This book was better than I expected! The stories within these pages was full of unexpected tales that will captivate many readers. Definitely a great summer read or something to pick up and read during breaks. It's definitely worth putting it on your TBR shelf!😉❤️📚

Loved this story, and the writing was superb. I can’t wait to read what this author puts out next. Would certainly gift this book to a friend.

A solid collection of southern gothic stories with a queer twist. As with most short story collections, I liked some more than others, but I enjoyed it overall.

I was given an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review. I don’t normally like short stories but I loved this. It captures the South in all its aspects – the people, nature, animals – through a wary queer lens. Beautiful.

I haven’t read a short story collection in a minute, so Sweet and Low by Nick White was a treat: I read it mostly in the ten or fifteen minutes before bed, or in the minutes I spent waiting for something or someone. Sometimes short story writers lose me in this way – I like the first story, but then the second story is harder to get into, and so on. With Sweet and Low I was always able to jump back in and get re-absorbed by White’s writing.

Sweet and Low is full of personal, closely narrated stories about people in the south. Many of the stories deal with sexuality and shame, making it all feel so very American and familiar. The first story is about a woman who, after her husband’s death, discovers he was having an affair with a younger man – a sort of cliche story line that feels real through White’s writing. The second half of the collection is a series of disjointed stories about a single character, from his childhood through adulthood, and dealing with sexuality, family, and loss beautifully.

My main criticism is that from time to time the stories switch from being fully realized and palpably real to having something of a literary magazine flavor which is hard to describe. I love literary magazines, but they have a tendency to celebrate writing rather than stories – some parts of Sweet and Low feel like writing, and some parts feel, brilliantly, like stories. Enough so that I recommend it, especially for those stolen minutes of reading wherever you can find them.

Thanks to NetGalley and Dutton for providing me with a review copy.

I was attracted to this book, by it's cover and it's title, and than I read the synopsis, and I was sold. I found this book to be engaging, and intriguing. I like Nick Whites writing style. I am not a short stories reader, I do not have a lot of experience with them. There are a plethora of characters, I think that anyone could find someone to relate to amongst them. I know I did. I found a lot of these stories to be very heartfelt, and compelling, they really just pull at your heartstrings, and they make you feel a lot of different emotions. For me, I had to break them up, to not overwhelm my emotions. I do look forward to reading more Nick White

Nick White is the new gay Flannery O'Connor we need. This is modern southern gothic at it's best, and now I really need to reread his first novel and then reread this one again because it's going to be too long of a wait until his next book and I love his writing too much.

I'm between 4 and 4.5 stars.

The characters in Nick White's soon-to-be-published story collection Sweet and Low are all trying to figure out their next steps. These are all different kinds of people—widows, ex-lovers (or on the verge of becoming ex-lovers), teenagers, men become rapidly disillusioned with the path their lives are taking—yet each struggles with questions, decisions that could impact their lives.

I first became familiar with White's writing when I read his debut novel, How to Survive a Summer, last year. That story, about a young man who can't seem to shake the experience of attending a gay conversion camp when he was younger, had a searing, haunting quality at times, and demonstrated White's talent for creating powerful emotion in quiet moments.

White's stories don't share the same subject, but they reinforce his talent, and I found many of them tremendously compelling, poignant, and beautifully told. The first half of the collection is composed of miscellaneous stories; linked stories comprise the second half, following Forney Culpepper from boyhood to disillusioned adulthood. Some of the stories are longer than others, and some honestly felt like they could be expanded into full-length novels.

Among my favorite stories in the collection were: "The Lovers," which follows a widow trying to figure out life without her husband, and his lover, who has become obsessed with getting back a family heirloom he gave the man before his death; "These Heavenly Bodies," about a troubled adolescent who is bewitched by a beautiful pair of conjoined twins; "The Exaggerations," which tells of a young boy living with his aunt and uncle, and only starting to understand the mysterious paths adults travel; "Gatlinburg," about a couple trying to give their relationship one more try on a vacation to the Smoky Mountains; "Break," the story of three college friends who get more than they bargained for on a weekend trip; and "Lady Tigers," in which a high school senior haunted by family scandal can't keep his mind off the school's basketball coach—with disastrous consequences.

I'm not always a fan of linked stories, but I thought they worked well here. White's characters are tremendously appealing, and at times I found myself disappointed that a story ended because I wanted to know more of what happened to the characters. I always view that as a mark of a talented writer. One warning: two of the stories have brief moments of animal cruelty—the stories don't glorify it, and both incidents are over quite quickly, but I know some people like to be prepared.

Even when a story didn't quite click for me, I was still drawn to White's writing ability, his ability to draw me in. He's definitely going to be an author whose career I'll continue to follow, and I hope this collection earns him some notice. Once again, I am reminded of why I love reading short stories.

NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP Dutton provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!