Muffled Roars

A collection of stories about women saddled with injustice has a repetitive ring.

- Catherine Woulfe

Cecelia Ahern writes wise, kind, funny novels. Sells them, too: 25 million copies and counting. The Irish writer is best known for her debut, PS I Love You, in which a dead man’s letters guide his wife’s journey through grief. She wrote that at 21 and it was turned into a film starring Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler. Now, 16 years, 15 novels – and, I suspect, a fair bit of world-weariness later – Ahern delivers a short-story collection.

Roar features a line-up of women resisting and rebelling and deciding to do life their way. Their stories are very short – between eight and 20 pages each – and there are 30 of them.