I was one of the few people who found Emma Cline’s The Girls to be overhyped (all style, no substance etc plus I found the sections where the protagonist was older to be almost unreadably dull) so naturally I was a bit wary of reading Daddy. However, I suspected that her writing style would be more suited to short stories and I found this to be true.

I was very pleasantly surprised by Daddy (!), a spiky collection which features toxic masculinity and disappointing dads as its overarching themes. My favourites were Los Angeles, The Nanny, Marion and a/s/l, all of which focus on female protagonists.

Interestingly, other reviews suggest that people who were obsessed with The Girls seem to be disappointed by these stories, whereas people (like me) who were underwhelmed by the novel ended up enjoying the collection. Basically, what I’m saying is, don’t give this one a miss even if you found The Girls to be overrated because several of these stories are singular gems!

Beautiful short stories - as often with collections, some are better than others - about families, relationships, keeping secrets. I loved their apparent simplicity, the characters - all flawed and somehow relatable - and the way they dealth with different situations of loss, things not going the way we wanted, impossible situations. I would read more by the same author.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review - thanks so much to Netgalley for sending this to me!

After reading Emma Cline’s debut novel ‘The Girls,’ I was won over by her incredible writing style, her eye for tiny details that built such a vivid picture, and her amazing sense of atmosphere. I was excited to read her short story collection, since short fiction often places emphasis on these kinds of skills. Unfortunately, I found this collection to be lackluster and boring for the most part.

The stories in ‘Daddy’ focus largely on the mundane - bland, tired, often rich men contending with unpredictable mistresses, unremarkable sons and declining businesses. Most of them hinted at more interesting things to come, like you would turn the page to find the missing pieces all falling into place, but then nothing ever came of it, leaving me unsatisfied as it felt like the true point of the stories slipped out of my grasp. The characters were similarly unsatisfying for the most part - to my mind, a character doesn’t have to be likeable, but they should at least be interesting, and most of the men in this book were neither. I did find that the female characters in this book were all far more interesting and well-characterised than their male counterparts, though whether that was a coincidence or a conscious narrative choice I couldn’t say. The writing style - which in her previous book was breathtaking - was, for the most part, unremarkable, lacking the attention to detail and description that

I only actually enjoyed two stories in this collection: ‘Marion’ and ‘A/S/L,’ both of which possessed the dreamy, surreal and yet almost hyperrealistic quality I’ve come to expect from this author. One, a story of teenage friendship between two young girls experiencing the start of their sexual awakening, the other following a young woman in a treatment facility who’s turned to male attention to satisfy her need for excitement. These stories felt a lot more focused and purposeful - I just wish it hadn’t taken so long to get to them. I almost DNF’d, and I’m glad I didn’t, because ‘Marion’ in particular was an excellent story, but I was left feeling frustrated that the rest of the stories weren’t of a similar quality.

Overall, I ‘Daddy’ was a letdown for me. The two excellent stories near the end showed that Emma Cline is clearly a gifted and insightful author, but the subject matter and bland realness of the majority of these stories really wasn’t my cup of tea. I’ll still keep an eye on her and would definitely read more of her work in future, but I’d definitely do a bit more research into the subject of her next work before picking it up.

I’m not sure how to review this collection of stories, other than that I really enjoyed them.

There isn’t a clear theme running through them as much as I’ve found in other story collections. While many stories focus on family, as the title suggests, I wouldn’t say they all follow that theme.

There’s a lot of “unknowing” in this collection which is both intriguing and frustrating. Most often a story finishes before you’ve really understood what has happened, but I really loved this sense of unfinished business. Some of the stories I wish had been longer for this reason.

My favourites were the opening story, the story of the woman working in the clothing store in LA, the story of the woman who had an affair with a famous actor, the story of the man travelling to the boarding school to find out about an incident his son has been involved in and the final story of two women at a rehab centre.

I really enjoyed this collection and know I’ll be thinking about some of the stories for a long time after.

Wonderful. Loved her novel and this comes from very much a similar place. Brilliantly realized and believable characters.

I loved 'The Girls', Emma Cline's debut novel, and her first collection of short stories doesn't disappoint. Cline writes about the dark side of American life in these stories, many of which are set in Los Angeles or elsewhere in California.

