I just loved this book of short stories. Katherine Heiny has the ability to give you an understanding of fully-formed, complex characters in just a few lines, so her stories feel rich and full and complete. She deftly walks the line between light humor and depth and I just love her writing style. I adored her novel Standard Deviation, and I will be reading the other books in her backlist asap!

This writing was so good. There were a few stories I really loved that I wanted more of- Chicken Flavored and Lemon Scented, and CobRa. Heiny is amazing!

There's a link between yesterday's review and today's: Jenny Jackson, author of Pineapple Street is Katherine Heiny's editor. No prizes for guessing which book I preferred.

Games and Rituals is a collection of short stories, Heiny's second, and the follow-up to her two novels Standard Deviation (still my favourite of hers) and Early Morning Riser.

I'd put Heiny in the same category as Judy Blume, Lily King, Anne Tyler, Hilma Wolitzer - brilliant observational writing with moments of real humour and heart. I think if you like any of these authors, or shows like Seinfeld or Curb Your Enthusiasm, you'll enjoy her books.

A few stories in here made me laugh out loud. Heiny unearths hilarity and poignancy in the most mundane things - marriage, infidelity, a delayed flight, moving house, the driving test centre, the pandemic, intransigence in old age and Marie Kondo.

These are perfect stories to dip in and out of if you're time poor. I read them over the course of a couple of weeks, letting each story marinate for a day or two. While some stories were better than others (rare to find a short story collection where this isn't the case), the writing is sharp throughout, and the characters full of life. Standout stories for me were

Chicken-Flavoured and Lemon-Scented
Twist and Shout
CobRa
Pandemic Behaviour
Bridesmaid, Revisited

*Many thanks to the publisher @knopf @vintagebooks for the arc via @netgalley. Games and Rituals was published today. As always, this is an honest review.*

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf Publishing for gifting me an ARC of Katherine Heiny’s short story collection Games and Rituals. In exchange I offer my unbiased opinion.

If you’re familiar with Heiny’s writing you will absolutely adore this quirky collection of 11 short stories featuring original characters and situations that only Heiny can create. Though I’m generally not a fan of short stories this collection was the perfect blend of humor and heart. From aging parents to uncoupling couples, coworkers and roommates; each story contained a slice of life that left me wanting more!!. Definitely add this one to your summer reading list!

A collection of eleven short stories about friendship, infidelity, marriage and love.

Thanks so much to Knopf Publishing and NetGalley for sending me this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I loved Katherine Heiny’s novel ‘Early Morning Riser’ so I was super excited to receive an advanced copy of her next book. I’m not usually a huge fan of short stories but I really enjoyed most of these. They are funny, endearing, and relatable. There is also one centered around the pandemic that hits especially close to home.

Though each story has different characters, there does seem to be a common vibe that threads all of them together. Pick this one up if you’re looking for some bite sized reads!

Katherine Heiny's writing is always a win for me. I've enjoyed her novels and I equally enjoyed this short story collection. Each of the 11 stories are captivating with quirky characters working through an array of feelings and challenges. I could have spent more time with each one. Will be recommending to my friends!

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a great short story collection you can read incrementally or in one sitting. The stories walk the beautiful balance of striking an emotional chord while also being digestible. The stories made me feel everything from somber, to anxious, to warm, to amused, to grieving.

While I enjoyed the collection, I’m not the target demographic as someone in their mid-twenties. The majority of the stories are about aging, marriage (and its dissolution), and being… more of an adult than I am, I guess. Not a bad thing; I just think millennials might connect to these stories more than I’m able to.

My favorite stories, in no order:
- Chicken-Flavored and Lemon-Scented
- CobRa
- Games and Rituals
- Twist and Shout

Overall, would highly recommend this collection, especially to read on the beach this summer.

This book is truly the first short story collection I’ve really enjoyed. I’m not usually a fan of books referencing COVID but I didn’t mind it with these. The writing was gripping and fun. Overall, a quick, entertaining read.

Games and Rituals by Katherine Heiny is composed of 11 stories of people engaging in various games and rituals, as the name suggests. Each one delivers a new world with new characters, and masterfully pulls on a range of emotions. Some consider very simple experiences that we all often face while others go beyond the every day. My favorite story was Lemon Scented which is about test drivers at the DMV - it takes a turn I didn't see coming!

Overall, this is a lovely short story collection that I highly recommend. Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor, Knopf for the ARC. Games and Rituals is out tomorrow, 4/18/23.

I read Katherine Heiny's Early Morning Riser when it came out and it quickly became one of my favorite books of that year. I devoured her writing style and fell in love with her characters that felt quirky yet mundane at the same time (in a good way). I was excited to consume anything new of Heiny's, but unfortunately this fell flat for me.

This is a series of short stories about everyday life, filled with odd and interesting characters. I do not often read or enjoy short stories but I was hoping that these would be different. I wanted to like these, but there are no stories that stood out to me or I will remember in the future. I think the characters and stories were interesting, but I needed more time with them to feel truly connected. This pulled me out of the stories quite a bit and I failed to feel intrigued by the stories in the end. All of the reviews for this are great so far, so I think short stories just aren't for me.

