A wonderful collection of short stories, each one completely different to the last. I loved the writing style of these -my only issue was that a few of them really left me wanting more, more background, more resolution, just more information- wether this is a good or bad thing I’m not sure but is surely the sign of a great writer and makes me very keen to read more of Josie’s work

With absolutely no idea what to expect (except, perhaps, smarts and laughs). I fell headlong into this. Such an interesting collection full of huge ideas of family, parenthood, identity, child and teen hood, and inner and outer lives. Josie Long's brilliant observations that work so well in her comedy are all over this book. It's dark, it's sharp, it's energetic, and a lovely surprise.

A beautiful, confounding collection of stories. I never knew where it was going to go next and that was a huge part of the joy. I could have stayed in each one for so much longer. Hopefully there will be some great full novels in Josie Long's future. But for now, this is a great place to start with her ability to spin a tale.

Great set of short stories delivered by a great comedian, personally I would like to see Josie turn her hand to a longer novel as I felt each scenario had more to give.

For some reason I’m often weary about starting a fiction book by someone who I know already for something else — I wish I hadn’t here because these stories are fantastic.

I've never entirely bought into the stereotype of Josie Long as relentlessly chirpy, not least because of that incident where she threw popcorn at me after a disagreement on which Joanna Newsom album was best. But all the same, and perhaps despite that cover, I was expecting a collection of her short stories to be, broadly speaking, cheerful. Which this really, really isn't. The first three pieces follow a schoolgirl who hates her body and her family, talking up her occult powers to get in with the cool kids; the poisonous inanity of a neighbourhood WhatsApp group during lockdown; and a woman bringing her new partner to a party where everyone else seems to have their lives much more together, "Salads on the table like nothing I've ever made myself. Peaches and goats' cheese and shredded mint. Fried carrots with flower petals. For fuck's sake." As that passage suggests, it certainly has the keen eye you'd expect from an acclaimed stand-up (see also: the women's partners all being "The type of thirty-eight-year-olds who run a techno label"), but laughs are in short supply. Instead, the dominant note is very much anxiety – specifically female anxiety, but most of it entirely recognisable to anyone who has ever felt they don't belong, which surely covers most people who are likely to be reading a debut short story collection. And indeed, occasional point-of-view characters are male, like the schoolboy whose determinedly no-nonsense, TED talk-listening dad is cutting him off from the artier, less dreadful side of his family. By the last two stories, set after and then back during the current collapse, I really could have gone for something jolly.

(Netgalley ARC)

I really wanted to like this collection, because I love Josie Long’s work and just generally her life and views, but I struggled with quite a few of the stories. Some of the stories are perfection, showing us the community passive aggression of lockdowns and a sad and infuriating father son relationship saved by a lovely grandpa. But others, particularly the stories about romantic relationships, severally lacked context. This is artful in some ways, giving space to the reader to make their own assumptions, but going through a whole story with nothing orientating you can just get really annoying, and even more so when that happens over and over.

Josie Long is a comedian I very much admire and here I have learned that she is a writer of short stories that are also worthy of great admiration. These are neat parcels of complex lives in which you get a strong sense of character and a fine interplay of emotion and purpose. There is a skill to creating a rich world in a few short pages and Long absolutely has it. These are not funny. Some of them are downright upsetting and they all address uncomfortable issues with style, tension and resolve. It's also hard, in my opinion to create a collection which achieves balance and brilliance across all the stories, but Long also does that super well. It's a clever, accomplished neat collection of pockets of darkness in human lives.

I'm a big fan of Josie Long's comedy and short films so was really looking forward to reading this. It's a quirky compilation of short stories. They are enjoyable but it feels like you're just getting into each story and then it ends. It's a very quick read but it is good.