Love Hurts — Barry Hoffman

Barry Hoffman's Love Hurts is a collection of short stories that truly tears at your consciousness. This isn't about supernatural horror (although a couple of stories have supernatural elements) or deranged killers, but rather I call it socially aware horror, taken from the pages of everyday life and thereby making them all the more potent and thought-provoking. Second Chance is based on a true story...actually several I think...about a pregnant teenage who gives birth to her baby during the prom, dumps it in the trash, and then returns to the dance with hardly a second thought. What is more horrific than this obvious contempt for life? In Hoffman's story, a judge dishes out a deliciously ruthless sentence on the teen and we could only wish that this could be done in real life. None of my Concern is another tale based on all too real events. A young woman named Tyra is brutally assaulted by a gang of thugs while friends and other passersby turn their heads away, refusing to get involved. It's not their concern, you see, and isn't this a horrible indictment of the human condition? Spare Parts focuses on the on-going war in Iraq in a blend of Frankenstein science and horror when technology discovers a way to literally piece soldiers back together, even returning them from the dead, so they can go back out and fight. Hoffman skewers the media with a shotgun blast right to the head in this story. The title story, Love Hurts puts the spoiled rotten, Paris Hilton/OC type snobs of the world in the spotlight. A mysterious man who knows her type only too well, kidnaps rich brat Brianna. He breaks down Brianna's defenses in a masterful psychological game, stripping her both literally and figuratively, right down to her soul, and forcing her to admit just what she's become. Masterfully written. There are seven stories in all in this short, 84 page collection and they all prove that Hoffman is at the top of his game.—(? Tim Janson)