Hell No...Purgatory, Yes

Dark Comedy Short Stories

Fiction - Anthology
237 Pages
Reviewed on 08/05/2024
Buy on Amazon

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    Book Review

Reviewed by Pikasho Deka for Readers' Favorite

If you enjoy dark comedy and short stories, grab a copy of Hell No... Purgatory, Yes by Cherie Kerr. This collection contains twelve tales that examine human behavior in extraordinary situations. An eight-year-old Catholic girl makes sure she has enough sins to confess. A former actress goes through an existential crisis at lunch with her indifferent husband. A woman trapped in a room tries to leave but struggles to let go of her possessions. A mother admonishes her grown and uncaring son to no avail. Plagued by guilt after being forced to skip church by her big sister, a little girl unwittingly takes the blame for a stolen toy watch. A woman goes through every option to repair her faulty dryer. A woman loses herself in the memories of an erotic encounter with a mysterious man.

Hell No... Purgatory, Yes is a captivating collection of tales filled with dark humor, drama, and intrigue. There are moments in this book that will make you laugh out loud at the most inopportune situations. Cherie Kerr does a brilliant job of crafting lively and well-developed characters within a few pages. As you read further into these tales, you realize that these characters have layers to them that get slowly peeled back as the story progresses. The author uses a diverse cast of characters from a wide range of backgrounds. Each story tackles a different facet of human behavior as part of a larger tapestry of existential themes of the overall narrative. The collection is very entertaining as there is not a single, dull moment in the entire book. Short story lovers are in for a treat with this one.