Out of the Girls' Room and Into the Night: Stories

Enjoyed these stories, but have to say the Out of the Girls' Room and Into the Night story knocks me out every time I read it. The tone is so brilliantly built and sustained.

Thisbe Nissen's short story collection captures snippets of love. Each story is wildly different in tone, age of the characters, geographical location, and chronological era. It amazes me that Nissen is able to write with such authenticity from such divergent points of view. Almost every story points out some aspect of the human experience that I had not heretofore considered, or had maybe thought unique to myself. Nissen explores all types of love, as well, not just romantic. There is the young man taking a road trip with his younger, special-needs brother; there are the parents struggling to deal with their daughter's anorexia; there is the young lady who cannot help but adopt one more cat. Each tale is poignant and descriptive without being flowery or trying to hard to be poetic. (That's a big problem I have with capital-L Literature, I feel like its trying too hard; forcing similes and metaphors in an attempt to be inventive and artsy.)Each story ended a little too soon, for my taste, but I was prepared for that having read other reviews, so it wasn't as jarring or crazy-making as I might have found it had I just jumped in. Fortunately, though, a couple of the stories contained in this book have been merged and extended into a later book Nissen has written by the name of The Good People of New York. I do wish she'd do more of this. I'd particularly like to read extended versions of the title story "Out of the Girls Room and Into the Night" and "The Girl at Chichen Itza."Overall, a quite satisfying story collection. Recommended for those who enjoy Literature without being snooty, and those who can deal with a lack of closure.

I read this book back when it first came out and I loved it so much that I immediately bought two more copies, one for each of my best friends. Young Nissen's writing is crisp and poignant, thoughtful and joyful. If you're looking for a lightish, but not fluffy read, pick up this jewel. Nissen is a master of the short story.

The stories is this book ranged from being really good to mediocre to just plain stupid. The best stories were "Flowers in the Dustbin, Poison in the Human Machine", "Way Back When in the Now Before Now", and "The Mushroom Girl". In "Flowers" the cattiness and passive-aggressive bullying that girls face at school is illustrated beautifully, and the characters came to life. In "Way Back When" I felt that "justice" was done, in that the protagonist had the realization of how foolish she was for wasting her time with a boy she didn't care about, while her mother was dying. She seemed to realize that while facing the reality of the situation was rough and while escaping was the easiest thing to do at the moment, that maybe spending time with her mother while she could was what she should have been doing. The "Mushroom" story was just cute.The absolute worst stories had to be "The Animal's Best Interest" and "819 Walnut". The first one was just completely stupid, and I got the feeling that Nissen actually wanted me to sympathize with the vile human being that was the protagonist. "819" was annoying, filled with typical "movie female" behavior, that would never happen in real life (and if it did happen in real life, it wouldn't play out so unrealistically).As for the rest, I was completely indifferent. The characters weren't engaging enough, and Nissen's use of metaphors got irritating after a while, because while some of them were spot on, the greater half make absolutely no sense and merely sound "pretty".Overall, it's mediocre.

Out of the Girls' Room is a sharp, lively collection of stories about relationships, growth, turning points, identity, and communities. It's also a clinic on how to tell a story, on point of view. There are first-person stories where you watch the character's story through her own eyes, third-person stories where you watch from a slight remove, and second-person stories where you're drawn into the character's experience as though taking it on yourself. There's even a story where the narrator is not one person but a group of women, a group that can only tell the story from a place of being unified.

I read this book about ten years ago and every so often I'll pull it off the shelf and read it again. It's beautiful, Apple Pie is one of my all time favorite short stories. I highly recommend it.

This book is just not good. I bought it because Amazon recommended it to me because I bought a Judy Budnitz book (which was a gem, like all her others) and because of the reviews it got here. But after reading about half of the stories I can tell you that this book is not worth your money. It reminds me of critiquing someone's work in a college creative writing class. I don't want to be mean and I want to tell you SOMETHING good about this collection but really...its adolescent and lacks style. You can tell that the author really tried to follow the rules. She tried to take leaps and induce a flow but the results are too workshoppy. I don't think that she had fun writing these stories. Chances are you won't have fun reading them. If you're looking for exciting female contemporaries, check out Judy Budnitz or Aimee Bender. Don't buy this book.

Thisbe Nissen's stories are vivid, emotional and thought-provoking. I bought this book on a whim because I am interested in reading the works of other young writers. I was pulled in by Nissen's stories which felt universal and personal all at once. Her writing style is wonderful and I am very much looking forward to the publication of her first novel. I recommend this book to all my girlfriends and I've even irritated my boss by reading him passages from the stories, on long-distance flights. He thought her writing was good, too, though he no longer sits with my on cross-country trips.