Really enjoyed these short stories from Cecelia Ahern. I love how she can take an every-day situation, add a twist or a bit of magic and really say something meaningful with it. Great choice for people short on time!

I loved every short story and for what they was I couldnt ask for more , well written , uplifting and perfect if your short on time which helped over christmas , I just longed for more with each of them but then it makes it more exciting for her next novel.

I loved this. Thirty short stories based around social cues of what it has meant to be a woman. Yes, they're extreme, almost verging into parody or fairy tale, but it worked for me. I felt enraged and empowered and want to gift copies to all my friends.

I've read a few other books by Cecilia Ahern, and I wanted to like this book - it sounded an interesting premise, and I was expecting a collection of excellent stories.

However, the quality of the writing and plots was not even and frankly I did not particularly enjoy most of the stories; some were relatable, others rather lost their way.

I think it's probably one of those books that you either love or hate - it's only a 2-star rating from me on this one I'm afraid.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC in return for my honest review.

3.5*

This is the first book by Cecelia Ahern that I have read and it’s a very enjoyable collection of short stories about women who find themselves in one kind of predicament or another. They are poignant, witty, charming stories that many women will relate to and, indeed, many men.

An accomplished book from a well-known and accomplished writer it will make you smile, make you laugh and, yes, perhaps shed a tear. I found that reading it over a few days dipping into a story or two at a time was very enjoyable but I’m sure many will just sit and read from start to finish. Either way a book to relish.

The perfect book for those who enjoy reading short stories or can only snatch a few minutes here and there to read.

With thanks to HarperCollins UK via NetGalley for an eCopy of ROAR by Cecilia Ahern. All thoughts are my own, I have not received any payment for the review of this book.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this collection of stories. I used to love Cecelia Ahern novels but haven't enjoyed her last few books. This collection has restored my love for her work. I particularly enjoyed the elements of magical realism.

Ahern’s latest book is a collection of satirical short stories. Each focuses on an unnamed female protagonist and most are a literal interpretation of a stereotype or saying. The trophy wife’s partner builds her a shelf to sit on, where she can be admired by his friends and family. The woman who feels invisible to society starts to slowly disappear. There are plenty of themes to digest and discuss and a lot of enjoyment to be had in each tale.

This collection of thirty feminist short stories is full observations and revelations about what it is like to be a woman in a patriarchal world. Each story title begins The Woman Who; The Woman Who Forgot Her Name, The Woman Who Slowly Disappeared, The Woman Who Returned and Exchanged Her Husband, The Woman Who…well, you get the idea.

Roar is an ambitious set of stories with elements of magical realism that, for me, was rather hit and miss.

"Silence can be as threatening as words". "The guilt was, quite literally, eating her alive. Her skin had become a patchwork of quilt of guilt". "Because if i'm not me, who else can I be?" "never to hold back on her words for fear of how people will treat her". "Women need to see women too . . . if we don't see each other, if we don't see ourselves, how can we expect anybody else to?"

Ceclia Ahern is quite frankly one of my all-time favourite authors, and so when I realised she had wrote a new book, I knew I had to read it. This book is very different to her past books; it comprises of 30 different short stories about 30 different women; each chapter celebrates the great diversity of women of this time, and each chapter starts with 'The woman who...'

Each chapter is engaging; some are heartwarming, some are funny, some are inspiring, but they all make you feel something. In an age where women are still being judged, misrepresented, stereotyped, and still being told to smile, it is so important for us to have books that teach us to be brave, and that as women, we have to support each other.

I definitely had favourite chapters in this book (particularly, the woman who slowly disappeared, the woman who found bite marks on her skin, the woman who sowed seeds of doubt, the woman who wore pink, the woman who was pigeonholed, the woman who smiled, and the woman who roared), and some chapters that did not resonate with me; but I feel that that is the whole point of this book, not every chapter will resonate with everyone, but every chapter will resonate with someone. Ahern is a master at stringing words, and sentences together, and although this book is vastly different to other books she has created, this itself was a wonder to read. Definitely one i'll want to gather for my bookshelf.

"I am woman, hear me roar, in numbers too big to ignore".

Thank you NetGalley and Harper Collins Publishers for allowing me to read a copy of this book for my honest review.

i really had no idea what to expect from this book. I don't read short story collections often, and it had been a while since I last read a book by the author.

