I've read about half of the stories in this collection so far and I've enjoyed everyone. Thought-provoking, unique and filled with intriguing characters and scenarios, providing complete snapshots of lives with pace and depth.

A strange, surreal collection of stories that meander and wind around their plots without managing to land with any sort of impact. Instead they touch lightly upon horror and tension, grief and loneliness, all with an undercurrent of empathy that shines through the heaviness of each tale.

This is a small collection of 11 short stories by the Chinese author Yiyun Li. The book has a beautiful cover which attracted me and introduced me to a new writer.
These are not dramatic stories but almost observations on how people interact with others and the conflict between former or ongoing lives in China. They all feature women and their experience. As with all collections, there are some stories that you prefer to others and these were the ones that I really enjoyed from an intriguing collection:
In the title story, ‘Wednesday’s Child’ with its reminder of the nursery rhyme that a child born on this day is full of woe, Rosalie is running between platforms at Rotterdam station trying to catch a train to Brussels. The trains are constantly being cancelled due to an ‘incident’ and it is a reminder of her teenage daughter Marnie’s suicide and her own fractious relationship with her mother.
Auntie Mei is a live in nanny to a couple and their newborn baby in ‘A Sheltered Woman’. She has done this for 131 babies and only stays a month with each family. This new mum is unhappy with her baby and her much older husband and wants Auntie Mei to say longer. But she observes that ‘the parents had no room in their hearts for him’. By the end of the story she has reached a decision.
Becky in ‘On the Street Where You Live’ is trying to support her challenging son Jude as he attempts to navigate his way in the world. As she sees it, ‘her only hope was to blunder on through and to ……..make connections with the world.’
My favourite and the longest of the stories was ‘Such Common Ground’ in which Ida is a carer to Dr Ditmus, an elderly woman who is nearing the end of her life. The author describes their different lives, their rapport and routines. It’s a relationship which will end with the inevitable death of one of them and I found the final paragraph very poignant.
In the other stories, a woman receives unwelcome emails from a man she’s met twice but has never forgotten her. He is infatuated with her despite being married and a grandfather. Finally, she makes a choice. A woman, Narantuyaa, observes a young woman eating alone in a restaurant. An American man dining with his partner at a nearby table insists on starting up a conversation which soon becomes vulgar. Narantuyaa takes revenge on her behalf. Suchen is the lone survivor of a boating accident in which the rest of her classmates drowned. But she gives a more disturbing account of the event.
Notebooks feature in several stories as a way of recording events, thoughts. vignettes and impressions as a record or to be consulted later. This can be ‘counting animals in the Louvre’, a sheet torn out to send a message and one character is very upset when she loses one.
I enjoyed the collection and will look for more of the author’s work.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC.

An excellent selection of short stories, I am such a big fan of Li's writing style. Everything is so mundane yet wonderful somehow, and th ebook starts off really strongly with the Wednesday's Child story.

After reading The Book of Goose, I could not wait to read Yiyun Li's collection of short stories, varying in length, an exquisite exploration of what it is to live, the testing impact of life and its challenges, perceptive and nuanced in the clarity, observations and insights they offer on what on the surface may appear to be ordinary lives but are so much more. The stories are:

Wednesday's Child
A Sheltered Woman
Hello, Goodbye
A Small Flame
On the Street Where You Live
Such Common Life
A Flawless Silence
Let Mothers Doubt
Alone
When We Were Happy We Had Other Names
All Will Be Well

There are common themes that connect the collection, such as mothers, children, ageing, being an outsider, a glimpse into the nature of human condition, relationships, memories, trauma, grief, loss, troubling family histories and complications, friendship, being an immigrant, and loneliness. There are a wide range of characters, from the highly sought after Auntie Mei, a strict disciplinarian when it comes to mother and baby when it comes fulfilling her role of 1 month nanny, and friends Katie and Nina, and the different decisions each makes that underpin their particular life paths, tmother Rosalie, with Marcie, her Wednesday child, living with the pain of permanent presence and absence, to Dr Ditmus, being looked after by Ida.

The stories are beautifully written, understated character studies, thoughtful, profound, reflective, with rich descriptions that paint pictures that make the characters come alive, feeling so real and authentic, shifting tone seamlessly for the different circumstances and people of each story. Although I appreciated all the tales, my favourite stories were Alone, A Sheltered Woman, Such Common Life, and All Will Be Well. Li is an exceptional short story writer in command of what can be a difficult format to master, the highlights for me is her capacity to create characters of such depth and situations which resonate. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

‘What’s wrong with being superficial? With depth always comes pain.’ I really enjoyed this short story collection, some stories stood out to me more than the others. The stories are heartfelt and look at the different type of relationships in peoples lives and many different subjects are covered.

