PositiveThe RumpusLaura van den Berg’s The Isle of Youth is a collection of seven substantial and engaging short stories that display a vivid spectrum of malaise ... The stories move through many settings and center around different characters, but all unsettle the reader with a sense that in this world things are just not quite right, and never will be ... What is most notable about all of these stories is how confidently the author dances with conventional plotting but denies the readers’ expectations of conventional plots ... Reading all seven stories together, the reader may become too conscious of this one element of structural repetition to enjoy the stories as much as they would be enjoyed singly. But van den Berg is hardly the first successful author whose work falls into general patterns.
