What do you think?
Rate this book
The Best That You Can Do: Stories
Winner of the 2023 Soft Skull-Kimbilio Publishing Prize, a collection of short stories that elaborate the realities of a diasporic existence, split identities, and the beautiful potency of meaningful connections
Primarily told from the perspective of women and children in the Northeast who are tethered to fathers and families in Puerto Rico, these stories explore the cultural confusion of being one person in two places—of having a mother who wants your father and his language to stay on his island but sends you there because you need to know your family. Loudly and joyfully filled with Cousins, Aunts, Grandparents, and budding romances, these stories are saturated in summer nostalgia, and place readers at the center of the table to enjoy family traditions and the resplendent and universal language of survival for displaced or broken families.
Refusing to shy away from dysfunction, loss, obligation, or interrogating Black and Latinx heritages “If we flip the channels fast enough, we can turn almost anyone Puerto Rican, blurring black and white into Boricua.” Gautier's stories feature New York neighborhoods made of island nations living with seasonal and perpetual displacement. Like Justin Torres’ We the Animals , or Quiara Alegria Hudes’ My Broken Language , it’s the characters-in-becoming—flanked by family and rich with detail—that animate each story with special frequencies, especially for readers grappling split-identities themselves.
Primarily told from the perspective of women and children in the Northeast who are tethered to fathers and families in Puerto Rico, these stories explore the cultural confusion of being one person in two places—of having a mother who wants your father and his language to stay on his island but sends you there because you need to know your family. Loudly and joyfully filled with Cousins, Aunts, Grandparents, and budding romances, these stories are saturated in summer nostalgia, and place readers at the center of the table to enjoy family traditions and the resplendent and universal language of survival for displaced or broken families.
Refusing to shy away from dysfunction, loss, obligation, or interrogating Black and Latinx heritages “If we flip the channels fast enough, we can turn almost anyone Puerto Rican, blurring black and white into Boricua.” Gautier's stories feature New York neighborhoods made of island nations living with seasonal and perpetual displacement. Like Justin Torres’ We the Animals , or Quiara Alegria Hudes’ My Broken Language , it’s the characters-in-becoming—flanked by family and rich with detail—that animate each story with special frequencies, especially for readers grappling split-identities themselves.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 16, 2024
15 people are currently reading
3603 people want to read
About the author
Amina Gautier
20 books108 followersAmina Gautier is the author of the short story collections At-Risk, Winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award (University of Georgia Press, 2011), Now We Will Be Happy, Winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction (University of Nebraska Press, 2014), and The Loss of All Lost Things (Elixir Press, 2016. She has published over ninety short stories. They appear in Agni, Best African American Fiction, Callaloo, Glimmer Train, Iowa Review, Kenyon Review, New Stories From the South, Notre Dame Review, North American Review, Prairie Schooner, Southern Review, and Storyquarterly among other places.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
January 16, 2024
I love reading short stories and my first collection of 2024 is a good one! THE BEST THAT YOU CAN DO by Amina Gautier is a great collection of 58 short stories. I loved how these stories are interconnected and discuss the ups and downs of Black childhood and family life in such places as Brooklyn and Puerto Rico. Some of these stories are as short as 2 pages and propelled me to read further. I loved the mention of Vancouver in the story Breathe. My fave stories are Feliz Navidad and all the stories in section five Caretaking because wow that ending! I’m excited to read some more short story collections this year!
Thank you to Soft Skull Press for my gifted review copy!
Thank you to Soft Skull Press for my gifted review copy!
February 14, 2024
Phenomenal collection. Will definitely be reading this author’s backlist. These stories were only a handful of pages each but man they packed a punch.
February 7, 2024
Some of these are more compelling than others but Gautier has a beautiful way with words
March 12, 2024
This felt like Sideways Stories at Wayside School, but grown up and a little more worldly. Loved seeing the connections between stories. Some really hit you
October 27, 2024
Subtle misdirection in a wonderful collection shorts
Amina Gautier has created an intense set of short stories, thematically nuanced, but circling related characters. Each tell heart wrenching tales of love, loss, abandonment, regret, and heartbreak. Rich in culture, nostalgia and history, the stories are entertaining and important for the times.
