JEWEL BOX by E. Lily Yu is a fantastic short story collection that has both the whimsical, age-old quality of the fabular and the trenchant perceptiveness of a book very much written for our times. In these twenty-two stories, Yu uses allegory and folk tale to reveal aspects of our own society that we’ve been habituated to accept, but which, when presented with Yu’s imagination, jolt us awake with new recognition and empathy.

Reminiscent of the wonderment that Ted Chiang creates in his stories, each of the narratives in JEWEL BOX unfolds an origami orb of a creative world that both delights and convicts its readers. There’s a profound morality to these tales, the kind that compels us to consider our responsibility towards our fellow humans. Yu’s prose is sparkling and nimble, as comfortable inhabiting Cairo, Nairobi, and NYC as it is exploring fairy-tale Germany, outer space, or the birding fields of Louisiana.

I thoroughly enjoyed all of the stories, but loved these with all my heart:

⋆ “The Lion God and the Two Gates,” in which a judge who prides himself on his supposed neutrality is confronted by a difficult choice in the afterlife

⋆ “Music for the Underworld,” a dystopian look into an authoritarian state, the prison-industrial complex, and artificial intelligence

⋆ “The Wretched and the Beautiful,” which imagines how the world would handle alien refugees from outer space

⋆ “The Time Invariance of Snow,” which plays with fairy tale tropes and physics to explore good and evil

⋆ “Three Variations on a Theme of Imperial Attire,” a retelling of The Emperor’s New Clothes with a fantastic ending

⋆ “Small Monsters,” a moving tale of old wounds, friendship, and the creative impulse

JEWEL BOX speaks to both the head and the heart with the vividness that short stories need to make a lasting impact, and it’s in the running for my favorite collection of the year. This is also a plug for Yu’s ON FRAGILE WAVES, a top 10 read of 2022 for me. Thank you Erewhon Books for the gifted copy and to NetGalley for the e-book.

I recommend E. Lily Yu’s novel, On Fragile Waves, to everyone. Yu is such an exciting writer, and Jewel Box, her first short story collection, further displays just how versatile she is.

Here are my highlights:

The opening story, The Pilgrim and the Angel, is very sweet. A man is visited by an angel. The angel offers to take him to Mecca, but he would rather go to Florida to visit his son instead.

The Lamp at the Turning is the most devastating story I’ve ever read about a streetlight, who pays very close attention to those who pass by.

Green Glass: A Love Story features wedding planning in a dying world, in which our protagonist expels a ridiculous amount of money and effort for vanilla ice cream.

Ilse, Who Saw Clearly is a very special, magical story. When a man comes to a village selling his wares, the inhabitants are tricked by a rogue homophone, and pay a hefty price.

The Wretched and The Beautiful hits pretty hard. Aliens come to earth, but are quickly shunned, as refugees and asylum seekers often are. Similarly with Local Stop on the Floating Train, where a young woman experiences a racist attack that is all too familiar.

As an amateur ornithologist, I absolutely loved Courtship Displays of the American Birder, where a man feels intimidated by his crush’s life list.

The collection closes out with Little Monsters, which first appeared on Tor.com, and I loved revisiting this world. A monster gets eaten by those meant to protect him, because he's tasty. Luckily, he meets a friend who provides him armor.

Jewel Box is a wonderful mix of fables, sci-fi, horror, and love stories. I urge fans of Kelly Link to check out Yu’s work; she really is something special.

E. Lily Yu presents to us this jewel box: a close-to-perfect collection of twenty-two (such riches!) stories. Yu’s writing is magical, and the execution of all of these wildly varying ideas is perfect. From a flying prayer mat, to the musician who retrieves his beloved from a hellish place (but perhaps hell is everywhere), on the Apocalypse through the lives of the New York rich, a magician and maker of eyes, aliens (the refugee kind), unicorns, a space traveller, a knight and a witch, and so much more, the worlds Yu builds are enchanted and enchanting.

