I’ve now read two short story collections this year which intertwine a novella with short stories - so it’ll go novella vignette, short story, novella vignette, short story etc. In Casey Plett’s A Dream of a Woman, I thought it worked better because we jumped around different times in the MC’s life. But with Brandon Taylor’s, a few of the vignettes just picked up where the previous one had left off, so why not just keep them together as a continuous novella? 🤔

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Anyway, structure concerns aside, I enjoyed this queer short story collection a lot as I was reading it, but I feel like a fair few of the stories will not be particularly memorable in a few months’ time. The first vignette of the novella was stunning, a young scientist getting back on his feet after a suicide attempt experiences two surprising interaction at a potluck - Taylor evokes a lot of emotion and writes chemistry well. But the more stories we got with Lionel, Charles and Sophie, the less I liked the latter two and wanted to shake Lionel to wake up and see that he deserves better 😭

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Some of the stories are brutal, dealing with heavy themes like illness, internalised homophobia, and toxic masculinity. I found the ones dealing with illness to be the most compelling - Mass and What Made Them Made You. Mass especially, as I also enjoyed the exploration of brotherhood and how our relationships with siblings shift as we get older. Anne of Cleeves was also a surprisingly touching story I wasn’t expecting, featuring a woman who came out as a lesbian later in life (🙋‍♀️) and is adapting to dating women and owning her sexuality.

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I think I enjoyed Real Life more, but still glad I got round to this one!