Amina Gautier has created an intense set of short stories, thematically nuanced, but circling related characters. Each tell heart wrenching tales of love, loss, abandonment, regret, and heartbreak. Rich in culture, nostalgia and history, the stories are entertaining and important for the times.
February 28, 2025
This really isn’t a single book, but five loosely related collections of short stories. Within some of the collections (namely Quarter Rican and Caretaking), the characters reoccur, but outside of each collection, there aren’t many links.
Some limits to the form
While I generally enjoy short story collections, I did struggle with the length of this one. Many of these stories are a step away from flash fiction, which is a tricky pace to maintain for 200+ pages. Especially in the less connected sections, I just felt like there was both too much content and also not enough. The lack of chronological order felt most challenging in the Quarter Rican section, because there were so few pages to understand which generation we were dealing with in a given story. By the time it was made clear, we’d be jumping up or down the family tree. I think with a bit clearer organization, readers would’ve more easily built awareness of the different characters.
Gen X and the latchkey experience
I really enjoyed Before and Quarter Rican as collections that focused on the unique loneliness that plagued the “latchkey” kids of Black Gen X. At first, I couldn’t buy that the siblings in the first collection were so obsessed with their Puerto Rican granddad. My dad’s bio dad was also a deadbeat, and I never thought twice about missing that man. But then I thought about the general differences in my life: not only did I have an incredibly reliable grandfather (my grandma’s second husband, who raised all of her kids including my dad), but I also had bonafide helicopter parents. This is a common experience for many Gen Z children of Gen X parents, where it seems like our parents took a complete 180 approach from their own upbringing. Until this collection, I didn’t realize how those differences might shape our desires in relationships.
There’s something unique that likely happens when you are left to your own devices during “those…late afternoons when she let herself in with a latchkey and waited for someone to come home and take care of her so she could be done looking after herself.” (105) That sort of situation could likely create a yearning for any family you can get, maybe even a longlost Puerto Rican grandfather. It also could create a sort of detachment from your family, even as you live in the same home, because of the child’s rarely expressed sense of emotional/physical neglect (even while your parents are working to financially care for you.)
Before this collection, I would’ve said my parents had a much closer relationship to their communities than I do—they spent entire summers with their grandparents, aunts/uncles, and cousins, and when they were back home, they roamed freely around their entire neighborhoods with their friends. Amina Gautier’s work exposes the B-side of those experiences, and the regrets that exist alongside their nostalgia. If you talk to any Black Gen Xer, you’ll know that summers spent elsewhere are like this quintessential part of their culture. I never thought about what they might have missed in this scenario, how, as one character puts it: “Your parents call it the chance of a lifetime, but they’re too old to remember how a whole lifetime can be lived in one short sweet summer.” (62) This nuanced exploration of the latchkey kids' afternoons alone and summers away is one of the most compelling threads of Gautier’s work.
The middle sections
The third section, The Best You Can Do, quickly shifts its focus to older characters. There is little about coming of age, but much about the annoyance of dating in the modern age. These characters have miserable first dates, unfulfilling dinners with their longtime spouses, and curious glimpses into the people from their past. I really enjoyed the seemingly longsuffering wife from “In the Name of Love”, who was secretly fattening up her husband to end his affair. “Don’t Mention It” also shows Gautier’s comedic chops, and this story about the imbalanced mental load of homemaking is a fantastic end to the section.
The fourth section, Breathe, is full of hackneyed political pandering (“Tears on Tap”) and over-the-top racial virtue signaling (“Elevator”). I didn’t hate “Monument”, an alternate reality story close to the end of the section. Otherwise, I wish these stories had been cut entirely.
