Short Story Review - Whiskey Devil by Christian Galacar

I'm a fan of short stories and this is a good one about a family suffering from an abusive father. There's some good build up and the author writes well. The pivot point is very good, but it peters out after that point with the ending being quite sudden. It's a satisfactory ending but I would have liked to have seen it developed more.

It does however suffer from one of my pet peeves in e-books and that's padding with the  author's other content. The short story ends at 80% and then there's a chapter for another book. A shout out, or a link is fine, but a fifth of the content devoted to another book is a bit much.

That aside this is a decent short story and you feel for the characters as the plot progresses. With more development it could have been a great story.

Click on image to buy from Amazon

Bobby Trask is a twelve-year-old kid in a bad place. His father is an abusive drunk with muddled religious views, and his mother, as hard as she tries to defend her son, only ever ends up delaying the inevitable. Things take a turn for the worse one Friday when Bobby brings home a black eye from school. The following day his father brings him out into the woods on mission to do “God’s Work” and bring him into adulthood.

A coming of age story about the sins of a father and a boy’s chance to absolve himself from them.

Click here to buy Whiskey Devil from Amazon US / Amazon UK (and it's a decent short story)