I liked all of Taylor's characters, but I had a hard time figuring out how all of these stories fit together, or if they even did, despite Lionel/Charles/Sophie's story being woven throughout. ( )

I seem to be the odd one out here but I really didn't like it. It was so incredibly boring, I could barely get through it. Normally short story collections have at least one story that I like but literally nothing happened in any of the stories other than a bunch of people having sex and then talking about how they had sex. It got to the point that I got bored within the first few sentences of a story because I just knew it wasn't going to be good. Also, I didn't care at all about Lionel/Sophie/Charlie and every time another story brought them up, I had to switch to reading another book because I just... couldn't do it. The prose was fine and that's really the only positive I can think of here. ( )

Short stories- not all "linked", though some include our main protagonists: maths student, Lionel- B;lack, gay, getting back into life after a suicide attempt- and the couple he meets: both dancers, in an ambiguous relationship...
It's powerful writing, themes of tensions in relationships, coping with being gay... ( )

i think this is a book that suffers from its marketing a little; it's not really a collection of linked short stories, not in the way i understand "linked" anyway. thematically - absolutely, the themes of violence and humanity are woven through these stories expertly. but there's one thread that runs through the book and other pieces fitted in between and around it and, i don't know, maybe i was being stupid, but i kept expecting everything to draw back to that main story somehow. at any rate, it doesn't, and i wasted my sense of anticipation on some perfectly good writing.

if you've read "real life," this one covers some of the same ground thematically, and i felt that "real life" did it fresher, more compellingly. but i also think it could just be that i prefer a narrative novel to a short story collection. anyway! i liked it. taylor really is the master of the unsettling. ( )

The writing was artful, and the plots interesting, compelling, thought- provoking.

https://donut-donut.dreamwidth.org/828645.html ( )