Thank you to Knopf and Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I didn't realize this was short stories when I picked it up, but I am so glad that it was! All eleven stories were interesting in different ways and describe new ways to think about the human experience.

This was an okay read. I don’t really read a whole lot of short stories and I felt like I wanted more from a lot of these stories. (Exhibit A as to why I don’t read many short stories.)

I did enjoy the writing style. I loved some of these stories and truly wish I could have learned more about their situationships. I did like that each one of these was so much like real life.

Overall, I liked it. Would I buy it? No. Am I mad I read it? Nope.

Thanks NetGalley for the ARC!

I couldn't wait to settle into this book with each story featuring a different cast of characters often in the midst of mundane, routine tasks like going to work or waiting for a delayed flight to board at the airport.
All the stories, even the most random ones, are full of elements that allow the reader to quickly identify with either the narrator or one of his characters. The author knows human nature perfectly and that is clearly reflected in the way these characters relate with each other so organically. The stories capture our connections, and disconnections, from each other individually and collectively.
Enthusiastically and highly recommend.

Thank you very much to Knopf and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advance copy.

Thank you to Knopf and Net Galley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Short story collections are a category that I have been wanting to read more often. Games and Rituals did not disappoint. The most memorable thing about this collection is how real the characters and relationships were portrayed. It frequently felt like these characters reminded me of myself or someone I could possibly know in real life. Each of the stories included small details in the thoughts, actions, and settings that was so much fun to witness.

There is a nice balance of sincere emotional connection, relationship struggles, and humor. The inclusion of different types of relationships (not all of them were romantic) and characters of varying ages and circumstances was engaging. I also loved the exploration of connections between parents and children, two of my favorites were "Twist and Shout" and "Damascus".

Games and Rituals is also the first book I've ever read that had the COVID lockdown as the setting. The story "Pandemic Behavior" took me back to everything we experienced during that time. The pandemic was a time of much fear and uncertainty, but looking back at it through this lens made me laugh at all the different ways we tried to survive such as hoarding toilet paper and disinfecting groceries.

Games and Rituals was a wonderful short story collection that pulled at my heartstrings, with many sweet and funny moments. While some stories were less fulfilling than others, the majority of them were enjoyable. This book reminded me alot of the show Modern Love on Prime Video. If you are a fan of the show, you might enjoy Games and Rituals.

I loved this short story collection!

This is my first introduction to Katherine Heiny writing and it has lived up to the hype. These stories deal with aging parents, changing relationships, the DMV, the different and changing roles we live in our lives... it was everything. It's about being a human being and how we maneuver in our relationships. Most of these story were able to get in deep quickly and have me invested in the characters. They were funny, shattering, and reflective. It makes me want to read more short stories and definitely pick up her back list.

Thank you Knopf Publishing and #netgalley for this ARC and a great time

Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a pretty good collection. There were a couple of standout stories, full of witty prose and impressively fleshed out characters.

However, a few of them were slightly long and redundant, which brought the rating down for me. Also, serious topics were introduced in several of the pieces, sometimes without the examination I would've expected.

I'm interested in examining the thru-line of these pieces and delving into more of the author's inspiration for this collection.

Topics: infidelity, relationship power imbalances (age gap, etc), complicated friendships

These were so good! As with all short story collections there were a few that didn't grab me but I read all of them (which is better than most short story collections I've read lol) and enjoyed all but one or two! Heiny's writing style is so up my alley and even when you think you can tell what's going to happen or the plot she often takes it in a direction you didn't totally expect. Can't wait to read more!

Games and Rituals is a new book of short stories by Katherine Heiny, the author of Early Morning Riser. Each one of these tales is a smartly-written story about love in one of its forms; the characters are flawed and real and relatable.

“Chicken-Flavored and Lemon-Scented” is a story about the interior lives and desires of driving examiners. In “Damascus,” a mother fears that her son is repeating her own bad decisions, only to learn that he is twice as responsible as she is. In “Twist and Shout,” a daughter wrestles with conflicting feelings of annoyance and sorrow for her conservative, aging father who mistakes his four-thousand-dollar hearing aid as a cashew and eats it. “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 main character thinks, as she gets drunker and drunker along with several other stranded strangers in the airport bar one night as they wait for their delayed flights in “Sky Bar.”

An entire world is captured in each of these stories, the characters and situations so fully realized. This is a wonderful book of short stories that will touch a nerve and stay with you for some time to come.

Thank you to the publisher, @NetGalley and @KatherineHeiny for an Advanced Reader Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Katherine Heiny's writing is simply the best. Every story made me feel more human, made me crack up and tear up, put me back in touch with all of my past selves. This collection is a treat—buy a copy for yourself, your sister, your mom, your best pal, the coworker you're trying to impress. All hits, no skips!

Such an interesting exploration of the challenging but beautiful parts of loving one another. Some stories were stronger than others (the story of a wife purging and a husband trying to keep up with their shifting relationship particularly stood out to me), but really enjoyed this collection as a whole.