Five stars for the fifth section
The final section, Caretaking, knocks it out the park. I loved the split stories of Winsome and Ms. McAllister, how they mirrored and overlapped with each other playfully. Gautier nails so many elements of caring for a person with impaired mobility and speech: the length of time it takes to do each task, the many attempts you must make in a single conversation, and the frayed patience this creates for all parties. Winsome and Ms. McAllister develop a conspiratorial nature, bonding over shared treats they aren’t “supposed” to have: men and chips.
I nearly cried reading about Lucas, Ms. McCallister’s former love who, in an alternate reality, might’ve saved her from a life of thankless familial duty and ultimate isolation. I grieved a similar thing for my papa at the end of his life—how his commitment to being a dutiful family man/provider prevented him from divorcing my grandma, and potentially finding a thriving second marriage with a kind, compassionate spouse. I often wondered how that alternate reality would’ve changed the end of his life, and so it really touched me to see Gautier thinking through the same thing. My final note on this section is that I *loved* the eventual reveal that the core women in sections 1 and 5, Ms. (Eunice) McAllister and Geraldine (the previously unnamed and thoroughly abandoned first wife of Inez’s brother), were actually sisters!!!!!!
Final thoughts
I didn’t love this collection, but parts of it really stuck with me. I’d most strongly recommend the stories in Before and Caretaking, but there’s also fun to be found in “The Best You Can Do. If you’re a person of a certain age (born in the 60s to 80s), or love a person around that age, you’ll get a lot out of these stories.
Some limits to the form
While I generally enjoy short story collections, I did struggle with the length of this one. Many of these stories are a step away from flash fiction, which is a tricky pace to maintain for 200+ pages. Especially in the less connected sections, I just felt like there was both too much content and also not enough. The lack of chronological order felt most challenging in the Quarter Rican section, because there were so few pages to understand which generation we were dealing with in a given story. By the time it was made clear, we’d be jumping up or down the family tree. I think with a bit clearer organization, readers would’ve more easily built awareness of the different characters.
Gen X and the latchkey experience
I really enjoyed Before and Quarter Rican as collections that focused on the unique loneliness that plagued the “latchkey” kids of Black Gen X. At first, I couldn’t buy that the siblings in the first collection were so obsessed with their Puerto Rican granddad. My dad’s bio dad was also a deadbeat, and I never thought twice about missing that man. But then I thought about the general differences in my life: not only did I have an incredibly reliable grandfather (my grandma’s second husband, who raised all of her kids including my dad), but I also had bonafide helicopter parents. This is a common experience for many Gen Z children of Gen X parents, where it seems like our parents took a complete 180 approach from their own upbringing. Until this collection, I didn’t realize how those differences might shape our desires in relationships.
There’s something unique that likely happens when you are left to your own devices during “those…late afternoons when she let herself in with a latchkey and waited for someone to come home and take care of her so she could be done looking after herself.” (105) That sort of situation could likely create a yearning for any family you can get, maybe even a longlost Puerto Rican grandfather. It also could create a sort of detachment from your family, even as you live in the same home, because of the child’s rarely expressed sense of emotional/physical neglect (even while your parents are working to financially care for you.)
Before this collection, I would’ve said my parents had a much closer relationship to their communities than I do—they spent entire summers with their grandparents, aunts/uncles, and cousins, and when they were back home, they roamed freely around their entire neighborhoods with their friends. Amina Gautier’s work exposes the B-side of those experiences, and the regrets that exist alongside their nostalgia. If you talk to any Black Gen Xer, you’ll know that summers spent elsewhere are like this quintessential part of their culture. I never thought about what they might have missed in this scenario, how, as one character puts it: “Your parents call it the chance of a lifetime, but they’re too old to remember how a whole lifetime can be lived in one short sweet summer.” (62) This nuanced exploration of the latchkey kids' afternoons alone and summers away is one of the most compelling threads of Gautier’s work.
