What readers think of Tenth of December, plus links to write your own review.

I read this book now in preparation for being in the audience when author George Saunders is presented with the 2023 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction at the National Book Festival on August 12, 2023. While Saunders is receiving this award for the body of his work, this collection of short stories is so spectacular, so special, and so brilliant, it is almost enough on its own to warrant such an honor.

I enjoy reading short story collections, but typically only about half the stories in any given book are what I would rate as excellent or very good. In this collection, eight of the 10 are stellar and the other two are excellent—so highly unusual. While some of them take place in a near dystopian future, most are mind-twists about life today and how we react as human beings. It's social satire at its absolute best.

My favorites among the favorites:
• "Victory Lap": Kyle Boot, a sheltered, overprotected teenage boy whose parents control his behavior with strict rules, is alone at home after school. He witnesses his 14-year-old neighbor Alison Pope, a childhood playmate on whom he now has a big crush, be abducted. If he were to help her, he would break many of his parents' inviolable rules. He is caught in a moral conundrum.

• "Escape from Spiderhead": Young people who have been convicted of the worst crimes can be sent to a facility conducting mind experiments instead of going to prison. Jeff is one of these, and he endures a series of experiments using powerful drugs that test his sexual prowess, his ability to fall in love, and his ability to be the cause of irreparable physical and mental harm to others. This story is disturbing and powerful.

• "The Semplica Girl Diaries": The ultimate status symbol for the suburban lawn and garden is something so outrageous and cruel it boggles the mind. But that's not how the characters in this startling story see it. The story is told in a father's diary entries, written in choppy, incomplete sentences—and it's brilliant.

• "Tenth of December": The title story is a haunting tale of two people—Don Eber, who is a scared and terminally ill middle-aged man who has decided to die by suicide, and Robin, a creative little boy with an inventive imagination who stops him. The story is told from the two characters' inner dialogue—the running thoughts of what each is thinking.

Collectively, the stories are a challenge to the reader: Who are YOU as a human being? How can YOU be a better human being?