I enjoyed how well written, and frankly, odd, these stories were. A surprising collection of twisted and satirical thoughts this made the author one to watch in the future for me. J would love to see what he does with a full length novel.

Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience

A weird yet interesting collection of eclectic stories from various parts of the US. A good read for those that like something a bit different!

Interesting collection of well written stories. Incisive satire. If you want a book that you can dip into, this is a great choice.

This was a great collection of speculative short stories featuring a variety of themes, some strange, some confusing, centering on death, birth amongst other themes.

This is a collection of short stories by Mathew Baker that really make you think and reflect on life in America. I liked the contrast between those set in the near future and the more dystopian ones, it was interesting to compare and consider the different paths for society and the ‘what ifs’.

A range of stories that all left me slightly unsettled. I don't think this collection was ultimately for me, but can certainly see the merit of the writing. I'm grateful for the opportunity to have read them so thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Matthew Baker's collection of stories proves an interesting read. Intelligent, engaging and readable, they provide a fascinating snapshot of American life at the unhappy end of the Trump era.

A collection of short stories set in an alternative America, some quite chilling especially the last one. I enjoy dystopian fiction and this absorbing collection made me think. Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the arc.

Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC of this book!

This was an extremely intriguing read, and I’m torn because I did enjoy some of the short stories, but others I really couldn’t grasp. It does remind me of Black Mirror, but I feel like that’s a bit reductive to say. It does read a bit like a dystopia, which is so fitting for our times right now, but it really made me think more deeply about the world we live in and what it’s composed of,

All in all this was a really though provoking collection and I’ll certainly be looking forward to any new works in the future.

I have just finished Matthew Baker's collection and, overall, I enjoyed the eclectic stories - tales which made me think about life in America, from the futuristic and dystopian to ones which are extremely close to the reality that is our world in the 21st Century.

Here, Baker writes with extreme skill about American life - some stories are close to reality, whereas others less so. One common feature of all the stories is Baker's listing - something which is captivating and effective but also, annoying - I think it's used excessively which, like anything, can lose its effect.

One of the stories is about a materialistic, capitalist family - but they are in the minority in their community, shunned for wanting and coveting 'stuff' - perhaps quite the opposite to life in the developed world today. Another deals with people who have had their beings 'wiped' - a bit like a cassette's contents being deleted: 'What was my life like before the wipe?' Wash says. It's taken for granted that people's lives have significant changes and this is the norm, not the exception. Another tale deals with babies being born without souls - and women hole themselves up in a desert retreat, hoping that the treatment there will help with giving birth to healthy babies. Some of Baker's prose is graphic and perhaps gratuitous for many - '... lunged and punctured his neck... a brutal set of fangs... hooked beaks tore strips of flesh...' You probably get the idea. One main quality of Baker's work is the original content and style - it is like nothing else I have read before, and the unique qualities of the collection are likely why a series is being made for TV.

I did enjoy the stories - simple description such as 'Chipmunks were chirping in the ash trees. A bell tower was tolling' is reason enough. However, I feel that Baker labours the point too much - some of the stories are over-long and would be better, in my opinion, if they had had some more rigorous editing. One can't help but feel a journey of discovery is being experienced with this collection - for reader and writer alike - and this is no bad thing.

Read and be amazed - and hang in there is some of the stories seem a bit wayward. Perseverance is worth it.

“Why Visit America” by Matthew Baker casted a spell over me because of its hypnotic cover, and I really was in the mood for short stories again, especially if they are located somewhere in the sci-fi / dystopian genre. But these labels would only limit this volume of stories to that--it is so much more: A study of our life as we live it today, our ideas, dreams and desires. The desire for more sustainability and a life without a footprint of any kind is reflected just as much as thoughts on the subject of consiousness uploads, pandemics or immigrants. The author doesn't always illuminate the side that we might have expected. For example, the chapter “Testimony of your Majesty” tells how a society that strictly adheres to minimalism and minimal waste is shown from the perspective of a rich person. In this world the perfect ratio of possessions to person is 100: 1, and our protagonist is well over 4,000 items. Her family regularly celebrates shopping trips during which they buy tons of unneccessary stuff. The girl, on the other hand, is bullied and excluded at school for her new clothing and fancy things. But she cannot tear herself away from consumption. It is extremely exciting to watch her internal struggle, as she is almost forced to shop by her immediate surroundings, but in the end she goes through a vicious circle of throwing away stuff to achieve the ratio and buying more to fill the hole inside her as she more and more slips into depression. I also recognized myself a little in their behavior, because the pressure from capitalism to buy more stuff is there, but the counter-movement of sustainability and zero waste is also very present.

