You know when you read a short story collection on the recommendation of Tasnim @reads.and.reveries, the short story queen, that it's going to be a good one! I waited patiently for my library to reopen to get this collection out, and it was more than worth the wait. I read an article with Nafissa Thompson-Spires where she said that she wanted to write more stories about nerdy Black people - she does that and more with this collection. These 12 stories feature a myriad of Black folk, from exhausted nurses moonlighting as funeral singers to ASMR content creators on Youtube. I loved the breadth of Thompson-Spires characters, reminding anyone who needs it that Black people are not a monolith.

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It's such a solid collection, plus there are even a few familiar faces popping up in different stories! You know how much I appreciate a good interlocking short story collection. In fact, the three stories which all feature Fatima were some of my favourites, including Belles Lettres which I'd heard so much about! This is a hilarious exchange between two mothers, sending ever more vicious notes back and forth via their children who go to school together. Fatima is one of these children, and we get to see her growing up a little too, including her struggles with not feeling 'Black enough' at her mostly white high school.

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Other standouts for me included Suicide, Watch, where a young woman's need for validation on social media takes a sinister turn and Whisper to a Scream, the young ASMR content creator just trying to find her niche in the world. I don't think there were any stories I didn't enjoy to some extent, and Thompson-Spires covers such a broad range of themes that there's surely something to suit everybody's tastes here!

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She really shows off the scope of her writing too. We have a mix of third and first person throughout the collection, and she excels with both, getting right inside the heads of the narrators. I also loved her use of dark humour throughout, stories like Belles Lettres have you cackling and then the next story would make your blood run cold.

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In short, I just don't think you can go wrong with picking up this collection!