Reviews

Cat Pictures Please and Other Stories by Naomi Kritzer

sashas_books's review

adventurous dark emotional funny lighthearted mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.25

A very good collection of short stories! There was a lot of interesting themes and concepts that stayed with you and made you think. What muddied the waters for me a bit was that the 2-3 "meh stories" in here were very meh indeed.
I loved the titular story about an AI with a thing for cat pictures ;). 
The other ones I really liked were:
"The Golem" - set in Prague in 1941...
"In the Witch's Garden" - a sci-fi/fantasy retelling of the "Snow Queen"
"Cleanout" - three sisters are cleaning out their parents' house in order to sell it. But where did the parents REALLY come from?
"Artifice" - when one of your friends decides to get a robot boyfriend...
"The Good Son" - a faery falls in love with a mortal and bewitches a childless couple to act as his parents to make courting easier.
"Isabella's Garden" - when you have a two-year-old with magical powers that MAKE THINGS GROW
"Bits" - a sex toy company needs to begin to cater to human/alien couples (very very silly and funny)
"Honest Man" - about an immortal conman ;)
"So Much Cooking" - food blogger stuck at home during a horrid flu epidemic. (Kind of prescient...)

kevinhendricks's review

4.0

I've had a hard time with short story collections. I don't think I've finished one in something like 10 years. I like stories, but often the randomness of a collection just doesn't connect with me and I can't stick with it. But this one kept me reading. It helps that Naomi Kritzer is local, but I think it's more than that. I think she has a style that just kept pulling me along, even when the story was more of a fantasy thing I was less interested in (more robots wanting cat pictures, please).

yanxin's review

5.0

Lots of humor and humanity in this collection of SF/F short stories.

ratmooseman's review

adventurous funny lighthearted reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.5

great work, i love the variety of stories

hopef's review

5.0

This collection is a sci-fi must read. I'm wondering if there is another algorithm that might like flower pictures.

artk_bookworm's review

medium-paced

5.0

msjenne's review against another edition

5.0

I normally am so not interested in short stories. Either they're boring, or if they're interesting, they're too short. But these were so enjoyable! Cozy but not twee, smart but not smug, thoughtful but not preachy.

mdpenguin's review against another edition

5.0

I liked every single story in this collection. Some were better than others, but the worst of them were pretty enjoyable. I thought that all of them were quite clever and Kritzer's sense of humor is wonderful. Even though these stories mostly fall within the science fiction and fantasy genres, Kritzer's writing style put me more in mind of non-genre fiction writing. It made any of the science fiction or fantasy elements seem somehow less...fantastical? outlandish?...I'm not really sure how to put it. I guess we could use the terms speculative fiction or magical realism instead of science fiction or fantasy and maybe let that cover it. Anyway, this collection was a really good read and I'd recommend it to pretty much anyone who has a decent sense of humor and an imaginative mind.

trakiul's review against another edition

4.0

I really love the titular story, but I didn't feel that all of the stories in the collection lived up to it. they weren't bad and were definitely enjoyable enough reads, but the first one is so great and has such a unique perspective and so much to say. I absolutely recommend Cat Pictures Please; it's charming and I've been telling everyone I know about it because the premise is so good.

the other stand out story to me is What Happened At Blessing Creek, this one was a real stunner. I had a long conversation with one of my friends beginning with this story; we talked about colonialism and the tragedy of it.

hannahbananarama's review against another edition

5.0

What a great collection of thoughtful and thought provoking short stories! Creative and interesting and very accessible. I loved the title story “Cat Pictures Please” but pretty much every story here was just great. My favorite part though was that somebody who had checked this book out from the library before me left a picture of their cat with a note that it was intended to be used a bookmark by future readers - my heart exploded with joy!