House of Miracles

House of Miracles is a collection of interconnected short stories about love and its different manifestations. Not just between significant others but between married couples, families, and close friends. I liked that the collection was centered on a core group of characters although chronology was hard to follow at times because the stories alternate perspectives, and points in time. Mrs. Von Meurs, a sweet elderly widow who has a special friendship with her neighbor Janet, was my favorite recurring character and I enjoyed the stories in which she made an appearance. Janet, who struggles with balancing love and the strife it can bring, is the main character and while she was quite likeable, I felt as though her story arc remained the most unresolved by the end of the collection.

While the stories were all endearing, I found that only few of the stories resonated strongly enough that I would go back and re-read them individually again. Since these tales all relate to one another, I felt like Hume’s writing was most effective when I read several stories in succession. My favorite pieces, including “The Zither”, “Lottery”, and “Oral Histories”, were very memorable but my reaction to every story was inconsistent. Overall, it is a poetically written sweet compilation of experiences in love.