Sadly I could not get on with the authors style of writing and found the book boring and struggled my way through. Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC.

The first story, giving the book its name, is about a woman on a solo trip in Europe reminiscing about her life, her losses, and her loneliness. The main theme, in my view, is the gap in your hear that remains after losing a child, regardless of how much you accept the loss itself. It's beautifully crafted, well told, and gently emotive. It's a lovely gem, and a fantastic launchpad for this collection.

The second story, "A Sheltered Woman", is about a newborn nanny's encounter, after 130+ babies and families, with a situation that challenges the boundaries she set for her job. It's predominantly a story about love and caring, and the surprising places one can find these. The story is as gentle as much of the rest of the author's work, while being a poignant perspective on how well off people have children in contemporary USA. My favourite quote: "being known, then, must not be far from being imprisoned by someone else's thought".

The third story, "Hello, Goodbye", is about a friendship between two women, who, in their middle age, remain close, having chosen very different paths for their lives. The story provides an interesting perspective on the power of choices, and the nature (and perhaps importance) of leading more "boring" lives when one is in their 40s.

The fourth story, "A Small Flame", is about a woman returning to China after being away for many decades. This is a story about loneliness, personal growth, and being stuck. The protagonist is stuck between worlds, timelines, and relationships. It's a nuanced and, in many ways, nihilistic analysis of loneliness in your 40s.

The fifth story, "On the Street Where You Live", we find our female protagonist, a mother of a young autistic boy, struggling with motherhood and her own, perceived, inadequacies. It's a poignant description of the hopelessness of the situation, balanced by day-to-day glimpses of hope. It's the best story of the bunch, in my view, and has a lot of memorable quotes: "love songs were written to sugarcoat life's plainness, to exaggerate the pain of loving with or without love, and then were meant to be sung only by ordinary people". Or "parents [of autistic children] visited therapists, formed support groups, but they did this only because they could not understand. They, with their limited imaginations, wanted to change their children. Vandalism. ... Parents like them committed vandalism out of love and despair".

The sixth story, "Such Common Life", is more like a novella in its scope. It describes the last few days of Dr Ditmus's life, while being cared for by Ida, a relatively recent immigrant from China. It discusses loneliness, friendship, ageing, and womanhood. It's also among the more positive / optimistic in the collection, almost a feel good story. Truly a fantastic story, with great quotes: "inspirational articles [people share over email are] ... spiritual opium for the disappointed". Another memorable one about optimism: "they are like your imaginary friends. If you decide Georgie Porgie is there, there he is. If I decide I have optimism, there I have it".

The seventh story, "A Flawless Silence", tells the story of a middle aged Chinese woman living in America, haunted by memories from her past, and her decision to marry her husband. It also has a bit of a political undertone, and describes, quite nicely, the tension in some families between Trump and Hillary supporters. It's a sad exploration of regret and acquiescing.

The eighth story, "Let Mothers Doubt", is about a young woman whose family fled Mongolia to come to the US. In the story she is visiting Paris, and reminiscing about a failed affair she had in the US. A story about loneliness and search for self.

The ninth story, "Alone", talks about the shadow an event in a woman's teens casts on all her adult life, and all daily interactions. It's not about loss per se, but more about the impact of secrets on life, marriage, and ability to form relationships.

The tenth story, "When We Were Happy...", tells the story of a couple in the US, she originally from China, and he a white American, struggling with the loss of their son to suicide. The story is about how deaths affect those surviving, and how hard it sometimes can be when death hits so close to home that it forces so many other memories of death elsewhere to re-emerge.

The eleventh and last story, "All Will Be Well", talks about a professor of literature in the US (naturally, originally from China) visiting a beauty salon and getting lost in the stories to proprietor tells her. The main theme here is about regret and the lasting power of young love.

Overall, it's one of the best story collections I've ever read. It's a tremendously taxing tapestry of loss, loneliness, regret, and hopelessness. The characters persist with their lives, but are never happy or content. While most of the characters are female immigrants from Asia to the US, I feel the book to have a universal message - it's about how people deal with loss, and what makes them want to go on, rather than give up. In that way, it's a positive and optimistic story - the protagonists, no matter how hard things are, live on, survive, and evolve. The stories are not emotive per se (no tissue moments) - they are rather thought-provoking and introspective.

