Sour Heart Hardcover – 10 Aug. 2017

Original and surprising short stories. Zhang is like no one else.

Excellent

Outrageous, hilarious, original! Looking forward to more of Jenny Zhang.

Havn't finished it yet...finding some stories a little depressing.

A seriously boring read. I couldn’t get into the characters and the stories were written in a way I couldn’t enjoy. Unable to finish.

I only read 3 ("Why Were They Throwing Bricks?", "We Love You Crispina" and "The Empty The Empty The Empty") of the 7 stories in this collection, so it's possible that my views are unjustified.I was absolutely captivated by "Why Were They Throwing Bricks". I prefer shorter short stories, ones you can easily read in a single sitting, and this was the shortest at 25 pages, hence why I started with this one. Despite being tired, I read it until the end. Beautiful and brilliant.Unfortunately after having read two more stories, I felt that the overall theme (immigrants struggling in a new country) made the stories too similar. It's obviously a fine line between having a common theme which binds a collection together, but still allowing each story to breathe and be unique.

While technically brilliant, this was the first book in years I have not finished. The stories thatvsre praised for hinestybsnd fierceness are in fact mostly gross. While there is value in talking about poverty and in about thebrelstionship between children ad theybdisciver their bodies i see no value in discussion teachers being attacked, people being sexually assaulted with objects by children or children conspiring to commit rape. It feels like inserted as stories about growing up and someone told the author to put in more shock to sell it and they went way too far.