The middle sections
The third section, The Best You Can Do, quickly shifts its focus to older characters. There is little about coming of age, but much about the annoyance of dating in the modern age. These characters have miserable first dates, unfulfilling dinners with their longtime spouses, and curious glimpses into the people from their past. I really enjoyed the seemingly longsuffering wife from “In the Name of Love”, who was secretly fattening up her husband to end his affair. “Don’t Mention It” also shows Gautier’s comedic chops, and this story about the imbalanced mental load of homemaking is a fantastic end to the section.
The fourth section, Breathe, is full of hackneyed political pandering (“Tears on Tap”) and over-the-top racial virtue signaling (“Elevator”). I didn’t hate “Monument”, an alternate reality story close to the end of the section. Otherwise, I wish these stories had been cut entirely.
Five stars for the fifth section
The final section, Caretaking, knocks it out the park. I loved the split stories of Winsome and Ms. McAllister, how they mirrored and overlapped with each other playfully. Gautier nails so many elements of caring for a person with impaired mobility and speech: the length of time it takes to do each task, the many attempts you must make in a single conversation, and the frayed patience this creates for all parties. Winsome and Ms. McAllister develop a conspiratorial nature, bonding over shared treats they aren’t “supposed” to have: men and chips.
I nearly cried reading about Lucas, Ms. McCallister’s former love who, in an alternate reality, might’ve saved her from a life of thankless familial duty and ultimate isolation. I grieved a similar thing for my papa at the end of his life—how his commitment to being a dutiful family man/provider prevented him from divorcing my grandma, and potentially finding a thriving second marriage with a kind, compassionate spouse. I often wondered how that alternate reality would’ve changed the end of his life, and so it really touched me to see Gautier thinking through the same thing. My final note on this section is that I *loved* the eventual reveal that the core women in sections 1 and 5, Ms. (Eunice) McAllister and Geraldine (the previously unnamed and thoroughly abandoned first wife of Inez’s brother), were actually sisters!!!!!!
Final thoughts
I didn’t love this collection, but parts of it really stuck with me. I’d most strongly recommend the stories in Before and Caretaking, but there’s also fun to be found in “The Best You Can Do. If you’re a person of a certain age (born in the 60s to 80s), or love a person around that age, you’ll get a lot out of these stories.
May 7, 2024
I chose this book for a book review assignment in an advanced fiction writing college course, and I loved it. I would apologize for this long review but I am not sorry at all.
Amina Gautier’s The Best That You Can Do is a collection of short stories that explore themes like multicultural identities, generational trauma, displacement, childhood nostalgia, interpersonal relationships, racial violence, stereotypes, and prejudice throughout the civil rights era to the present-day and places such as Puerto Rico, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, and more. My favorite section in this book was “Quarter Rican” which follows a family struggling to forget, embrace, and learn their Puerto Rican heritage. This section was packed with raw emotion, description, and life. As a Puerto Rico who was born in Ponce but moved as a young girl, can understand but not speak Spanish, and feels disconnected yet longs for the culture, this section called to me. It was as if I was looking at a mirror. I saw my heart and soul. I saw my family. I saw the island I’d never seen before. It was beautiful.
