RaveNew York Journal of Books\"With her newest short story collection, Erin McGraw gives her readers an incredible gift: one story to savor for every week of the year (plus a bonus!) if anyone could resist the urge to stop with just one. But as with potato chips or Girl Scout cookies, that’s nearly impossible. Joy: And 52 Other Very Short Stories is full of compulsively readable little stories that each feel developed beyond their few pages. Some are ironic or clever; others are poignant and wrenching; all of them are driven by McGraw’s strong, confident sense of voice for her characters ... The characters in Joy don’t want to be broken and they often go wrong, and the beauty of this book is in how McGraw makes us love them for all their human flaws and fragile hopes.\
Chaya Bhuvaneswar
PositiveNew York Journal of BooksThe collection is bursting with stories...in which characters’ complicated, multilayered emotions are laid uncomfortably bare ... Sometimes funny, always smart and honest, Chaya Bhuvaneswar’s stories hold the reader, even as the painful truths of human lives break through.