Yet from the first story - The Woman Who Slowly Disappeared, I could tell that this is a rather special collection.

Each story highlights an aspect of life that illuminates a specific quality about a person, often to the extreme. The main women in each story tends to nameless, she is the key person but at the same time she could be someone you know. The odds are you will recognise some of the traits if not in yourself than in your loved ones.

It is a book that will both make you think and others that will make you smile. A lot of the specifics aren't exactly realistic in how they are portrayed, but at the same time its a fabulous way of make the instance stick in your mind.

For there is a women and her sisters who literally unravel and fall to pieces, there is a woman who has been put on a shelf by her husband for her whole life and lives on a shelf. There is one who due to a birth defect has her heart on her sleeve the whole time - you will know people that have this quality, even if they clearly don't have their heart outside their body.

There are ticking clocks, overcoming speech impediments there is a woman who loves exchanging everything as she is never happy.

Some of the stories are quite eye opening and others rather amusing. Some of them take on a dystopian sort of world where there are new laws to make certain things now illegal, which really makes you think.

I was reading these perhaps 2 or 3 at a time, over a period of three days and I can quite happily say they are a very cleverly put together set of stories, by what is clearly a highly imaginative and intelligent author, who can see things in a rather unnusual way.

I'm very pleased to have been able to read this book and it really is all about the power of women.

Thank you to Netgalley and Harper for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.

This is an amazing collection of short stories about women, for women, and situations women find themselves put in. I am sure that most women will relate to at least one and probably more of these stories.
This is a very readable collection of stories written in such a way as to bring certain important issues to attention but without preaching or being condescending.

A quirky, interesting collection about women. Cleverly, the author doesn't name the women so that the reader can identify herself with one or more of the characters. I don't see this collection as a statement, just a funny way of looking at every day sayings and applying them in a different way that is amusing. Obviously some are better than others (the last one was a disappointment especially as the book takes it's name from it). Not usually a collection of stories reader, I was pleasantly surprised at the ingenuity of the ideas and how they played out. I will definitely consider other short stories collections ithe future.

I received a free ebook version of this through Netgalley. Thankyou to both Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read this. My review is still honest!

How can I describe a book like Roar? A collection of 30 stories all centred around women, it was a truly eye-opening experience.
This is about women of all sorts, told through a magical realism lens. To give a little snapshot: women in toxic relationships, women with body issues, women raising families, women being mistreated, women who want children and women who don’t, women struggling with their dreams, age-related issues, women who are generally unsatisfied with their lives. It features a trans woman, a refugee woman. It plays on every common saying about women-that time is ticking to have a child, that you want the ground to swallow you up. It is so very clever in how it introduces each story and incorporates the issues and conflicts that so many women face, including ones that the ‘popular’ feminist would not necessarily consider. There will be a character in this that every woman can relate to, and even if you don’t identify as female, I think that this will give you an eye-opening insight into the things that most women think about, things that may not even cross your mind. It explains the things that bother women in a way that others can understand why it bothers us, and why it isn’t okay.
It’s a book that was disturbing at times, some of the stories were reminiscent of The Handmaid’s Tale and other feminist dystopian fiction and it was just generally well written. Easy to read and engaging with each story having its own world and being worth the read. One of my new favourite short story collections.

This feels like a very different direction for Cecilia Ahern whose oeuvre is invariably described as Chick lit / romance / contemporary. At the same time i think it is very indicative of her writing which creates strong female characters dealing with difficult situations.

I have not read many short story collections and often struggle with the open-ended nature of them but this collection has really captured my imagination. Each short story is entitled "the woman who ....." and for me each capture a different aspect of women and society today. Some felt like moral fables whilst others captured the way women are expected to - indeed expect themselves to cope with whatever life throws at them and then wonder why it all falls apart. There were a few that felt out of place in general these were the ones that had an altered societal norm such as "the Woman who wore Pink" and "the woman who spoke Woman"

Overall this was an excellent collection with a unified focus that kept me entertained throughout

What I Have to Say
This is a book of thirty stories but I could have read a hundred. I loved the titles and how witty it all was. I loved the characters and how every story was a twist on reality. It embraces the absurd, bringing it together with emotions grounded in reality to make a beautiful story that's powerful and feminist and so fun to read.