There are similar themes to 'The Girls' in some of the stories - in 'Marion' and 'a/s'/' in particular, with the former focusing on some sort of commune and the latter a rehab centre, Cline has a real knack with being able to delve into the lives of people, whether young or old, male or female - and as a reader, you feel that she really knows, really understands, the people she is writing about. The opening tale, 'What Can You Do with a General', zooms in on the minutiae of family life, with picking up people from the airport, going shopping and the impact that modern life has on people - even if this isn't explicitly stated. Towards the end, one of the daughters, Sasha, denies her love of watching 'The Wizard of Oz' - her father's statement that she loved the film really irritates her, so much so that she claims it's Chloe, her sister's, favourite - something all parents might notice as children grow older, how they can be argumentative and disagreeable. In 'Northeast Regional', a father has to take the train to his son's boarding school to confront the reason he's been expelled - a reason we, as readers, never fully understand. Again, the dynamics in parent-child relationships are explored here. In the penultimate story, 'Mack the Knife', Cline hones in on the male - in this case, a group of friends who know each other well but have all moved on with their lives.

Some of the stories in this collection are not particularly memorable - but this does not make them bad stories. Cline deals with the intricacies of life, the disagreements and conflicts, people's foibles and habits, the way we sometimes deliberately upset others. This is life, isn't it - modern life, at least? Interestingly, the title of the collection isn't a title of one of the stories, perhaps for no good reason. And this, in many ways, sums up the collection. This happens, things don't happen. Sometimes we know why, sometimes we don't. Cline is commenting on how life is nowadays and it's this that I believe to be an enviable skills of hers - and one that you will learn about if you read this collection.

Emma Cline's short fiction collection, Daddy, gathers stories focused around masculinity and power dynamics. Much like in her debut novel, The Girls, the characters here are mostly lonely and not necessarily likeable. Cline doesn't overwrite the situations they're in, and reading them feels like being a fly on the wall; with the ability to see a situation unfolding, but powerless to change it. There are misunderstandings and microaggressions which seem easy to fix from the outside, but the characters are too caught up in them to see the easy out. Many of the stories don't feel finished at the end (which I love in a short story), and the lack of resolution adds to the sense of being an observer. There's a constant threat of something dark bubbling away underneath these stories, and Cline writes that darkness really really well - as she did in The Girls. Her writing is incredibly good at making it impossible to look away from things we might not want to see. If you liked The Girls, I think you'll love this collection. 
(Thanks for @netgalley and @vintagebooks for the ARC)

Admittedly, I write this review as one of the few people who's not read Emma Cline's The Girls. Even so, I can comfortably say that Cline's prose are as dark, thought-provoking, and mysterious as the acclaim for The Girls implied.

Daddy explores a number of relationships and power dynamics through the lenses of various characters in various short stories. Some stories are more sinister than others, but the characters are all alarmingly real, flawed, and relatable (sometimes to a cringeworthy extent). Again, I've not read The Girls, but would recommend this to fans of Cline's past writing or those who enjoy the writing of Shirley Jackson and Chuck Palahniuk.

I loved this story collection. Great themes, well structured, great pacing and I found every story interesting. A firm five star read.

This collection of short stories shows different aspects of masculinity and mostly toxic masculinity. I really enjoyed the differences between the stories, which explored different types of men and their relationships to the women in their lives. I'd recommend this book.

For a collection of short stories linked by misery, this was a surprisingly enjoyable read. However, it’s like there’s one step in each story missing, making it hard to grasp on who characters are so I had to keep flicking back to check names. Other information that Cline chooses to miss out (although this is not necessarily a bad thing) are the especially terrible details of the actions of her characters, like exactly what Richard’s son did to a classmate in ‘Northeast Regional’ and what scandalous circumstances meant that Ben has to leave his job in ‘Menlo Park’. It was definitely worth a read anyway.

Vignettes of daily life, with an undercurrent of sleaze and perversity. In 10 short stories, Emma Cline captures the fullness of human experience. The desperation of selling your own underwear to a stranger in a parking lot. The claustrophobia of your own existence, trapped with your pregnant partner and her brother. The regret of lost success, when a film man realizes his best professional years are past.

The stories are disturbing, often unsettling. And the meticulously-charted inner lives of the protagonists show just how much lies below the surface. What are the secrets we may not know about the people closest to us? What are we capable of, when we know no one is looking? And what do our reflections, our desires say about us? I was drawn into the stories—not only by the narrative arc, but by the way they made me think about my own life.

