As with most short story collections, this one has hits and a couple misses. Regardless, Katherine Heinz's distinct voice in unmistakable. Quirky, funny, unique characters with all-too-real dilemmas.

I thought this would be a quick one but I could not get into the short stories. The formal was weird on the kindle, which made it hard to follow.

1/5 stars!

A collection of stories exploring love, relationships, and some questionable behavior. Heiny's place as one of the best working writers today is solidified in this disarmingly charming collection of stories. No one gets at the intricacies and quirks of human connection quite like Heiny, and that is on full display in these incredibly arresting stories. Amusing, flat-out funny, heartbreaking, and accessible, this one is a joy of a collection. Give this to readers looking to explore the short story genre, because it's a perfect entry point. There's something for everyone in this book's pages. A gem.

I don't read a lot of short story collections, but from now on, when I do, they will be by Katherine Heiny! These stories were so well written, I couldn't stop highlighting lines on my Kindle—by turns laugh-out-loud funny, moving, relatable, and highly enjoyable. Grateful to Netgalley for the read.

I love a good collection of short stories, and Games and Rituals was a reminder that I need to read more of them. Katherine Heiny writes with a sharp astuteness about normal people living normal (messy, bittersweet) lives. Her characters all feel honest in the ways that they worry, love, lie, and relate to each other, and I feel like most of the set-ups could have made for a novel-- I would have read more. This is a good one for fans of Sally Rooney, Dolly Alderton. and Beth O'Leary.

Thank you NetGalley and Knopf for the free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Okay, I did not finish this on NetGalley I couldn't get into the formatting but, I purchased it and quite liked it. I don't think it stands out as a favorite and it could be quite forgettable compared to other books but the short stories were easy and fun and touch on real life subjects and imperfect relationships which I liked.

I received an ARC through Netalley; Ms. Henry is a new-to-me author. Overall, the book was pretty good. The writing is very good, but I felt many of the short stories were disappointing. Here’s my breakdown of each of the stories.
Chicken-Flavored and Lemon-Scented
There were a couple of good puns. Colette worked at the DMV as a driving examiner and her life is referred to as “pedestrian.” I appreciated the references to her job, but the ending was abrupt (passage of time was wildly unclear) and the story seemed pointless and meandering.
Damascus
A few great descriptions—”Benjamin, who looked like he’d been clubbed unconscious and thrown in Mira’s mother’s recliner.”
Was the story supposed to be a parable of some sort with a name like Damascus and a character named Lazarus?
I was amused by this—”It seemed extremely important that the Uber driver understand that Mia was not the sort of person who did drugs and f—ked lawyers and stayed out all night. She did that, yes, but she was not the sort of person who did it, or at least not the sort who did it regularly.”
Another disappointing ending.
Twist and Shout
In regard to gardening, Ericka thinks, “Your underpants feel like a piece of hot wet spinach wrapped around your hips.”
I liked this story. It delves into mortality and aging, how our lives are so connected to our parents even when they drive us crazy. Dad watched Fox all the time, losing his hearing (and lost his hearing aid), and is unreasonably locked in the Fox mindset. In other words—capitalism good; recycling bad. Over the years, he has repeatedly fired his home care assistant, Araminta, due to her liberal views.
Our own mortality becomes even clearer when our parents age, and especially when the die.
Turn Back, Turn Back
Describing a female friend of her husband, Lindy thinks, she has “very intense freckles that looked like she’d sneezed into a plate of crushed red pepper flakes and suffered the blowback.”
Another disappointing ending. Why?
Games and Rituals
This story is better in that, at least, it makes sense. We saw the signs, the drifting apart, and the inevitably of the end. It’s a commentary on how our games and rituals mark the passage of time and can sometimes blind us to what’s on the horizon.
CobRa
I really enjoyed this one which starts with a great opening—William’s wife “CobRa” has adopted the philosophy of Marie Kondo and he is convinced she is going to give him to Goodwill because he no longer sparks joy. He observes that their son “Nathaniel’s room was already hyper-organized in a nascent-serial-killer type of way.”
It’s an interesting twist on the usual theme of collecting as many possessions as possible only to discover happiness eludes you. This time, Rachel (CobRa) seeks to eliminate all possessions and discovers happiness eludes her. Anything taken to its extreme is bound to cause unhappiness because happiness comes from within.
This one had a nearly perfect ending, until the last paragraph. Really, I think it may have been the last three sentences. Other than that, I loved it.
561
Told from the POV of Charlie, currently married to Forrest who was previously married to Barbara, it recounts their visit to Barbara’s house to help her pack to move. When I wasn’t rolling my eyes at how Charlie allowed Barbara to manipulate (really, abuse) her, I found the interactions interesting. Charlie and Barbara have a history. They met while volunteering at a suicide prevention hotline. But what I found most interesting was the realization by Charlie that she and Barbara had shared the top three most stressful life events—death, divorce, and relocation—and therefore, they share a bond that few people do.
Pandemic Behavior
This was fascinating as it pulled me back into quarantine and how people acted during the stress of that time. Not for the first time, I found a parallel to my own life when Daphne reflects that “...I couldn’t write…” I sympathized with that because during lockdown all of my creativity left me as if it had never existed.
There are some incredibly vivid descriptions of migraines that had me cringing. This is just part of one—”Some people say that migraines feel like bad hangovers and some people say that migraines feel like headaches that pulse and some people say that migraines feel like stomach flu in your head. But what migraines really feel like is being tied to a railroad track while the world’s longest, loudest freight train thunders over you.” And there’s no escape.
It was another odd ending, but I appreciated the recounting of COVID.
Bridesmaid, Revisited
First of all, I loved the title and I understood Marlee. Specifically when she spoke about not wearing makeup because “...it’s sort of nice to know everyone is mentally upgrading her looks without her having to make any effort.”
There’s the recounting of an interview she and her friend Veronika did for their podcast with a geneticist that is laugh-out-loud funny. It was something I had to read aloud and share.
I liked the wordplay, as when Ms. Henry talks about Marlee doing something partly for one reason and partly for another, and so on. “That sounds like a lot of ‘partlys,’ a lot of parts, but no part of Marlee actually wanted to be in the wedding.” She describes Rhonda’s focus on her wedding preparations as happening in “...an oddly joyless fashion, like a garbage can that’s been kicked over and scatters cockroaches everywhere.”
I got to the end and realized I’d enjoyed reading a bunch of funny anecdotes but I wondered, what was the point?
King Midas
This is the story of a sad, pathetic man whose life revolves around Tessa, a woman who may or may not care for him. Some good descriptions, but not worth it for the content of this story.
Sky Bar
Frequent references to high school, how Fawn changed herself (really, reinvented herself), and wants to forget about that time, but it keeps creeping back.
“Some people say time is like a river, but it’s really much more like an accordion, constantly squeezing you back to high school.”
The ending is good because it brings it back around to high school again, only this time, it’s fun.