Recommend to anyone who ever lost someone, regrets something, or has experienced sadness. It's among the most powerful reads you will experience about these topics.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an early copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Beautiful commentary on death and life after losing a child. So many quotes highlighted. There is conflicting reflection on ethics which creates a fantastic think piece. Each story had its only purpose and this was really felt throughout the book.Whilst facing difficult topics, the author managed to make it funny which provided space for the reader to absorb the content. Will read more from this author.

The front page is absolutely stunning also!

Thankyou to netgalley and 4th Estate and William Collins for the advanced reader copy! This is a true review.

This is a beautiful collection of short stories about love and loss. The relationships in the book are often quite strange ones and involve the strange past lives of those involved.

My favourite had to be the longest story "Such a Common Life" which was about the intertwined lives of two women - Dr Ditmus and her carer, Ida. It covers their pasts, their loves and their immediate future plans. I say this was my favourite but Alone was very close to that. In this story we meet Suchen who has left her husband and has a definite plan but she knows only too well that plans can go completely differently to the way you wish.

As I said, the writing is beautiful and evocative . Yiyun Li has such a light touch with descriptions and language. It was a pleasure to read even though the subject is dark.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants to read short stories that don't particularly go anywhere, rather describe a slice of someone's life at a critical time.

Thankyou to Netgalley and Harper Collins for the advance review copy.

This is my third Yiyun Li and the first short stories I ever read by her. I enjoyed them... But found them less magical and mysterious than her novels, which I found so intriguing and kept thinking about for days. These short stories - some could be called vignettes - were lovely but due to the brevity of the format lacked a solid plot and felt a bit empty at times. I really liked the titular story and "Hello, Goodbye" in particular. It was enjoyable but not where I would start if I had never read Yiyun Li before.

3.5 stars

This is the first book by Yiyun Li that I've read and I was blown away by how beautiful her writing is. It's lyrical, funny and heartbreaking all at once.

The first few stories had me gripped but I did find that the protagonists of the stories were all quite similar which made it feel quite repetitive at times. I will definitely be reading more by Yiyun Li but I think a full length novel will work better for me!

The cover is also absolutely gorgeous. Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

Yiyun Li's literary creations command my admiration. Her writing possesses an enigmatic quality that is captivating. Having just completed her latest novel, I am truly amazed by her artistry. She undeniably ranks among the most exceptional storytellers of our time, and her latest collection lives up to this reputation without fail.

Description:
A bunch of stories about middle-aged Asian-American women, almost all of whom are quite sad.

Liked:
Quietly compelling: each one of these women seems similarly disillusioned but perhaps not exactly discontented. Reading these stories felt like sleepwalking through someone else's anxiety dreams... which was kind of interesting, if not exactly pleasant. Really liked the story about the carer and professor, and the one about the girl who escaped a joint suicide.

Disliked:
The tone is probably too homogenous; although each of these stories has a different protagonist, they all felt like the same character, perhaps at different stages of her life, with small variations. There was an undertone from a couple of the women that other women were being irritatingly alarmist when reacting negatively to things like married men repeatedly hitting on younger women at work, which I also wasn't super keen on. This is my first time reading Yiyun Li, and I'll definitely try another, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this might not be her best work.

Would recommend as something to dip in and out of over time.

I first thought most of the stories were about mothers and their children, and how they pivot around each other without completely understanding one another’s intents and actions. But it is more than that: This book is about people who are untethered and ready to leave everything behind, and those who are left behind in grief, anger and yearning.

When I saw Yiyun Li was coming out with a series of short stories I knew it wouldn’t disappoint.

Most of the stories revolve around motherhood and womanhood and explore different aspects of what it’s like to be both. The writing is to the point and yet a joy to read. Like most short story collections there were some that I preferred to others. One thing that stood out to me was their length. Oftentimes I find short stories can be a bit too short but these all felt fully fleshed out and explored instead of cut short.

Over all a really good short story collection that I think nearly anyone would get something out of.

I'm sure it's me not the book but I can't seem to get on with Li's writing. The plain style and the everyday situations leave me cold and I can't seem to click with the work. I've tried before but just have to face that we're not a match - sorry ☹️