The Opposite of Loneliness

While I enjoyed this book, I would disagree with the book's description of the stories and essays as “hope-filled”. Several of her essays are definitely inspiring and she intelligently articulates what so many university aged students feel and struggle with. However, the fiction stories, in my opinion, are not “hope-filled”. They are sad, challenging, thought-provoking, and at times hauntingly beautiful. This was my first delve into short stories and I must say that even with their brevity, Keegan was able to develop the story with such detail, description, and emotion, that I felt I knew the characters as if from a full length novel and was always left wishing they were longer.