An easy to read collection of slice-of-life short stories, Katherind Heiny's Games and Rituals kept me coming back for the next one. While I didn't enjoy all of the stories, most of them had an interesting premise and set up. Some lacked the depth I craved with some of the characters, but overall, a good collection of work!

Really obsessed with this collection of stories. They were all contemporary, relatable. and funny. I love the author's voice. I wanted each story to be it's own book, but they really were the perfect length to get the "point" across. I will be seeking out other books by this author for sure!

The concept of this collection did seem promising. The writing was quite solid but none of the stories really stood out to me or anything.

Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf for sending me an advanced copy

5★
“Colette has been a driving examiner for twelve years—she’s thirty-six—and yet it only occurs to her today that Ted Bundy had had a driver’s license. And that means that some driving examiner had taken him for a road test. Think about it: some driving examiner had willingly clambered into Ted’s VW bug and driven off with him.”

Ted Bundy?! ACK! Doesn't bear thinking about, does it?

That is the first paragraph of the first story of this excellent collection. The relationships, office and personal, between members of the staff are the main part of the story, but the anecdotes about the driving tests are fun. I will share one of Colette’s.

17-year-old Seraphina has driven straight through a red light with oncoming traffic bearing down on them. They shoot over an embankment, nearly flipping, and coming to land, right-side up, in a parking lot below. Whew! Turns out Seraphina has problems she can’t tell anyone about, and Colette feels so sorry for her she offers to help the girl personally on her day off.

“‘Thank you,’ Seraphina says. She closes her eyes and whispers, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you.’ She sounds like she’s thanking the universe more than she’s thanking Colette.

‘You’re welcome,’ says the universe in the form of Colette.

(Because surely the universe arranged this particular road test.) ‘Okay, let’s trade places and I’ll drive you back to the office.’

‘Wait.’ Seraphina opens her eyes. ‘Did I pass or not?’”

I made notes about all the stories, but I can’t possibly share many here. A favourite is “CoBra”.