Some among my favourite stories: The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees, about conceited, coloniser, and yes, cartographer wasps, vs humble bees. (Did you know that bees dance directions?) The Lion God and the Two Gates, about a judge who maybe isn’t is fair as he likes to think, and the perfect justice he meets. The Wretched and the Beautiful, about those refugee/aliens. The Witch of Orion Waste and the Boy Knight, an on-the-nose and feminist fable. The Courtship Displays of the American Birder, which I found delightful as a budding birder myself. The Time Invariance of Snow, for its structure and truth. The Cat’s Tale, because it’s also a feminist fable. The View From the Top of the Stair, which is so melancholy and moving and quirky and sad, and because I know humans who collect things, and this made me think about why. And Small Monsters, a complete triumph, the perfect, perfect story, and the perfect way to end the book.

I cannot recommend this collection enough. E. Lily Yu’s stories are the kind you want to cite and to re-read over and over again. They recapture the magic of fairytales for humans who have theoretically outgrown them. Like the best fables, they capture and teach eternal truths in simple, accessible, and memorable ways. But most of all, these stories are huge fun, and I loved them! I suspect you might, too.

Thank you very much to Erewhon and to NetGalley for access.

i really loved the simplicity and magical realism of these stories. they really touched me, and were easy to follow and get through

An aptly named collection, reading Yu’s stories feels like discovering a rare gem. These magical tales remind me most of Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales– bizarre, beautiful, and heartbreaking. Only Yu’s clear and piercing prose could use four perfect pages to turn a lamppost into a character I’ll never forget. I included this title in my fall reading guide.

Some stories are really, really good, such as "The Lamp at the Turning", "Green Glass: A Love Story" (which has all the elements to be turned into a novel, TBH), and "Ilse, Who Saw Clearly", to name a few, but the rest are just meh and didn't capture my attention at all.

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the eARC.

This was an imaginative and creative collection of short stories but I found most of the stories to be too short to develop any connection with and they ended too abruptly. I look forward to reading more from this author in future, though, as I enjoyed the writing style.

Absolutely enchanting writing style and a book that will be treasured by more than one generation to come. This is the sort of collection of short stories that can be a really well placed staple to everyone's library and it will be added to mine as soon as I get a chance to snag a copy for myself. I'm gonna be honest I've only read the first 3 stories but its a 5 star prediction and it is top tier and gives shadow of the wind vibes, for me.

Whimsical and intriguing, the premise for many of theses short stories really drew me in. In the same way, I really like the playful and evocative nature of the writing by the author. In many ways I was reminded of Helen Oyeymi's work. However, on the whole, I felt something was missing from the stories - maybe they were too short to convey a sense of meaning or purpose. I will be interested in checking out more works from this author in the future.

Interesting stories. An overall fascinating read, but didn't quite hit the mark for me. I still enjoyed it though.

Like all short story collections, there were some I loved, some I liked, and some that were just okay. But to be honest, there wasn't a single story I disliked here. I've never read this author before but I'm so glad I got a chance to. There was a great mix of sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and fable type stories. What I really liked and don't see much is that these stories were ACTUALLY short. My favourites were hard to pick but I'll have to go with Music For The Underworld, The Wretched and The Beautiful, and Small Monsters.

This was definitely the most consistently great collection of stories I've read. I'd highly recommend it.

A strange and wonderful collection of tales. Some dystopian and some very unsettling. I dipped in and out of this book when time allowed, inbetween full novels. It made a nice change.

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley and Erewhon publishing for my free and unbiased review. My thanks to them for the opportunity.

What a delightful, beautiful collection of short fiction! Yu’s writing evokes that of ancient fairy tales, each narrative drawing the reader in as though one is listening by the fireside. From a heartbreaking love story between a street lamp and a young man that takes a posthumanist twist, to a story about overlord hornets and revolutionary bees, Yu surprises, critiques, and satirizes at each turn. This collection is one of the best short story collections I have had the pleasure to read in recent years.

“The Doing and the Undoing of Jacob Mwangi” recalled Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron,” while “Green Glass: A Love Story” wraps commentary on climate change and late stage capitalism in a cloak of white wealthy privilege at a wedding where ice cream is the goal. Following these, Yu imagines an alien encounter in which humans and their governments are no more welcoming and empathetic to visitors from another world than they currently are to refugees and immigrants. Really, from story to story, Yu’s work is a stunning, refreshing treat, Jewel Box, indeed.