The Woman Who Wore Pink was my favourite. It was such a hilarious look on the gender construct and a look at how society would be if these concepts of gender policing were taken to an extreme, with gender police (dressed in pink and blue, obviously) were there to patrol to make sure each gender is staying in their respective lanes: writing in the right colour pen, drinking from the correct colour cup and using the bathroom assigned to them based on the shape of their private parts. It serves to highlight some of the problems surrounding gender expectations in our society by showing it in such an over-exaggerated extreme.

The other stories ranged between humour and heartbreaking, but all of them had an underlying message of female power and strength. A feminist must read.

This is a collection of stories about women in all kinds of situations which seem familiar. They are mothers, daughters, wives and workers – they are us. Although they are all nameless, all being referred to as ‘the woman who…..’, they are all oddly familiar: the woman who slowly disappeared, the woman who thought her mirror was broken, the woman who was pigeonholed. The themes are ones that most modern women will recognise: women who are unhappy with their bodies, women who find that aging has made them less important than before or women who feel that they are least important members of their families. Some of the stories can seem, at first, a little obvious but I did wonder if that was because I’ve been thinking about inequalities between the sexes for over forty years now. In many ways this would make this a good collection for younger women and men – who, although they may be aware of some aspects of inequality, may not know how things change for women when age, ethnicity or class are taken into account.

Don’t think that this means these stories are preachy or dull. They certainly aren’t – they are funny, subversive and, at times, moving. The joy of short stories is that you can dip in and out, skipping ahead to stories you think sound more appealing than others: this was a collection that I read straight through, missing out nothing.

What a superb collection! I knew I would enjoy this collection as I always love the author's books, but these stories are something else!

The first thing to note is to take the wonderful array of titles literally. Such fabulous stories deserve to be read, re-read and enjoyed several times over. I have smiled, giggled and sighed along with my reading and can't help but think this would be a fabulous book for any woman to gift to her female friends. Every single one provides food for thought and together they make an awesome anthology - and one I'm exceedingly happy to recommend. With Christmas on the horizon, this could solve several problems!

Quite a few of the books I tend to read and like, usually do have an independently intelligent woman running the show at some point.They do not get more feminist than that. I have had time in the last three years that I have not held an official position as a working woman to reflect on my reactions to the situation, I have been 'at home' for as long as I actually worked. For the most part I have relished the freedom, I have learnt new things,read tons of books, perfectly honed my cooking skills to suit our tastes. Not necessarily kept a clutter free(but reasonably clean) house but an interesting one. I feel the need to say all this because I think in its essence, that is the reason this book was a five-star read for me. 

I have had multiple reflections on why we do the things we do, (women that is) or feel the way we do. I am generalizing here but that is pretty much the point. The book has thirty stories (I actually planned to finish it before my thirtieth birthday last month, but was unable to do so although it would have made a very good tie in). Each story features a nameless 'woman'. They are the different type of women: mothers, daughters, career women and even those who some people do not accept as actual women. Not every story felt as great as the entire book did. There were points in a story when I felt that it was taking something too far but with the flick of the page my retorts were silenced by a very reasonable turn of events!

I do realise that some of the stories had a recurring plotline but that again did not feel like a deterrent to me since the story felt like part of the bigger picture. This is not a book bashing any particular section of the community, no other gender, not even other women. in each scenario there is a very specific circle which is addressed. It took me a couple of stories to realise that it was an unnamed woman whose feelings we are getting to share. I do not know if I will feel the same way about the book if I read it in a different time and place, but right now I feel it has a very uplifting message (on the whole). It can serve as a starting point for discussions which in turn might actually make more of us feel better. I have read a few of the authors other lighter reads but this is more serious despite having a lot of abstract fantasies blended in to make a point.

A great collection of short stories - to either read all in one go, or to dip into when you need a short story to pass the time. All different and interesting concepts.

This is a brilliant and empowering book, giving women back a voice! All the stories bring women closer together as we all understand the daily struggles.
Women who have no self worth, don't believe in what they say as impact, the labels the world and women give themselves.
When women support other women it beings more positives feelings into their lives, uplifting one another.
Loved the different stories that got you thinking about how we punish ourselves when we shouldn't. It has a Roald Dahl short stories feel about it, very quirky.