“Buen Provecho” is told through the point of view of siblings sneaking behind their mother’s back to learn Spanish with their aunt because their mother wants nothing to do with their culture after her Puerto Rican father left her Black mother. It is one of my favorites. The way Gautier used the Spanish language as a division between their two worlds, their mom’s house, and their aunt’s house, was powerful, because not only are they stuck between those two worlds, but they’re stuck between living in America and missing the island where they are from. It is also told from a plural first-person perspective, which Gautier narrates amazingly. I don’t usually like the plural first-person narrator but Gautier executes it skillfully, I loved it. “Making a Way” follows the point of view of a Black-separated mother whose Puerto Rican left her with three children, and he only sent plane tickets for his two sons to visit, excluding his daughter. I nearly teared up during this story. First of all, it is written in a second-person point of view, which I usually don’t like, but Gautier manages it with so much emotion and a detail-driven setting that I loved it. Second, it truly captured the essence of a mother—she will do anything for her children to see their father and learn about their culture, even if it hurts her. I loved how the setting was based around the civil rights movement and the deaths of activists like Medgar, John, and Malcolm, which connected with her dying marriage too. Not only does that setting choice activate this world in a meaningful way but it also strengthens the narrator’s interiority as she mourns the loss of her partner in a period full of losses. “Quarter Rican” nearly made me sob too. It was all in the dialogue for me. It truly captured how my family speaks—how we joke in ways that might hurt but show our love too. “We Ask Why” and “That Island” were simply beautiful. How this section explained cultural identity, language, family complexities, generational trauma, grief, marriage and divorce,
“Before” follows several children during the summertime as they try to make the most of their youth before they grow up. I loved the plural first-person stories the most here. “Surely Not” was my favorite. When the point of view shifted from a collective “we” to an “I,” I nearly dropped the book. I have never read a story that can change perspective so smoothly like that. “Summer Says” felt like childhood to me. It gave me a ton of nostalgia.
“The Best That You Can Do” follows different characters as they navigate the complexities of familial, platonic, and romantic relationships. “So Good To See You” was one of my favorites. The way the story highlighted the characters’ opinions of themselves, each other, and their sociocultural backgrounds all through an omniscient point of view was perfect. It truly captured the dating world today. “Forgive Me” nearly made me cry as a people-pleaser and empath. “Childhood, Princesshood, Motherhood” captured how I feel about raising a daughter in this world completely. “Howl” reminded me so much of a young, awful breakup, and tore my heart. “Minnow” actually broke my heart. Having a baby truly changes your life, but also your body. You are not your own person anymore, and I loved how that story captured that with so much emotion. “Don’t Mention It” was chef’s kiss! I feel like men need to read that short story in school. Seriously. We all want to be appreciated.
“Breathe” follows a different set of Black characters navigating a world set to harm, control, and villainize their bodies. The first story “Breathe” tore my heart with the ending. It is devastating to witness injustice among several minority groups. Linking the genocide of Palestine to the genocide of Black people in America was powerful. “Elevator” WAS beautiful. It truly captured the fear minorities feel around White people in America, especially during the BLM movement. “Karen” and “Monument” were full of so much witty sarcasm and satire, I loved it, especially how they mirrored the hypocrisy of White America.
“Caretaking” follows Mrs. McAllister, an aged woman, and her young caretaker. As an older sister who grew up fast and sacrificed a lot for her family, it was devastating to read these stories. “Keepsake” was the saddest one of all. She could have had such a great life if she hadn’t felt so guilty for her sister’s death.
I loved reading this short story collection. I wanted more. I wanted each section to be expanded on. Gautier is an amazing writer—-one of the best I’ve read from so far. She truly captures the human experience.
Amina Gautier’s The Best That You Can Do is a collection of short stories that explore themes like multicultural identities, generational trauma, displacement, childhood nostalgia, interpersonal relationships, racial violence, stereotypes, and prejudice throughout the civil rights era to the present-day and places such as Puerto Rico, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, and more. My favorite section in this book was “Quarter Rican” which follows a family struggling to forget, embrace, and learn their Puerto Rican heritage. This section was packed with raw emotion, description, and life. As a Puerto Rico who was born in Ponce but moved as a young girl, can understand but not speak Spanish, and feels disconnected yet longs for the culture, this section called to me. It was as if I was looking at a mirror. I saw my heart and soul. I saw my family. I saw the island I’d never seen before. It was beautiful.
