Review of The Champagne Tales
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shamspradhan
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Review of The Champagne Tales
[Following is a volunteer review of "The Champagne Tales" by Michael Amon.]
The Champagne Tales, by Michael Amon, is a collection of ten short stories where the alcoholic drink in the title plays a major role in every tale. The stories range across a broad selection of topics, from a review of a fancy restaurant and wine connoisseurs to a family’s legacy and conversion therapy. It tackles many issues, which leads to several of the stories having implicit or explicit morals.
Amon has demonstrated his story-telling skills very effectively through this book. Each story is wildly different, showing his versatility when it comes to writing. He even writes colloquially sometimes in order to get across the accent or pronunciation so that the audience feels involved. Champagne is treated like a character in each story and the way it is viewed changes with every story. My favourite story in this book is the second one, which is written like a sarcastic review for a high-end restaurant that is not that great. It was extremely entertaining to read, especially due to Amon's writing. The use of satire throughout the story, as well as the comical elements of the story, made it a very memorable read. These are just a few of the techniques that Amon has used in this book to entrance readers. Amon being a wine connoisseur himself adds to this book in terms of information. In some stories, he demonstrates his knowledge through the characters which is very interesting for someone who doesn’t know much about this topic, like me.
Though this book definitely has its positive points, it also has a couple of negatives. The first point is that the quality of the stories is not consistent. Some of them are amazing and capture you so fast that you end up finishing the story in half an hour. Other stories in this collection are the opposite, with undeveloped characters, settings, and plotlines that it takes ages to finish the story as it just isn’t fun to read. An example of this stunted story-telling would be the first tale in the book. The writing felt a bit rigid like there was no emotion behind anything. The characters felt stale, seemed like cardboard instead of people due to the way they were presented in the story. This completely contrasts the second story, which I loved. The next big downside of this book is present in the third story. All the characters in that story are Black, which is probably why Amon thought it appropriate to use the n-word multiple times. This would have been alright if Amon himself was Black but he is a white man. This is extremely wrong because the n-word has been used as a slur against the Black communities in the past, but is now being reclaimed by the people. It should only ever be used by Black people, which makes it very problematic and racist. The n-word did not have to be used as it made no difference to the story. Amon also seemed to be depending on a lot of Black stereotypes of them being poor and into drugs for a few of the stories. This shadowed the experience of reading the book by the feeling that it was written by a racist, meaning that I was not able to enjoy it properly.
After weighing all aspects of The Champagne Tales, I rate this book 2 out of 4 stars. Due to the great writing showed by Amon, it was not possible to give this book 1 star. However, the inconsistency of the writing and the racist undertones did not warrant 3 or 4 stars. Hence, I gave it the above rating.
This book is suitable for young adult and adult audiences. This is because the book contains some strong language and the issues written about are ones that these audiences will understand. The writing is most suitable for these audiences due to some of the sensitive topics and because it is a mainly serious book. Overall, The Champagne Tales has a few good stories, but Amon could definitely do better than this.
******
The Champagne Tales
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
The Champagne Tales, by Michael Amon, is a collection of ten short stories where the alcoholic drink in the title plays a major role in every tale. The stories range across a broad selection of topics, from a review of a fancy restaurant and wine connoisseurs to a family’s legacy and conversion therapy. It tackles many issues, which leads to several of the stories having implicit or explicit morals.
Amon has demonstrated his story-telling skills very effectively through this book. Each story is wildly different, showing his versatility when it comes to writing. He even writes colloquially sometimes in order to get across the accent or pronunciation so that the audience feels involved. Champagne is treated like a character in each story and the way it is viewed changes with every story. My favourite story in this book is the second one, which is written like a sarcastic review for a high-end restaurant that is not that great. It was extremely entertaining to read, especially due to Amon's writing. The use of satire throughout the story, as well as the comical elements of the story, made it a very memorable read. These are just a few of the techniques that Amon has used in this book to entrance readers. Amon being a wine connoisseur himself adds to this book in terms of information. In some stories, he demonstrates his knowledge through the characters which is very interesting for someone who doesn’t know much about this topic, like me.
Though this book definitely has its positive points, it also has a couple of negatives. The first point is that the quality of the stories is not consistent. Some of them are amazing and capture you so fast that you end up finishing the story in half an hour. Other stories in this collection are the opposite, with undeveloped characters, settings, and plotlines that it takes ages to finish the story as it just isn’t fun to read. An example of this stunted story-telling would be the first tale in the book. The writing felt a bit rigid like there was no emotion behind anything. The characters felt stale, seemed like cardboard instead of people due to the way they were presented in the story. This completely contrasts the second story, which I loved. The next big downside of this book is present in the third story. All the characters in that story are Black, which is probably why Amon thought it appropriate to use the n-word multiple times. This would have been alright if Amon himself was Black but he is a white man. This is extremely wrong because the n-word has been used as a slur against the Black communities in the past, but is now being reclaimed by the people. It should only ever be used by Black people, which makes it very problematic and racist. The n-word did not have to be used as it made no difference to the story. Amon also seemed to be depending on a lot of Black stereotypes of them being poor and into drugs for a few of the stories. This shadowed the experience of reading the book by the feeling that it was written by a racist, meaning that I was not able to enjoy it properly.
After weighing all aspects of The Champagne Tales, I rate this book 2 out of 4 stars. Due to the great writing showed by Amon, it was not possible to give this book 1 star. However, the inconsistency of the writing and the racist undertones did not warrant 3 or 4 stars. Hence, I gave it the above rating.
This book is suitable for young adult and adult audiences. This is because the book contains some strong language and the issues written about are ones that these audiences will understand. The writing is most suitable for these audiences due to some of the sensitive topics and because it is a mainly serious book. Overall, The Champagne Tales has a few good stories, but Amon could definitely do better than this.
******
The Champagne Tales
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Latest Review: How To Be Successful by M. Curtis McCoy
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Ruchi Raina
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It's too bad that the emotion was missing in the story. It was really wrong for the white man to call those people the n-word. Thanks for the great review.
Latest Review: House of Ashes by Margaret Blythe
