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4.01 AVERAGE


This collection was simply incredible. Tan’s writing is very clever, supremely creative and just a little bit weird! There were also many moments of humour.

The book includes 20 stories with ever more intriguing names such as “A Girl Is Sitting on a Unicorn in the Middle of a Shopping Centre”, “Mounting Sexual Tension Between Two Long-Time Friends; Tom Knows that Ant is a Spy but Ant Doesn’t”, “Ron Swanson’s Stencilled ‘Stache” and “You Put the U in Utopia (or, The last Neko Atsume Player in the World)”.

Many if not all of the stories are set in the future or imagine a very different world to our own but each present very relatable human emotions and responses.

In the story which gives the collection its name – “Smart Ovens for Lonely People” - the main character is assigned a talking oven after a suicide attempt. The oven tells her she doesn’t have to be sorry anymore. In “Page & Co. Genuine Scribe Era Stationary Pty Ltd.” stationary products are now rare and rarely used. A biro given to a homeless man has an unexpected effect.

I really enjoyed all the stories – they were poignant and clever in their weirdness. Elizabeth Tan is definitely a writer of talent and I’m keen to seek out her earlier work. If you like your writing a touch on the bizarre side I do recommend checking out Smart Ovens for Lonely People.

molly43's review

3.0
adventurous reflective fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
sonya_frog's profile picture

sonya_frog's review

5.0
funny fast-paced
Diverse cast of characters: Yes

I wanted so much to be thrilled by this collection and there were a couple of standouts ~ the titular story being a particular favourite.

I hate myself for not loving this but it just was not for me.

roster's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 21%

I'd've finished it but at the time, I could only afford the sample e-book at the google play store, so that's as far as I'd got.
emotional funny hopeful reflective medium-paced

i read this for my Honours Australian Literature class and i really enjoyed it! reminded me a lot of julie koh’s portable curiosities (which makes sense as tan cites it as an influence) and koh’s book is probably my favourite out of the books i’ve read for uni, so i definitely enjoyed this. the biggest difference between the two collections is that tan’s work has a real feeling of hope permeating throughout (it’s also significantly less violent, which helps).

this is a wonderful collection of short stories and as a Perth girl, the Perth locations and references added a whole extra layer of humour — the karaoke bar in ‘eighteen bells karaoke’ on the “former site of the ritz carlton” was so funny to me having watched the slow construction of elizabeth quay and then the even slower construction of the hotels in what is now a kind of an accidental dead spot 💀

my favourites from this collection are, in no particular order:
  • our sleeping lungs opened to the cold
  • eighteen bells karaoke castle (sing your heart out)
  • smart ovens for lonely people
  • would you rather
  • shirt dresses that look a little too much like shirts so that it looks like you forgot to put on pants (love will save the day)
  • you put the u in utopia (or, the last neko atsume player in the world)

evecrossett's review

4.0
funny hopeful reflective medium-paced
karabeavis's profile picture

karabeavis's review

4.75
adventurous funny inspiring lighthearted mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Congratulations Elizabeth Tan. Contemporary, kooky, incredibly well written, fun, unique. 
challenging funny reflective slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

"Degenerate utopias, however, are not critical; they’re just empty reproductions of what is already familiar to you. They might look different from the real world, superficially, but they ultimately protect the cosy lie that worlds can only be one way—which means, most of the time, predicated on capitalism."

Smart ovens for lonely people is anything but a degenerate utopia. These stories are weird and funny and relatable and infused with a kind of desperately sad undertone, which is much more fun than it sounds. In the opener, half a page long, a piece of playground equipment is blown down a street, appearing to take on fish form in the writers, or ours, imaginations or reality, setting the stage for a collection that uses imagination to cope with a kind of existential terror.
Tan's characters live in worlds with cat-shaped counselling ovens, companies which fall in love, sentient fungal networks, restaurants catering to those so dependent on feeding tubes they have forgotten how to eat with ease. Some stories just capture the sense of being thrown off-kilter we have all got used to: On a single day, washing machines mysteriously empty midwash throwing social compacts off-kilter. Others evoke the sense of powerlessness, especially a couple set around spies held together by love, or a father who can't protect his children from a threat they pose. In this version of our future/present, people date and are annoyed by coworkers, sit on a hillside and watch how pretty the end of the world is. Tan's characters feel like us, bewildered by a world which is changing, beset by petty details, sometimes consumed by grief. The ideas here amuse, entertain and provoke, but Tan never shakes, or I think wants to, the ultimate feeling that we are watching our world dissolve underneath us, while we distract ourselves from our helplessness by looking for moments of joy. There are hints of more here to, that in choosing to reflect our world differently, we can both confront it and imagine something fundamentally better to create.
weaver's profile picture

weaver's review

4.0
fast-paced