Reviews

very nice, eerie collection of stories. while all the characters sort of felt like the same person (scared man, bored woman), i liked that i could end each chapter feeling a different sort of disconcerted.

my favorites in no particular order were Hibachi, Total Humiliation in 1987, No Life, and A Stormy Evening At Buck Snort Restaurant.

alienclans's review against another edition

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4.0

These stories are so strange and surreal. Lennon has such a unique writing style that I'm dying to read more of. However, I think that the first three stories were the weakest and I almost abandoned the collection completely because of them. Fortunately, "Hibachi" turned the collection around. "Hibachi" and "Weber's Head" were my favorites.

Also, I think I've found my new favorite description of a woman.

"Ruperta was an arrangement of pleasing roundness, wide round eyes nestled in wide round glasses, surrounded by black parentheses of hair set atop a full, pink melon head. Her body was all balls stuck to balls: a snowman of flesh. She was my type—indeed, the perfect expression of it."

If a man calls you a "snowman of flesh," marry him.

jackshoegazer's review against another edition

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3.0

A solid collection, mostly domestic stories with a dark creepiness lurking, which provide much of the narrative momentum. Light on weight and epiphany for my tastes, but a good collection that gets better as it goes.

herwitchiness's review against another edition

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5.0

2020 might be the first year I have had multiple favorite short story collections read & that feels nice! I used to absolutely loathe the form as I was forced to read too many during school but last year, I forced myself to read a few collections and I decided to continue that side challenge this year, too.
I’m glad I did because “See You In Paradise” manages to be the first book I’ve thought of as “cerebral, but in a, like, cute way.” It explores very mundane aspects of life but does so in a way that makes the ordinary fantastic or deeply thought-provoking, and I truly couldn’t get enough of how each & every story made me feel. 5/5 stars, for sure, and I definitely recommend it to both lovers & haters and anyone in between of the short story form.

drewsof's review against another edition

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5.0

None of the stories leap out as better than the others, per se - I don't know that there's one where you'll go "OH WOW!" and post it up as a banner example of Lennon's work. Instead, each of the stories spins together into the whole and makes this collection that oh-so-rare example of being greater than the sum of its individual parts. And those individual parts are all good. They are not connected, they are not linked - they are just all solid pieces of short fiction. And reading them on a porch or in air-conditioned suburban 'security' was just one of those perfect confluences of time, place, and story.

More at RB: http://ragingbiblioholism.com/2014/08/12/see-you-in-paradise/
and at TNBBC: http://thenextbestbookblog.blogspot.com/2014/08/drew-reviews-see-you-in-paradise.html

bearforester's review

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5.0

Fantastic stories. Funny, dark, quirky, and real, often several of these at once. Lennon makes the mundane interesting and the interesting meaningful.

hellalibrary's review

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3.0

3.5 stars. some of the stories in the beginning i kinda struggled through, but they got progressively better! weird little stories and some were effed up, but i dug it.

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