A review by itacuz
Sorry Please Thank You by Charles Yu

adventurous funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

I started listening to the audio book for How to Live Safely in a Science Fiction Universe after finishing the audiobook I was reading and started reading Sorry Please Thank You after finishing the physical book I was reading. I soon had to choose one to stop reading because they were blurring in my mind too much to discern what was coming from which book. This isn’t to say they are exactly the same, but Charles Yu’s writing style is so distinct and playful, I wanted to make sure I had it straight which world he was playing in before moving onto the next one. 

This is with full respect for the author, and the form I’m ascribing him to, but a lot of the stories in here read like short stories taken off of Tumblr and improved upon. I want to stress that improved because they’re all well written and interesting. I just mean they read like the posts you’d see while scrolling that make you stop and go “woah, I would read that book, I can’t believe I saw thid on Tumblr of all places”. So this is that book. This is the better version of whatever late night mindblower you reblogged with your own take while putting private thoughts in the tags. Some of them you may have just read and scrolled past, but that was only two out of the thirteen for me.

This short story collection is divided up into three sections, named Sorry, Please, and Thank You. Throughout, Charles Yu plays with form, sometimes to a remarkable degree, and other times disregards tinkering for the sake of simply telling an interesting story. I wasn’t sure why stories were grouped together the way they were, Standard Loneliness Package fit the Sorry section, but First Person Shooter came across as not fitting anywhere else so it just ended up there. I don’t really care because the stories as manipulations of science fiction was what I was interested in. There is a final section titled All of the Above and its only story is Sorry Please Thank You. It felt more like a scene than a story, though if it were scene you could compliment it saying it was a whole story in just one scene. While most of these stories felt gathered for the sake of the collection, this one felt written for it.

My favorite stories were Standard Loneliness Package, Troubleshooting, Open, and Adult Contemporary. I’d say all the stories in Sorry Please Thank You have a theme of choosing the type of life you want to live and living with your choice of life. These stories all hit that mark, feeling funny and sad throughout. Troubleshooting could be the thesis of the entire collection while the other three are just really good stories. I think starting the book with Standard Loneliness Package was a fantastic choice. It was probably the most grounded story and could serve as the pitch episode for Charles Yu’s season of Black Mirror. 

If you want to get a feel for Charles Yu before diving into one of his larger, full length novels, I would start here. It’s not an intimidating length, and some of the stories have sentences take up an entire page for sake of form, further shortening the book. I felt finishing this that I had a much better idea of what to expect in How to Live Safely in a Science Fiction Universe and Interior Chinatown. I look forward to seeing how he lives up to or subverts those expectations as move on from this one.