My Rating: 3.5 stars
While I liked this short story collection overall, the problem I had with it was similar to what I usually experience with short stories — the way the stories begin in the middle of an event and then break off suddenly, created a feeling of "incompleteness" that honestly made it difficult for me to truly enjoy this collection the way I would a complete story or novel. When I read a story, I'm pretty big on character development — which, for me, means being able to follow a character (or characters) through their journey and watching them grow and evolve in the process. Unfortunately, most short story collections naturally lack in this area due to the short amount of time the reader gets to spend with the characters. Oftentimes, as soon as I start to warm to a character, the story is over - the abruptness of it makes me feel like I've been left hanging and that I'm perhaps missing something. It's a feeling I never enjoy having, which is why short story collections are oftentimes a hit or miss for me (the ones where the same characters "show up" throughout the collection or where there is some sort of connection between all the stories usually work better for me).
With this latest collection from May-lee Chai, one of the things I really liked was the variety of the stories in terms of type and genre — there were ones that explored modern day issues realistically while others veered more into the science fiction and fantasy realm. Having said that though, this became a detriment when it came to the stories that felt inadequately short, as it felt particularly jarring when I was suddenly being plucked out of one world and dropped into an entirely different one. This was made all the more frustrating when it would happen each time the story started to get interesting (or, as mentioned earlier, when I was starting to warm to a character and wanted to read more about them). By the time I got to the end of the collection, I felt dissatisfied and (I hate to say it) also a bit cheated.
Overall, I felt like this collection had potential, and based on the premise of this being about the global Chinese diaspora, I was actually quite looking forward to reading it. The content of the stories were good, but the overall feel was too choppy, causing this collection to fall a bit short in the end. I think if Chai were to take these short stories and expand them to be more complete (like perhaps turn them into novellas?), that would've worked better, at least for me (I would definitely read them if that were the case).
While I liked this short story collection overall, the problem I had with it was similar to what I usually experience with short stories — the way the stories begin in the middle of an event and then break off suddenly, created a feeling of "incompleteness" that honestly made it difficult for me to truly enjoy this collection the way I would a complete story or novel. When I read a story, I'm pretty big on character development — which, for me, means being able to follow a character (or characters) through their journey and watching them grow and evolve in the process. Unfortunately, most short story collections naturally lack in this area due to the short amount of time the reader gets to spend with the characters. Oftentimes, as soon as I start to warm to a character, the story is over - the abruptness of it makes me feel like I've been left hanging and that I'm perhaps missing something. It's a feeling I never enjoy having, which is why short story collections are oftentimes a hit or miss for me (the ones where the same characters "show up" throughout the collection or where there is some sort of connection between all the stories usually work better for me).
With this latest collection from May-lee Chai, one of the things I really liked was the variety of the stories in terms of type and genre — there were ones that explored modern day issues realistically while others veered more into the science fiction and fantasy realm. Having said that though, this became a detriment when it came to the stories that felt inadequately short, as it felt particularly jarring when I was suddenly being plucked out of one world and dropped into an entirely different one. This was made all the more frustrating when it would happen each time the story started to get interesting (or, as mentioned earlier, when I was starting to warm to a character and wanted to read more about them). By the time I got to the end of the collection, I felt dissatisfied and (I hate to say it) also a bit cheated.
Overall, I felt like this collection had potential, and based on the premise of this being about the global Chinese diaspora, I was actually quite looking forward to reading it. The content of the stories were good, but the overall feel was too choppy, causing this collection to fall a bit short in the end. I think if Chai were to take these short stories and expand them to be more complete (like perhaps turn them into novellas?), that would've worked better, at least for me (I would definitely read them if that were the case).
Received ARC from Blair Books via Edelweiss.
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