“ William had begun to worry that he no longer sparked joy in his wife and that she would give him to Goodwill. It was alarmingly easy to picture. His wife would thank him for his service and then drop him off at the donation center, the one behind the store with the blankly sinister roll-up doors. Goodwill would take him in and William would live out the rest of his days there, among the old bowling trophies, the stained bedsheets, the too-shallow cereal bowls, and the stuffed animals with only one eye.”

Rachel is obsessed with Marie Kondo and is compulsively Marie Kondo-ing their house.

“Only his wife had explained that William was wrong to call it “Marie Kondo–ing,’ that it was actually called the ‘KonMari method’ because Japanese people reversed and combined their first and last names to create a nickname.

William’s wife’s name was Rachel Coburn, so her Japanese nickname would be (or could be, sort of) CobRa.

William told her this, however unwisely. He was trying to make jokes, trying to spark joy. It was in short supply lately.”

He’s not having much luck and he’s always several steps behind her. He actually likes his tidy sock drawer, but the garage was a shock! As for his wardrobe –

“On the bed were his corduroys with the frayed hems, his sweaters with the perfectly stretched-out necks, the flannel shirts worn soft as flower petals. William said it all pretty much still sparked joy in him, but CobRa said that it had to spark joy in both of them.

‘You wearing it and me seeing you wear it,’ she said.

In the end, this left him with one pair of pants and four shirts.”

The author brings it to a very satisfying, believably real conclusion, which I always appreciate. It’s easy to poke fun at people but more difficult to make them vulnerable and human and ultimately people we might like to know.

All of the stories are people-relationship stories, not adventures or mysteries. The games and rituals play out particularly in a story of that name, where a young woman talks about all the little in-jokes we all use to keep us connected with shared memories. “Remember when …” and then you both howl with laughter, or one of you cringes with horrible embarrassment, or one of you says not to dare tell anyone else.

In “Skybar”, Fawn is at an airport in her hometown, where she has been visiting her parents and avoiding her ex, but now her flight’s cancelled and she’s stuck at the bar, waiting, waiting, drinking, flirting. She lives in New York City now, no longer in smalltown, Michigan, which is snowed in, and she wants to go ‘home’ – New York home.

“Fawn looks up automatically. She can’t help it. You can leave the past behind but some part of you remains there, like a rough sharp splintery tree branch sticking out along the path and snagging your sleeve.
. . .
Is it fair to dislike someone solely because he reminds you of an earlier, awkward stage of your life? Probably not. But nobody ever said life was fair.”

Some of the people are more likeable than others (well, duh, just like real life), but I can point to a lot of them who have appeared in my life.

Terrific collection that I loved. Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for the copy for review. [I did check the quotes against a library copy, since I’m a bit late reviewing it.]

Fun, thoughtful, and poignant short stories that feel realistic and lived-in without being boring. But to be honest, I can't think of a single standout. I think they were all good, but not really memorable.

Thank you Netgalley for this review e copy.
Games and Rituals includes series of different short stories that not only are easy and gripping to read about the mundanity of human lives. The vibes are immaculate, but I can see readers not sticking around for some of the plot points. Stay for the mood, humor and empathetic views on human flaws. Relatable and witty, I recommend this to short stories lovers. Unfortunately, not all the stories were for me.

This book is full of mischievous moments to tender moments. This book is a collection of glorious humor and immense kindness, This was a quick and easy read. Any story by Katherine Heinz is alway fun to read and think about.

4 stars
I love Heiny's writing! So many normal and potentially boring passages were sooo interesting and funny. This collection of short stories is very mundane, but in that normalcy Heiny creates spunky characters and great inner dialogue. The stories often followed mishaps in people's lives and they had somewhat of a negative tone, but still had humor and light-heartedness to them. I thoroughly enjoyed this read!

I like how the stories tell different themes, and it's just the whole vibes and not here for the plot.

Short story collections are often very hard to rate if you didn't love all the stories...and needless to say, I did not love all of these stories. Several I found to be pretty boring, and had to push myself to finish. A few had very vague, anti-climactic endings. The one I truly loved was about a woman and her slowly (yet quickly) dying father. IYKYK. Having lost my FIL a few months ago, it was extremely relatable. Beyond that, these stories just didn't really click for me. I hope others find more enjoyment than I did!

I'm realizing short story collections are hard for me to rate. I think my parameter for like and dislike is not so deep so in the sense that some of these stories I liked and some I disliked just defaults to a 3 stars for me.