The other short stories are no less eye-opening. There is the story of Mason, who confesses to his family 'I don't belong in a body' and that he wants to make the transition--that is, he wants to upload his consciousness to the internet. As readers, we not only follow Mason's innermost thoughts, because the focus shifts and we experience how his family takes on this bad news and deals with it.

In “Lost Souls”, 'empty' babies are born all over the world--babies without a soul, whose bodily functions are there, but who die after a few minutes of being alive. In this story, Baker deals with what we are willing to give for our beliefs. The people within this story give everything. They kill each other and also slaughter animals en masse to provide more 'available' souls for the babies. But the epidemic continues to spread and leaves people doing desperate things. In a birthing center there are comatose or simply very old people in the same room as the expecting mothers, and as soon as labor begins, the plug is pulled for one of the old people, the doors are getting closed so that the soul cannot help but be in to find the baby. Creepy.

I could really tell eveing-filling tales about almost every one of the 13 short stories, but I don't want to take away your reading pleasure. The author raises so many different topics that may still seem strange at the beginning of the respective short story, but soon start to get uncomfortably realistic during the course of the story. Like the story of minimalism, for example. The topic of the environment and its compatibility with the human species comes up several times, which I also find important and also eye-opening.

So, before I continue to just paraphrase the content, a few words about the narrative style: Matthew Baker manages to turn seemingly mundane topics or ideas into truly remarkable concepts. Almost every story was very emotional for me and burned itself into my memory with exciting ideas and innovative thoughts. Even if the almost 370 pages somehow dragged on and I needed a month to read (with some parallel reads, of course), this time was well invested and thanks to the brilliant last story “Why Visit America” ended with an amazingly good feeling.

Conclusion: A great collection of short stories! I had some stories lingering in my thoughts long after reading them and the ideas from the last story are still swirling around in my head.

this novel was interesting and modern satire of America was in parts a bit leftfield and weird but the writing was good but won't be to most peoples taste though.

My thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing U.K. for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Why Visit America’ by Matthew Baker in exchange for an honest review.

“Welcome, dear visitor, to a proud and storied nation. When you put down this guidebook, look around you. A nation isn't land. A nation is people.” - from ‘Why Visit America’.

I don’t often read short stories but I am very pleased that I requested this collection as these thirteen tales were quite extraordinary. They were high concept in premise, definitely subversive, yet very readable. Many of the stories take place in a undated future or a slightly alternative America, each holds up a mirror to society.

Matthew Baker is a gifted storyteller and I was continually impressed and surprised by the interesting directions that he took in crafting these little gems. I could easily imagine these stories being adapted for a speculative fiction tv series.

Usually short story collections are a mixed bag but here I didn’t feel there were any were misses. Although I had my favourites, they were all fascinating and thought provoking even if a couple of storylines were a bit uncomfortable to read.

The stories that stood out for me were: ‘The Transition’, the story of a young man embracing a trans human identity; ‘Lost Souls’, which documents a society struggling to adapt to the birth of soulless babies; ‘Testimony of Your Majesty’, a Marie Kondo utopia or dystopia; and the darkly comic and politically astute ‘Why Visit America’.

This is a book that I expect I will revisit, possibly via audiobook, and likely will propose it to my reading group; as aside from being excellently written there is a great deal of material for discussion.

The only thing extra I would have appreciated would be end notes giving some context to the stories.

Highly recommended.

Why Visit America is one of the most refined and ambitious collections of shorts I've read in a long time. Baker has an incredibly unique voice, and despite each story running little over 20 or so pages, he manages to create terrifying yet believable characters and scenarios that stick with you long after you finish reading.

Conceptually, Why Visit America falls in line with the likes of Brooker's Black Mirror, all told with the sharp penmanship found in some of Vonnegut's shorts. It's high concept satire, offering a look into a bleak version of the US that often feels closer to reality than fiction.

