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cellardoor10 's review for:
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories
by Ken Liu
Short stories are rarely my favorite. They tend to try to have punchy, witty ending lines that I don't always get, and when I can't tell if they are linked or totally separate, I struggle. I tend to still be thinking about the one that just ended as the audiobook narrator ruthlessly moves on to the next.
Perhaps the hardest part - the stories are often not as well developed as I would like, or they focus on details that I'm not a huge fan of, etc.
With all that said, this is an incredibly strong selection of short stories. I loved The Paper Menagerie, The Perfect Match, and several others. I deeply struggled with The Man Who Ended History because it was so graphic and difficult to read.
I was excited to see the word "thalassocracy" take a prominent position in one of them, since I know that word from Final Fantasy XIV.
Anyway, it's important to note that these stories do not pull their punches. Expect to read about mistreated underage Chinese sex workers and serial killers and racism left, right, and center. It's a challenging collection, especially the last story. And I'm not sure Liu has written a truly happy relationship, particularly marriages, among the lot. The couple that seem so have significant other factors making their home life a mess anyway.
Not for the squeamish, but very worth reading.
Perhaps the hardest part - the stories are often not as well developed as I would like, or they focus on details that I'm not a huge fan of, etc.
With all that said, this is an incredibly strong selection of short stories. I loved The Paper Menagerie, The Perfect Match, and several others. I deeply struggled with The Man Who Ended History because it was so graphic and difficult to read.
I was excited to see the word "thalassocracy" take a prominent position in one of them, since I know that word from Final Fantasy XIV.
Anyway, it's important to note that these stories do not pull their punches. Expect to read about mistreated underage Chinese sex workers and serial killers and racism left, right, and center. It's a challenging collection, especially the last story. And I'm not sure Liu has written a truly happy relationship, particularly marriages, among the lot. The couple that seem so have significant other factors making their home life a mess anyway.
Not for the squeamish, but very worth reading.