Thank you so much to @aaknopf and @netgalley for the gifted advance review copy. All thoughts are my own.

Games and Rituals is charming collection of character studies from a very talented (and funny!) writer. This is a quick, engaging read about relationships of all kinds. “Twist and Shout” is probably the best short story I’ve ever read about coping with aging parents – this story is a must read! There seems to be a consensus among reviewers that the front half of this collection is better than the back half, and I would agree. Still, I loved this intimate collection!

Short story collections usually mean hits and misses – it’s rare that I rave about a whole collection (the last time was here). Games and Rituals by Katherine Heiny is absolutely worth raving about.

There are eleven stories in the collection, all focused on the theme of love, and the various forms it takes – friendships, ex-husbands, parents and children, and ill-advised trysts. And all eleven stories are funny. Not necessarily laugh-out-loud funny (although I did) but the wry smile kind of funny. Deadpan funny. And I felt like the humour was just for me because everything Heiny writes about peri menopause, parenting teenagers, bridesmaids’ dresses, dealing with ageing parents and the little stuff that I lose my shit over, was exactly right.

She told William…she was in perimenopause. She had given him a printed checklist of thirty-four symptoms of perimenopause: irritability, lack of libido, hot flashes, mood swings, headaches, constipation, gum problems, tingling extremities, fatigue, dizziness, burning tongue… She had checked every single box except incontinence.
Two days later, she asked him for the list back and checked the incontinence box, too.

And there was also stuff that made me laugh because it was so weirdly specific – someone disliking their neighbour because they forced them to go to a Colour Me Beautiful party in the eighties, and another who thought their friend was making a bad choice of husband but notes, “….also, she has a pocket in her wedding dress, which is very unusual…” (Pockets in dresses are essential – wish I’d thought of that for my wedding dress).

There are some standouts – in Bridesmaid, Revisited, Marilee is suffering from a laundry and life crisis, and wears a huge taffeta bridesmaid’s dress to work which, as she sets up the projector for a staff meeting, ‘…rustles like a palm tree in a typhoon.‘

In Damascus, a woman’s ex-husband asks her to drop by his office after-hours to sign some papers. All straight forward. However they end up doing a line of cocaine and having sex.

First she felt, then she felt cold, then she had a profound idea that would revolutionize the way she did laundry.
“Give me a notebook,” she said to Jack-Henry. “I need to write this down.”
“Later,” Jack-Henry said, sliding his hand up her skirt.
“I can take notes while you do that,” said Mia, who now felt capable of anything, including multitasking. So Jack-Henry gave her a legal pad and a fountain pen and put his hand under her skirt again… Mia made a quick drawing of her laundry room with arrows showing the route dirty clothes would take on their way to sparkling clean in her new system. She sketched three laundry baskets and next to the third one, she wrote VERY IMPORTANT! DON’T FORGET! and circled it several times. (She would have no memory of the importance later.)
Then she put the legal pad aside, unzipped Jack-Henry’s trousers, and they got it on.

Twist and Shout made me laugh and cry. Ericka’s cranky elderly father mistakes his $4000 hearing aid for a cashew and eats it. Naturally Ericka has to organise a replacement and it is far from straightforward.

This simple event contains multitudes: sorrow and entitlement and love and annoyance. It also contains the four separate appointments – assessment, hearing test, fitting, programming – you made and took him to in order to get the hearing aid in the first place. He’s not even supposed to be eating cashews! He has high blood pressure!

Without spoilers, this is pretty much a perfect short story.

And lastly, we meet empty-nesters, William and his Marie-Kondo-obsessed wife in CobRa –

William’s wife’s name was Rachel Coburn, so her Japanese nickname would be (or could be, sort of) CobRa. William told her this, however unwisely. He was trying to make jokes, trying to spark joy. It was in short supply lately.

As Rachel ‘KonMari-s’ their house, William wonders if there is much more she can give up and still remain the person he’d married. The decluttering continues, but he draws the line when she reaches for his books –

William had done many shameful things out of his love for CobRa – he had agreed turkey meatballs were as good as regular, he had watched all of Scandal, he had briefly grown a mustache which made him look like Dr. Phil – but he refused to do this. He told CobRa she had to keep all the books with his name written on the flyleaf…

In all of the stories, Heiny demonstrates how to create normal, believable characters while maintaining tension and humour and startlingly good writing. Guaranteed to brighten your day.

4.5/5

I received my copy of Games and Rituals from the publisher, Harper Collins Australia (and Knopf), via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.