Love Stories in This Town by Amanda Eyre Ward

In this short story collection, novelist Ward explores different women's lives. The anonymous narrator of the first story, "Should I Be Scared?" becomes obsessed with ordering cipro during the antrax scare. Then there's Kimmy, who's relocating to Houston with her husband after she suffers a miscarriage. The last half of the book includes six stories about a woman named Lola who's trying to find contentment. In the first story, she's dumped by her boyfriend for Miss Montana and in the later ones, the reader finds her married to a geologist named Emmett and dealing with the dysfunctionality of her father, Fred. In each story, the author is able to delve deeply into a character's life yet leave the endings of them fairly open. This approach caused me to appreciate the stories, yet wish, at times, that they were longer.