This probably isn’t the best book to read in the midst of an overwhelming pandemic. It’s almost a portrait of despair, in all its forms. But keep it on your shelf and come back to it. There’s a lot to unpack here. And you’ll find your mind drifting to some of the stories even after you’ve read them.

Thank you to Netgalley, Random House UK, Vintage for the ebook.

A series of ten short stories by the author of The Girls.

- A father frets over his distracted daughter and reflects on life and family during a visit from his grown up children over the Christmas holiday.

- An aspiring actress who works in a store selling overpriced clothes sells her own worn underwear to men she doesn’t know.

- A man ruminates on his own troubles as he edits the biography of a billionaire who seems set on rewriting his own lifetime achievements.

- An ageing and fading movie man meets an old friend for dinner ahead of attending a showing of the first film produced by his son.

- A young woman hides from the paparazzi following a brief affair with an actor, for whom she’d been a nanny to his son.

- A young man who lives with his pregnant partner and her brother dreams of escaping to a new life.

- A middle-aged man travels to his son’s boarding school to attempt to resolve a problem whilst wrestling with issues in his own life.

- A woman remembers her first real friend and time spent with her free-living parents as an eleven-year-old.

- A man in his early fifties meets old friends for a meal and then broods over his past and present relationships women and his financial worries.

- Two women attending a ‘pre-rehab’ centre in the desert become obsessed with a male celebrity who checks in.

These stories show glimpses of people’s lives, with the focus typically on one participant in each tale. Typically, we witness a good deal of reflection: how did I get to this place, what might have gone differently? There is disillusionment here too as each seems to feel that things might have taken a different path, that it could have worked out better. Relationships with friends, family and lovers are dissected and examined, worries and frailties exposed.

Like all short story collections I’ve read, some engaged me more than others but I did find myself wondering if I’d made some of the same erroneous decisions, if I harboured a number of identical regrets or if I hid similar weaknesses to the protagonists here. Yes, it’s one of those books that makes you think about your own life, what I’ve done and what I haven’t done. Have I lived, as they say, ‘my best life’? I suppose that question is almost certain to be answered in the negative, perhaps the more so the older you get.

A few stories ended a little too abruptly for me, just as I was becoming invested in where it would go next - but that’s just how it works with short stories. And mostly I was happy to witness these segments of a bigger story and move on. These satisfying snacks can be gobbled up quickly and I really enjoyed the of settings, the diversity of characters and mixture of emotions the stories stirred in me. I wouldn’t call the stories uplifting but most captured my attention, made me pause and think.

I wouldn’t ordinarily opt to read a collection of short stories as I haven’t previously connected enough to the characters, I often have found the stories rushed too.

This is not the case with Daddy by Emma Cline. I found the structure of the story where we read from is very clever. Most of the collection start straight after a fall out of some sort, sometimes huge like a celebrity affair exposed or sometimes smaller like a discovery of a pregnancy. Very rarely are we given any back story so it allows the reader to imagine the circumstances and at the point it stops you want to read more.

The title ‘Daddy’ suggests an undertone of a father figure and the unbalanced, dishonest, depressed and sometimes dangerous male characters supports that.

Thank you to Net Galley for allowing me an opportunity to read an advanced copy, my main thanks because you have introduced me to an author whose style I loved, writes beautifully and I want to read more.

I somehow missed the hype about Emma Cline’s The Girls a few years back so came to her collection of short stories with no preconceptions or expectations. I like short stories, although it often takes me weeks, months, alas, even years to get through a collection as it’s just so easy to put them down and pick up something else in between.

Not so with Daddy. Each story captivated me and stayed with me for long after. Emma Cline has a way of writing people that really gets under your skin. We meet deeply flawed characters, all trying to find their way in life or making up for past mistakes; there’s drug addicts, cheating partners, dysfunctional families, teens escaping the grim reality of life.

These stories aren’t uplifting and there are no happy endings. In fact, there are no “proper” endings and I often found myself wanting for the stories to keep going, to get some resolution, but again, that’s where her narratives emulate life. I did think that each story provided material for more, as if she could have made a novel out of each one of them, but I guess that’s the beauty of the short story and of her writing, leaving me wanting more.

