'Books and Roses' - A very touching tale about missed opportunities and twists of fate. There is a nice fabulist spin and the prose is very lyrical, but the story wandered off track a little. 4 stars.
'Sorry doesn't sweeten her tea' - A very thought provoking and nuanced look at victim shaming, celebrity culture and social media. Loved this one! 5 stars.
'Is your blood as red as this?' - part one; I found the relationship between Myrna and Radha really compelling and the puppet school was fascinating. 4 stars. Part two; Told through the eyes of the puppets, which was interesting but didn't work quite as well for me. 3 stars.
'Drownings' - A really whimsical story that read like a Bluebeard re-telling. 3 stars.
'Presence' - This was conceptually very interesting and I loved the interplay between Jack and Jill. I really liked this one. 4 stars.
'The Homely Wench Society' - This one was my favourite. It had a nice tongue in cheek tone and I really liked the interplay between Day and Hercules. 5 stars.
'Goose' - I didn't really like this one, but the ending was great! 2 stars.
Overall, I thought this was a really interesting collection and I loved the threads that ran through the stories to link them.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

By turns beguiling, frustrating, incomprehensible and visceral, this collection defies categorization with its fabulous interwoven stories. Characters come and go between narratives; protagonists are supplanted by others as stories progress. The experience of reading What is Yours is not Yours, though not as straightforward as reading, say, Boy, Snow, Bird, is rewarding and worth the effort required.

This book really captivated me, but in the most confusing manner possible. I loved it in so many ways, but couldn't help but feel disappointed by it to, and this mostly came down to the thing that others have complained about - the vague, open endings. But I loved what everybody else loved too, and this book is distinctly more magical than most. It contains all the ingredients of successful magical realism, great fairy tales, beautiful prose and curious characters. I just like my 'moral' to be a little more focused and a lot less vague. I felt like a character from this book at times because a lot of them are after something that is slightly out of reach. I was peeking through the keyhole, desperate to get through the door to the other side! Sadly, I simply didn't find the right key with this one!

This is my first glimpse into Oyeyemi's work. I tend to start with short stories when approaching authors that I think will be up my alley but I'd like a taster of before digging in. I have to say that above all else this book did something others have failed to do - restored my faith in magical realism. It's a genre I've not liked in the past due to the randomness of it all but it was my favourite thing about this book! I lost all sense of time, place and even world, and yet I loved it! The stories fit around interesting themes like keys and puppets and felt very modern, yet very old at the same time. The fairy tale references were indirect most of the time, but hidden in the foundations of each story and I liked stumbling across them every now and again. Many of the characters appeared in more than one story (something I didn't fully realise until much later) but I really liked this about them. I also LOVED the LGBT+ themes and different ethnicities found in this book. The stories were European based too so it was great not having an all-white cast.

The main problem came, as mentioned previously, at the end of each tale. They went beyond an 'ambiguous ending'. They were UNFINISHED. I didn't feel like I'd stopped at a place and had to work it all out. I felt like I was missing half the story, and it happened with basically all of them which was VERY frustrating. It was clearly a purposeful move, attempting to offer a glimpse into each world rather than the full picture, but I wanted more than I got. I feel I would definitely do better with Oyeyemi's full length novels because I would probably get everything I loved about her short stories combined with an actual ending I could make sense of.

I was initially confused because I forgot that this is a book of stories rather than one long novel. I got very attached to the characters in the first story and felt a little bereft when she moved on. But once I got my head around the format I really loved it. The stories are lyrical and beautiful and it feels in a way like rediscovering fairy tales.

One of my favourite young authors, who proves that her brand of off-beat, sensual fairy tales are perfectly expressed in short story form. Delightful, unexpected, off-kilter.