In short, Why Visit America is one of the most impressive pieces of fiction I've ever read.

These short story are unsettling, weird, funny and full of food for thought. It was a fascinating and engrossing read and I want to read further stories by this author.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Why Visit America is a collection of 13 stunning short stories – all of which give an unsettling and strange vision of the future of America from a very unique point of view.

As you are reading, there are parts of the stories that seem very normal. Then all of a sudden something happens which catches you completely off guard, you realise what the story is really about and it becomes clear that this is not your standard tale of people living the American Dream.

As a big crime thriller fan, I usually like quite dark books so even though I enjoyed each story, there were three which really stood out for me; Rites, Lost Souls and To Be Read Backward. I have to say that the way To Be Read Backward was written was so complex that I think I would need to read it several times to fully understand the meaning of it all. However, the scenes depicting 9/11 actually gave me chills and were a stand out moment in the book.

I loved everything about Why Visit America, it was a fantastic collection of stories, and I can’t recommend it enough.

I don’t tend to read a lot of short stories for some reason, and I really don’t know why. I’ve enjoyed the few short story collections that I’ve read, and as a format it really appeals to me - in fact, it would seem to be a format that would be perfect for me. My approach to television series is often to lose interest in them when they have too many overarching storylines or plot threads; “Too many” being a nicely flexible term which, in some cases, can mean as few as one or two. This means I tend to favour those which have standalone episodes or can be picked up after time away (Black Mirror and Love, Death and Robots being recent personal highlights). Short stories, it would seem, should be just the ticket for me.

In an attempt to remedy my bizarre dismissal of the format, I decided to give this collection a go. Having never read any of Baker’s writing before, I dove into Why Visit America with no idea of what I might find. I was rewarded with thirteen unique visions of an America that’s often slightly skewed (and on more than one occasion, skewered), with stories frequently based around either a single concept or hot button topic. These are versions of a US which has diverged, where perhaps one particular idea has taken root and flourished - for good or ill. There’s a chilling plausibility to many of the tales here, with religion, politics, economics and the various frequently absurd or flawed systems they prop up given a cunning, futurist twist. Some of these stories are more tongue-in-cheek than others - the title story in particular is a must-read for any Vonnegut fans out there, for example. Others are somewhat darker, harrowing even, but always rewarding, tightly focused and very sharply observed.

The satire on display is of the best, most subtle variety. Throughout this collection, Baker picks and worries at the crumbling American Dream, teasing apart its withered threads before warping and distorting them into something disarming and occasionally even monstrous. Taken at face value, these stories would often be unsettling in themselves, but it’s the effect they have on the reader that really elevates them. One story in particular not only ends with the kind of ambiguity that prompts discussion, but also uses this ambiguity to challenge our own morals and ideals. We’re forced to confront our perception of what we’ve just read, not only asking ourselves if it matters whether or not we have all the answers but also forcing us to question why we want them at all. Would having them change our perception of what we’ve just read? And what would it say about us if it did? More than once, I felt that delightfully unsettling feeling; that feeling that whilst I was reading, I myself was being read.

The high quality of the work on offer here, as well as the deeply personal effect particular stories might have, makes it difficult to pick out a favourite piece. It’s testament to the craftsmanship on display that even now, days after finishing the collection, I can still remember so many individual scenes, not to mention distinctly remembering every story. There’s the chilling Lost Souls, for example, where babies around the world are being born soulless, or the Donnie Darko-esque To be Read Backward, then there’s Life Sentence, with its novel approach to justice, and of course there’s Why Visit America, by turns amusing, sad and optimistic. Because these stories are not wholly without hope, that should be stated - if not for the US, then for its people and their potential for love, acceptance and forgiveness. Whilst this collection is hardly likely to leave you with a song in your heart, it will certainly leave you with a knowing smile. There’ll perhaps even be a tear in your eye.

3.5 for me. I thought this collection of short stories was very clever and well written. Interesting ideas and thought provoking about the current world we live in

I usually enjoy short story collections and this was fantastic! I really enjoyed this author's voice. This is not a mundane collection so prepare for some bizarre situations Matthew Baker deftly explores a variety of topics - masculinity, family, society - and compels you to read on. And I really love the cover!

The only issue I have is that the formatting in the kindle edition was difficult to read and was a bit dodgy unfortunately.