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gabileite's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
3.5
songrequext's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
roninil's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
loriluo's review against another edition
3.0
I had previously read Ling Ma's "Severance" so upon hearing that she was writing another book, immediately jumped at the chance to read it. "Bliss Montage" is quite different from her earlier post-apocalyptic novel, the primary factor being that it is a collection of short stories, but there are still many similarities between the two - including the melancholic writing style, the primary voice and character being an Asian-American woman, and the surreal aspects that pervade each of her stories.
Each of these eight stories is a slightly jarring read, starting with "Los Angeles", where a married woman recounts living in the same house with her husband and her 100 ex-boyfriends, and the weight each of these relationships continues to hold on her. This story segues into "Oranges", where a woman encounters an abusive ex-boyfriend and follows him home to confront him and is current girlfriend. "G" was one of the more standout stories for me, where a woman describes the impact that an illicit drug has on her and her friend, leading us to wonder if the toxicity present is due to the drug or to each other. Some of the stories, like "Yeti Lovemaking", where a woman is misled at a bar by a Yeti in disguise of a man, and "Office Hours", where a female professor looks back at her time as a college student and her interaction with her previous professor whom she now has the office of, felt too out-of-reach for me. I think the story I resonated most with was "Peking Duck", where a Chinese American girl describes the experience her mother went through as a nanny for a wealthy white family in Utah, and the repercussions she's faced with when a stranger enters the home, taking advantage of her situation.
Giving a rating to a collection of stories is difficult as, in this case, it's giving 8 individual scores and aggregating them into one. While there were some that felt impactful, others were just too far from understanding for me and my own experiences. For me, personally, "Bliss Montage" wasn't as strong as Ma's earlier novel, and across each of these different stories, the similarities in voice and tone became monotonous over time.
Thank you Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the advance copy of this novel!
Each of these eight stories is a slightly jarring read, starting with "Los Angeles", where a married woman recounts living in the same house with her husband and her 100 ex-boyfriends, and the weight each of these relationships continues to hold on her. This story segues into "Oranges", where a woman encounters an abusive ex-boyfriend and follows him home to confront him and is current girlfriend. "G" was one of the more standout stories for me, where a woman describes the impact that an illicit drug has on her and her friend, leading us to wonder if the toxicity present is due to the drug or to each other. Some of the stories, like "Yeti Lovemaking", where a woman is misled at a bar by a Yeti in disguise of a man, and "Office Hours", where a female professor looks back at her time as a college student and her interaction with her previous professor whom she now has the office of, felt too out-of-reach for me. I think the story I resonated most with was "Peking Duck", where a Chinese American girl describes the experience her mother went through as a nanny for a wealthy white family in Utah, and the repercussions she's faced with when a stranger enters the home, taking advantage of her situation.
Giving a rating to a collection of stories is difficult as, in this case, it's giving 8 individual scores and aggregating them into one. While there were some that felt impactful, others were just too far from understanding for me and my own experiences. For me, personally, "Bliss Montage" wasn't as strong as Ma's earlier novel, and across each of these different stories, the similarities in voice and tone became monotonous over time.
Thank you Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the advance copy of this novel!
hnfive's review against another edition
4.0
Like most books of short stories - some are better than others. I was between a 4 and 4.5 until the last story which I both didn't get and found disgusting so that knocked it down to a 3.5
steve_mcgill's review against another edition
challenging
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Some stories landed but on the whole this kind of missed me.
keng1760's review against another edition
4.0
Really beautiful writing. I liked “Peking Duck” the most because I resonated so strongly with the mother-daughter relationship it portrayed, and it included an interesting consideration of how personal anecdotes are claimed and narrated. The stories were enjoyable but tbh I don’t understand what all of them were trying to say.