Between Shifts

I wanted to like this more than I did. The premise — a young photographer coping when her gallery closes — is timely, but the execution leaned too heavily on familiar beats. The discovery of the closure via a folded stack of printed emails with buzzy words like “restructuring” felt a touch on-the-nose rather than surprising. There’s a slow, vignette-like pace that sometimes reads as padding; details such as the chipped mug and the squeaky door are evocative, but they repeat the same melancholic mood without advancing the plot. My bigger issue is predictability: June’s path from gallery closure to temp shifts to a community center invitation follows the expected arc of the ‘artist persists’ cliché. The resolution feels a bit neat — the community center seems to arrive as a tidy plot convenience rather than an organically developed option. I also found a few moments where motivations weren’t fully explained (why certain people in her orbit react the way they do). There are lovely lines and some genuine atmosphere, but the story could have benefited from sharper stakes or a bolder structural choice.

I went into this expecting another artistic-woe tale, but Between Shifts pleasantly sidesteps the usual melodrama. The writing is wry in its observation — the half-blind florist arranging carnations like a private act, the camera as a familiar animal — and it knows when to stay still. The scene with the ‘restructuring’ email is brutal without being theatrical: the kind of bureaucratic cruelty you read and feel in your teeth. If you like stories that aren’t trying to hustle you into catharsis, this is your jam. It dawdles in all the right places, letting small details accumulate into a portrait of a life that keeps finding ways to make art between the paychecks. Charming, honest, and a little bit rueful.

This one hit me in the chest, not the gut — in a good, lingering way. June’s camera “hanging under her coat like a familiar animal” is such a perfect line. I loved the small neighborhood beats: the paint-flecked stoop, the florist who arranges carnations like a private act, the way the fluorescent lights make voices sound flat. The gallery-notice scene is handled beautifully — that folded stack of emails, the bureaucratic language that’s anything but consoling. Also, can I say how real the panic felt? Sitting on that low bench by the window, pretending it’s a mistake — I’ve been there. The story isn’t flashy, it’s cozy and sharp at once. Made me want to pick up my camera and walk the long way home. 📷

Short and lovely. The story’s power is in its patience: the little rituals (the door latch squeak, the exact place of the chipped mug) build a believable world. June’s reaction to the printed email is devastatingly real — you can feel the disbelief, the waiting for someone to say it’s a mistake. I liked how the city details (torn saddle, half-blind florist) kept the narrative grounded. A gentle, honest portrait of someone keeping their practice alive.

Between Shifts reads like an elegy to precarious creative labor, and it handles that subject with a practiced, patient hand. The narrative's strength is its specificity: the cadence of the gallery, the sweet mug chipped in a crescent, the way fluorescent lights flatten voices. Those details are not window dressing; they structure the reader’s emotional map. The folded printed emails and that blunt subject line — “restructuring,” “effective immediately” — function as such a tactile inciting incident that you can almost feel June’s stomach go cold. I appreciated the way photography functions thematically: June’s camera is described as a familiar animal and a promise, which aligns image-making with care, habit, and survival rather than glamour. There’s also a neat economic reading here — the ‘quiet economies of neighborhood life’ are rendered through temp shifts, community center invitations, the florist’s private labor — which gives the slice-of-life frame real socio-economic texture. Formally, the prose leans toward vignette, which sometimes makes the pacing feel episodic, but that fits the subject: life between shifts is itself episodic. Overall, thoughtful and well-observed.

I found this story quietly devastating in the best way. The opening scene — June knowing the gallery’s rhythms, the exact place of the chipped ceramic mug, the nine o’clock light — made me feel like I was walking those streets with her. The moment she finds the folded stack of printed emails with the word “restructuring” on top landed with real physical weight; I remember that dull, thin panic like it was my own. What I loved most was the attention to small things: the paint-flecked stoop, the torn saddle on the bicycle, the half-blind florist’s private, stubborn arrangements. These details don’t just decorate the city — they explain June’s work and why making images matters to her. The voice is compassionate and patient, the kind of prose that notices the hum of fluorescent lights and the squeak of a door latch and lets those sounds do emotional work. The story doesn’t promise dramatic rescue, which felt honest; instead it gives June a series of careful choices — temp shifts, community center invites, small shows — and the sense of someone persisting. That resilience is the book’s small victory. Warm, observant, and deeply human.

There’s a real tenderness here for the small economies of city life. The writing lingers on texture — the crescent chip of a mug, the squeak of a latch, the nine o’clock light — and these textures become the scaffolding for June’s emotional world. The shock of finding the gallery’s closure in a neat stack of printed emails is handled without melodrama; the prose lets the moment do its quiet work. What I admired was how the story resists grand narrative fixes. June doesn’t immediately have a breakthrough or an epiphany; she has temp shifts and community center invites and the small, tenacious practice of making images. That restrained hope feels truer than any sweeping resolution. This is a careful, compassionate slice-of-life that honors persistence.