An interesting collection that I'm still dipping in and out of, but finding some of the stories entertaining. I usually prefer one story rather than an anthology yet this works.

Fans of short stories, speculative fiction, and literary fiction rejoice! E. Lily Yu’s “Jewel Box” blends fantasy, science fiction, folklore, and fable in a gorgeously written set of short stories. These are truly some of the best I’ve ever read. They’re hard-hitting, incisive, and profoundly beautiful. I loved the variety of the different stories and also how Yu’s voice came through so strongly in all of them. If you’re looking for great short stories that will really make you think, send you to new worlds, and reexamine themes from your childhood stories, “Jewel Box” should be your next read! My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I found out about this book when looking online for read-alikes for Ken Liu's 'The Paper Menagerie'. I was not disappointed in what I found! I really liked the tone of the short stories, which to me was like old school fairy tales. Not all of them have happy endings. Someone must suffer in the end. These stories were so unique and believable to me that they could've been ones that were passed down through families and told to children. There was also a good variance of fantasy and science fiction short stories. A few of my favorites in particular were "Ilse, Who Saw Clearly", The Witch of Orion Waste and the Boy Knight", and "The Cat's Tale". I had never read anything by this author before, but she has such beautiful descriptions, and now I just want to read more of her work.

DNF. I read through three of the story and felt no connection as to the direction of the collection. The stories were lifeless and unrelatable which made it difficult to enjoy them.

[arc review]
Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
Jewel Box: Stories releases October 24, 2023

This is probably the most unique collection of short stories I’ve read — some featuring body horror, magical elements, or set in a dystopian world.
I found myself in a rare occurrence where I came out enjoying all 22 short stories, which is unheard of for me. I definitely recommend picking this up and experiencing it for yourself!

Some standouts:
<b>the lamp at the turning:</b>
a short story from the perspective of a sentient streetlamp who grew fond of one particular man that regularly passed by.
<b>the cartographer wasps and the anarchist bees:</b>
a mesmerizing world where the inside of wasp nests contain articulate maps of the provinces.
<b>music for the underworld:</b>
holograms, faraday cages, and an unsettling ending.
<b>green glass: a love story:</b>
a woman who so desperately wants vanilla ice cream served at her wedding, but they live in a dystopian world where there’s no longer local access to things like cow milk, eggs, or pure vanilla unless you want to risk radioactive chemicals or cancer.
<b>Ilse, who saw clearly: </b>
by way of alliteration, no one can distinguish whether this travelling man is trying to sell ice or eyes.
<b>the urashima effect:</b>
features time dilation and left me feeling melancholic.
<b>braid of days and wake of nights</b>:
undergoing chemo and finding a unicorn.

"The strange, the sublime, and the monstrous confront one another with astonishing consequences in this collection of twenty-two stories from award-winning writer E. Lily Yu.

In the village of Yiwei, a fallen wasp nest unfurls into a beautifully accurate map. In a field in Louisiana, birdwatchers forge an indelible connection over a shared glimpse of a Vermilion Flycatcher, and fall. In Nineveh, a judge who prides himself on impartiality finds himself questioned by a mysterious god. On a nameless shore, a small monster searches for refuge and finds unexpected courage.

At turns bittersweet and boundary-breaking, poignant and profound, these twenty-two stories sing, as the oldest fables do, of what it means to be alive in this strange, terrible, beautiful world. For readers who loved the intelligence and compassion in Kim Fu's Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century and the dreamlike prose of Kelly Link's Magic for Beginners, this collection introduces the short fiction of E. Lily Yu, winner of the Astounding Award for Best New Writer and author of the Washington Book Award-winning novel On Fragile Waves, praised by the New York Times Book Review as "devastating and perfect.""

I usually avoid short stories but these sound too profound to be missed.

A very unique collection of very unique stories. Like most collections, it contains both the stories I loved and stories I didn't get into. Still, it shows how imaginative the author is. E. Lily Yu has a distinct voice and a knack for evocative writing.