Book 39 of my 2014 Goal

Return of the Dittos by Dale Andrew White
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Return of the Dittos by Dale Andrew White is a collection of short stories obvious meant for the reader's entertainment. I think the cover of the book explains it all. It is a picture of an old TV and that is what these stories remind me of, watching old black and white comedies and in some cases, Twilight Zone in the good ole days. The stories are all varied in theme, some are purely humorous while some may use irony. If you don't like one story just keep reading, you may like the next one. It is the perfect book to take with you to enjoy a quick story while waiting at a Dr. office or whenever you have a few minutes because chances are you will be able to read a complete story in just a few minutes.

I only found one story, 'Infatuated,' that I thought was 'sick' for lack of a better way of explaining it. I don't want to give any spoilers away so I really can't explain it but what I mean by it, it is like reading a story about someone who has a foot fetish. This is not what this story is about, it is about something else so be clear on this, I am only using 'foot fetish' as a way to explain it. I do not find feet sexy, nor do I worship them. To me those that do are 'sick' and this is what I mean about this story, it is 'sick'. (Again, it has nothing to do with feet.)

Other stories can possibly be non-fiction although the author has already stated the book is fiction. The story that comes to mind is 'Disappearing Act' which is about a secret experiment concerning the human mind at a college for a Psychology class on Perceptions & Realities. This experiment is done on students through the course of the semester and after reading it, I realized I too believed and wondered what in my life have I (and how many others) perceived as a reality when in fact it was a deception all along. So this story even had me thinking about the statement, "The charade proved that the human mind will gullibly accept a fiction as a fact, if society insists it is so."

Another story that just cracked me up was 'Little Birdie' by the way the narrator was talking to me, the reader. It was if this 'narrator' is a person living within my mind that is the same 'narrator' for everything I do. It is the one that tells me stories when I read a book, it is the same one that tells me what the letter I received in the mail says, and it is the same one from when I was 2 years old. Well, this hilarious story is about what happens because this 'narrator' had enough of the 'me'.

A story that was very deep is 'On Tour with a Confederate Soldier' while I didn't quite know what one other story was about, other than it was ironic. There are so many stories I can't comment on each one but they are such a wide variety in these stories I find it difficult to believe there isn't something for everyone.

Since these are all short stories (approximately 25 of them) there is no real development of characters or plots and subplots or any time lines and such that I can talk about the development of. About all I can say is that each story had characters that were well enough developed that I knew what I needed to know to make sense of the story. Some I liked, some not so much but either way, at least I knew enough about them to draw my own conclusion. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys short stories and has a sense of humor.

*I received a free copy of this book for my honest review.

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