“Buen Provecho” is told through the point of view of siblings sneaking behind their mother’s back to learn Spanish with their aunt because their mother wants nothing to do with their culture after her Puerto Rican father left her Black mother. It is one of my favorites. The way Gautier used the Spanish language as a division between their two worlds, their mom’s house, and their aunt’s house, was powerful, because not only are they stuck between those two worlds, but they’re stuck between living in America and missing the island where they are from. It is also told from a plural first-person perspective, which Gautier narrates amazingly. I don’t usually like the plural first-person narrator but Gautier executes it skillfully, I loved it. “Making a Way” follows the point of view of a Black-separated mother whose Puerto Rican left her with three children, and he only sent plane tickets for his two sons to visit, excluding his daughter. I nearly teared up during this story. First of all, it is written in a second-person point of view, which I usually don’t like, but Gautier manages it with so much emotion and a detail-driven setting that I loved it. Second, it truly captured the essence of a mother—she will do anything for her children to see their father and learn about their culture, even if it hurts her. I loved how the setting was based around the civil rights movement and the deaths of activists like Medgar, John, and Malcolm, which connected with her dying marriage too. Not only does that setting choice activate this world in a meaningful way but it also strengthens the narrator’s interiority as she mourns the loss of her partner in a period full of losses. “Quarter Rican” nearly made me sob too. It was all in the dialogue for me. It truly captured how my family speaks—how we joke in ways that might hurt but show our love too. “We Ask Why” and “That Island” were simply beautiful. How this section explained cultural identity, language, family complexities, generational trauma, grief, marriage and divorce,
“Before” follows several children during the summertime as they try to make the most of their youth before they grow up. I loved the plural first-person stories the most here. “Surely Not” was my favorite. When the point of view shifted from a collective “we” to an “I,” I nearly dropped the book. I have never read a story that can change perspective so smoothly like that. “Summer Says” felt like childhood to me. It gave me a ton of nostalgia.
“The Best That You Can Do” follows different characters as they navigate the complexities of familial, platonic, and romantic relationships. “So Good To See You” was one of my favorites. The way the story highlighted the characters’ opinions of themselves, each other, and their sociocultural backgrounds all through an omniscient point of view was perfect. It truly captured the dating world today. “Forgive Me” nearly made me cry as a people-pleaser and empath. “Childhood, Princesshood, Motherhood” captured how I feel about raising a daughter in this world completely. “Howl” reminded me so much of a young, awful breakup, and tore my heart. “Minnow” actually broke my heart. Having a baby truly changes your life, but also your body. You are not your own person anymore, and I loved how that story captured that with so much emotion. “Don’t Mention It” was chef’s kiss! I feel like men need to read that short story in school. Seriously. We all want to be appreciated.
“Breathe” follows a different set of Black characters navigating a world set to harm, control, and villainize their bodies. The first story “Breathe” tore my heart with the ending. It is devastating to witness injustice among several minority groups. Linking the genocide of Palestine to the genocide of Black people in America was powerful. “Elevator” WAS beautiful. It truly captured the fear minorities feel around White people in America, especially during the BLM movement. “Karen” and “Monument” were full of so much witty sarcasm and satire, I loved it, especially how they mirrored the hypocrisy of White America.
“Caretaking” follows Mrs. McAllister, an aged woman, and her young caretaker. As an older sister who grew up fast and sacrificed a lot for her family, it was devastating to read these stories. “Keepsake” was the saddest one of all. She could have had such a great life if she hadn’t felt so guilty for her sister’s death.
I loved reading this short story collection. I wanted more. I wanted each section to be expanded on. Gautier is an amazing writer—-one of the best I’ve read from so far. She truly captures the human experience.
Read
November 18, 2024See my review at Chapter16:
https://chapter16.org/on-the-brink/
https://chapter16.org/on-the-brink/
Read
August 15, 2024The Best That You Can Do brims with life, sorrow, joy, and nostalgia. Winner of the 2023 Soft Skull-Kimbilio Publishing Prize, Amina Gautier’s short story collection brings readers across time to the present day with stops that include Chicago, Philadelphia, Lisbon, and the author’s own native Brooklyn. The stories are compact yet potent, exploring relationships, the connection and rights to one’s own heritage, and complexities embedded in one’s identity.
