it's hard to pick out my absolutely favorite story -- they all shine in their own way. ( )