Short story collections can be a bit of a hit or miss for me. One reason is because I need stories to have some type of closure, as I don't like the feeling of being left hanging — for me, a story needs to have a beginning, middle, and ending (which can be good, bad, or indifferent — doesn't really matter to me as long as there's closure). I also enjoy stories with characters that are well-developed and that I can root for. Unfortunately, most short story collections are written in a way where we essentially only get a small "slice of life" snippet, with the story oftentimes ending abruptly – the result is that the stories usually feel incomplete and I'm left yearning for more. In terms of the characters, it's hard for me to be invested enough to root for them when I'm given little to no chance of getting to know them and watching them evolve.
With Ada Zhang's debut collection of stories, The Sorrows of Others, this was exactly the type of situation I encountered. While I loved the themes that the stories explored – the impact of immigration and assimilation, constant struggle with identity and belonging, cultural dissonance between generations, parent/child relationships, complex family dynamics, etc. – I felt that the stories were way too short and therefore the themes weren't covered as amply or deeply as I would've liked (as a point of reference, the entire collection was less than 150 pages, with the longest story being only 22 pages and the shortest story only 6 pages). Nearly every story felt incomplete to me, which made for a frustrating read, as I kept having to start over with each story trying to get back into the groove of things and get acquainted with the new characters.
Format-aside though, the writing here was excellent — Zhang did a great job weaving the cultural elements into the stories, which I definitely appreciated, especially since, being from the same culture, many of the experiences were familiar to me. Also, with some of the characters, the emotional undercurrents were definitely felt within their respective stories, it's just that there wasn't enough time to develop further due to the brevity of the stories.
Out of the 10 stories in this collection, the ones that resonated most with me were: The Sorrows of Others, Propriety, Silence, Sister Machinery, Knowing, and Compromise.
Overall, this was a good collection that I absolutely recommend for those who enjoy the short story format. Though I prefer novels, I appreciated the writing enough in this one that, if Zhang were to put out another short story collection, I would definitely read it.
Received ARC from A Public Space Books via Edelweiss.
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