While there are continuities in this collection around issues of power and risk, I found these stories too bland - not necessarily in terms of what happens as some of the content has the power to be sensational but bland in the quiet narrative voice which almost stays as a monotone throughout the book. I suspect it's supposed to be understated, but changes of pace and tonality would have worked better for me. I also thought that many of these stories feel unfinished: perhaps in resisting the easy 'sting in the tale' trope, these go too far in the opposite direction and remain unresolved not in a provocative way, but more like just dropping off a cliff. Some of the material would lend itself to greater exploration and would benefit from being able to breathe a bit more. Too many similarities in setting, theme and structure for my taste end up making these stories too similar.

These short stories from Emma Cline are absolutely brilliant. Each one follows a similar structure, carefully presenting characters and filling them out with precise details from their histories. The end of each story is like pulling the wrong block out of a Jenga tower - the narrative comes crashing down around the reader and there were a few occasions I felt genuinely cheated of a more complete ending. This is not to say that I didn't enjoy them, I really did, and as soon as I became used to the structure of the pieces, I became more comfortable with what to expect. I would recommend these stories to everyone who enjoys the genre.

I really loved Emma Cline's 'The Girls' and as a fan of short stories too I have been really excitedly anticipating this. However, it just didnt live up to the expectations I had for it. It felt a bit like reading a copy of Cline's personal notebooks where she woukd wrote down ideas for future stories. There were great ideas in there, and the odd poignant moment, but these were all too brief. I read short stories regularly so am used to the brevity, I genuinely feel that it is an undervalued form, but i just dont think these stories have anywhere near the power of 'The Girls'. There are some interesting thoughts but unfortunately the whole collection feels unfinished and underdeveloped.

This is not a book likely to bring joy to the reader. It is a series of well enough constructed stories about dysfunctional families, drug addicts and deviants of other kinds. These conditions exist of course but there does not seem to be much point to a collection of them. None have an ending. The reader is left wondering what happened next but perhaps that is where lies the purpose.

I loved Emma Cline’s debut novel The Girls and so was keen to read her first short story collection, ‘Daddy’.
I know that publishers always claim that short story collections don’t sell but I’ve often discovered a new author through them.
There are nine dark stories in ‘Daddy’ and Cline isn’t afraid to explore the seamier side of relationships and the manipulative power struggles within them. These are not only between men and women but also between best freinds and parents and children as they clash.
In the first story, ‘What Can You Do with a General’, John and his wife Linda are looking forward to having their grown up family home for Christmas. But all is not well as seething rage ripples beneath the surface as they gather round to watch DVDS of home movies of past celebrations. Linda wants ‘the neutering of his anger’ and she and the adult children walk on eggshells around John.
In ‘Los Angeles’, Alice, a sales assistant in a trendy clothes shop is taking acting lessons and managing to avoid the grim reality of her life. Alice’s former friends are getting married and having children and post pictures of their babies ‘ curled like shrimp on fur rugs.’ When she needs money to continue the classes she decides on a very risky side hustle and her final encounter is more than she bargained for….
Several of Cline’s protagonists are waiting for their big break or their redemption. Ben, a washed-up writer in ‘Menlo Park’ is desperate to get back into the big time and hopes that editing a ghost written memoir will achieve this. But a misunderstanding and his desperation doesn’t help his case.
In Kayla’s story, ‘The Nanny’, she is holed up in her mother’s ex- college room mate’s house waiting for her notoriety to pass. But what has she got to return to? The parade has already passed for her.
Two older men, George and William, meet in an unfashionable restaurant before going to see the movie that George’s son, Benji, has produced. George knows too well that Benji has a habit of taking and abandoning jobs and interests and sees him as a loser. But who does Benji thank so warmly in his speech on the stage?
I found some of the protagonists such as Richard in ‘NorthEast Regional’ and Thora in ‘a/s/l/’ really unlikeable but that didn’t detract from Cline’s skill in portraying them and their world so well. Richard appears to have no idea of how much his domineering personality has influenced his son who has been expelled from college over a violent incident. He has open contempt for the married women that he sleeps with , ‘women whose lingerie was haunted by the prick of the plastic tag they’d tried to snap off so that he wouldn’t realise that it was new.’
The adult children in these stories seem to flounder as they try to find their way in the world and the ex-wives become bit players or voices on the phone to their husbands. Cline portrays so well the shifting sands of family ties. I also liked the author’s wry comments as in ‘Arcadia; where the junior college farm workers cars were identifiable by the bumper stickers ‘as if they needed even the vehicles to have opinions.’
A good collection of contemporary stories and I am looking forward to Cline’ s next novel.