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Racha Mourtada
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55 Slightly Sinister Stories: 55 Stories. 55 Words Each. No More. No Less. Kindle Edition

by Racha Mourtada (Author), Lynn Atme (Illustrator) Format: Kindle Edition
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 15 ratings
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Size does matter in these delightfully tiny tales populated with narcoleptic drivers, bickering backers, suspicious spouses, and other memorable characters. Full of dark humor, intrigue, and absurdity, this collection of slightly sinister (and occasionally sweet) stories delivers a bite-size reading experience to satisfy any literary craving.
 
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  1. Part of series
    55 Slightly Sinister Stories: 55 Stories. 55 Words Each. No More. No Less.
  2. Print length
    122 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  5. Publisher
    Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC
  6. Publication date
    June 2, 2020
  7. File size
    32084 KB
  8. Page Flip
    Enabled
  9. Word Wise
    Enabled
  10. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  11. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Racha Mourtada is the founder of Luqoom, a boutique publishing house for children's books. She has had a varied career-working as a biomedical engineer, a UN researcher and a public policy analyst-throughout which the one constant has been her love of writing. An alumnus of Faber Academy's ‘Novel Writing Course' and the inaugural ‘Columbia Publishing Course' at Oxford University, she recently decided to leave her corporate life in Dubai and move back to her native Beirut to set up her publishing house and focus on her writing.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B087FCMNMV
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC (June 2, 2020)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 2, 2020
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 32084 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 122 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 15 ratings

About the author

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Racha Mourtada

Racha Mourtada

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Racha Mourtada is the founder of Luqoom, a boutique publishing house for children's books. She has had a varied career–working as a biomedical engineer, a UN researcher, and a public policy analyst–throughout which the one constant has been her love of writing.

An alumnus of Faber Academy’s ‘Novel Writing Course’ and the inaugural ‘Columbia Publishing Course’ at Oxford University, she decided to leave her corporate life in Dubai and move back to her native Beirut to set up her publishing house and focus on her writing.

She also recently discovered high-altitude trekking and loves to take her books with her on adventures; her first book of flash fiction, '55 slightly sinister stories', traversed the Inca Trail in the summer of 2019, making it up Rainbow Mountain and all the way to the ancient city of Machu Picchu.

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
15 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Priscilla Ramírez-Maroto
5.0 out of 5 stars The twisted truth of life in 55 wicked good stories!
Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2019
Verified Purchase
A book that will definitely become part of my top ten list. My attention was caught right at the beginning and couldn’t drop it until I read it all. The twist in every story brightened up my day with laughs to last for a while.
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Kylie S.
5.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining bite sized stories
Reviewed in the United States on June 13, 2020
The author has outdone herself in narrowing down a story to its essential idea, at the same time making sure that it does not lose its poignancy. Each story in 55 Slightly Sinister Stories is only 55 words long, yet the stories are still amusing, inspiring and thought provoking. This is a mighty task to accomplish in just 1 or 2 short paragraphs.
Rejected lovers, dismayed spouses and embittered writers come alive in a few exceptionally planned out lines.
What’s more is that the book is peppered with charming illustrations which make reading much more enjoyable and serve as eye candy.
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Sarahocha
3.0 out of 5 stars Has room to get better
Reviewed in the United States on June 13, 2020
When these got sinister. And I’m talking sinister with murder and wrongdoings, then this book was great.

However, the “sinister” aspect of it was not as much as one would have expected. Granted that it says “slightly sinister” and not 'fully' and the synopsis points out the inclusion of the non-evil hearted, I still felt there were more light-hearted and missed chances than what the namesake implies. There’s also some that, in my opinion, made no sense at all. Quite often I’d stumble across these and have to reread the passage thinking I maybe missed something but, no – it was just that anticlimactic.

So although I love the idea here, I just wished there were more of the darker ones to align with the sinisterness of the name. Otherwise, it’s really just 55 short stories told in 55 words with illustrations on the side (that were quite lovely actually). The rest of the stories were just okay. Hence the three stars.
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Jill & Albin J. Stanish
4.0 out of 5 stars Alfred Hitchcock in Small Bites
Reviewed in the United States on June 11, 2020
Racha Mourtada has created a sinister batch of 55 short stories that are each exactly 55 words. First of all, I love the concept in which she forces herself to craft words carefully while conveying a complete story. Each story is finely tuned like a sharp knife, offering witty, suprising or shocking endings. Think small installments of Alfred Hitchcock style tales.

It's a quick read, making it the perfect bathroom reader or accompaniment to appointments, allowing you to grab a quick snatch at one of the stories. Aspiring writers may want to read one a day and try to expand on the story or fill in the back story. Or use as a model to challenge oneself to create a short story of a specified number of words (maybe even in a specified number of minutes!).

All in all, it's an interesting concept and a quirky book. Mixed throughout are some black and white drawings that readers may choose to color. I would recommend this for teens due to some mature or macabre content.
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erin
5.0 out of 5 stars Fun, quick, and easy read
Reviewed in the United States on June 28, 2020
This is such a fun, quick, easy read! I was skeptical as to how one could write 55-word stories that were compelling and complete, but this did not disappoint, with stories of loss, love, grief, sex, passion, attraction, young love, and more.
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Schizanthus Nerd
4.0 out of 5 stars Many Stories Revolve Around Love
Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2020
Do you know how hard it is to get your point across in only 55 words? I’d never be able to accomplish that because when it comes to ideas and books, I’m a rambler. I don’t even get my thoughts organised that quickly so I take my hat off to the author for managing it.

That paragraph there? 55 words.

While I really like the idea of bite sized stories I don’t think they’re for me. I love world building and character development too much.

A lot of these stories revolve around love, finding it and losing it. While there were some that had no impact on me at all, I did have a couple of favourites: ‘A Literary Death’ and ‘Fashion Victim’.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for the opportunity to read this book. I’m rounding up from 3.5 stars.
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Mandy Hazen
3.0 out of 5 stars cute, not sinister
Reviewed in the United States on June 8, 2020
Weird but very cute short stories. Definitely kept true to its word by every individual story only being 55 words. Was a very surprising treat. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
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lindseydomokur
4.0 out of 5 stars 55 perfect sized stories
Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2020
It is no secret that I love short stories and I also love dark reads. When I saw this one, I knew i had to read it. I enjoyed most of the stories here. They were short, but they also were thought provoking. I often found myself thinking about what I just read in a deeper way. It didn't take me long to devour all of these stories and the illustrations really set off the message each story was trying to convey.
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