This collection, in many ways, feels like a master study on the richness of everyday lives. In “Rerun,” Black and Puerto Rican siblings are desperate for Boricua representation on their television screen. “We’ve got the Evans family – Florida, James, Michael, Thelma, and J.J. a.k.a. Kid Dy-no-mite – but we have to work to find the Boricuas,” Gautier writes. “We collect Puerto Rican actors the way other kids collect comics, valued all the more because they’re so rare.” In “Why Not?” a Black woman struggles with the low dating standards others expect her to accept, and the subsequent fallout after a date with an acquaintance. In “Housegirl,” an elderly woman grapples with loneliness in the space of time between visits from her personal home-care attendant.
I spoke with Gautier for Latinx in Publishing about the inspiration behind The Best That You Can Do (out now from Soft Skull Press), re-exploring Puerto Rican identity, and more. You can read our full interview here: https://latinxinpublishing.com/blog/t...
This collection, in many ways, feels like a master study on the richness of everyday lives. In “Rerun,” Black and Puerto Rican siblings are desperate for Boricua representation on their television screen. “We’ve got the Evans family – Florida, James, Michael, Thelma, and J.J. a.k.a. Kid Dy-no-mite – but we have to work to find the Boricuas,” Gautier writes. “We collect Puerto Rican actors the way other kids collect comics, valued all the more because they’re so rare.” In “Why Not?” a Black woman struggles with the low dating standards others expect her to accept, and the subsequent fallout after a date with an acquaintance. In “Housegirl,” an elderly woman grapples with loneliness in the space of time between visits from her personal home-care attendant.
I spoke with Gautier for Latinx in Publishing about the inspiration behind The Best That You Can Do (out now from Soft Skull Press), re-exploring Puerto Rican identity, and more. You can read our full interview here: https://latinxinpublishing.com/blog/t...
April 3, 2024
Short story collections can be really hit or miss for me, which seems a risk somewhat baked into the whole deal. There were very few individual stories throughout I didn't like, but it did feel like the decision to group them so closely together thematically led a lot of them to blend together and lost me in the middle for a bit. That being said the Caretaking section of the collection that the book ended with were interwoven and really painted a powerful portrait that I ended the read very thankful that I'd done so.
July 24, 2024
The Best That You Can Do is a collection of intergenerational, multi-ethnic narratives that underscore the importance of family and community. Many of the stories are interwoven and the language in each one is poetic. Dr. Gautier is a wordsmith, capturing the emotions, passions, and perseverance of her characters. Reading the collection is like taking a step back in time to reminisce on childhood, the neighborhood you grew up in, and the people and places that shaped your life. A beautiful read that's hard to put down!
October 10, 2025
A collection of short stories that feature people of color in major metropolitan cities like NY, Chicago and Philly. I enjoyed each story, Gautier has truly mastered writing a short story! Her work is honest in a way that is refreshing and memorable. In these stories we are introduced to different cultures of the diaspora and all feel authentic. Amina Gautier is now one of my favorite short story writers, along with ZZ Packer and Diane Oliver.
January 2, 2026
These (often very short) stories are filled with life. Linked through their engagement with Black and Puerto Rican experiences, and sometimes specific characters, each story charts a path through love and loss, work, and eventually aging. Amina’s voice is strong and warm throughout.
April 20, 2024
Phenomenal story teller.
April 29, 2024
Not for me. Normally I love short stories but somehow these stories were too short to get in to.
May 12, 2024
3.45 stars
cause short stories are always a fun roller coaster!
cause short stories are always a fun roller coaster!
October 24, 2024
Too much of too much. Some of the stories wanted to burst their seams and become novels. Those I liked best. Some were merely vignettes. Those were forgettable.
December 11, 2025
Phenomenal story collection. Most of these are a glimpse of everyday life, but magnified. Some connected, some not. All lively, authentic and thought provoking.
December 21, 2025
It was alright.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews