DNF. On first glance, I thought this collection was going to be about a broad range of women and their lives, but it's entirely about mothers - either a woman's relationship to her mother, her life as a mother, or her desire to be a mother. While that might be an intriguing topic to some, it does not connect with me and I would not have picked this book up had I realized.

Thanks to Scribner and Netgalley for my ARC for review.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Thank you NetGalley!

My apologies for the delay in the review.
I honestly had high hopes for this book. It should have been something I connected with based on the topics. Some of the stories were okay, some were a little more than okay. But majority were just meh.

A collection of short stories about stay at home moms, usually living in New York City with anxiety, who encounter more interesting people than themselves.

Meh. None of the stories stood out or made an impression. Even the writing was just ok.

What a wonderful collection of stories! I am happy that she dove into some tougher topics (some trigger warnings here), however, I really enjoyed her writing.

In She Was Like That, Kate Walbert offers readers short stories covering a wide range of topics. They all share a woman's need for connection, for finding her place and purpose in the overall scheme of things, for trying to make sense of her situation, for trying, trying, trying to bury her anxieties and fears and move on.

With that overall theme, this book should rank high with me, but it doesn't. While some of the characters drew me in, for the most part, I felt a sense of being held at a distance, of isolation. This surprised me as I was expecting/hoping for just the opposite!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for allowing me to read an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. Publication date for this book is currently set for 10/1/19.

She Was Like That: New and Selected Stories by Kate Walbert was not for me. The actual technical writing was good, but from a connection end, I wasn't there. I can appreciate the sentences that were written, but I didn't ever feel anything as it relates to what was shared. I am someone who likes a story with depth of character as the driver of a story, and these short stories just aren't that. It's hard for me to even review this one because there wasn't ever anything that "stuck" with me from the stories. The summary of this book (and actually why I requested it) was that these were stories about women yearning for connection. The reality is that's what I felt as the reader throughout. Thanks to NetGalley for the early look in exchange for my honest review.

I would have enjoyed these stories more had I encountered them one at a time in anthologies or literary mags. The whole book was a bit heavy on the wealthy and WASPy and I do like those kinds of characters, but I feel like I overdosed on them after finishing this. Still five stars because I love the author, her writing, and the stories individually.

The first story in this collection titled “ M and M World” got me quite excited about what was to come. That being said every other story in the book just sort of left me wanting more. It’s basically about rich women in Manhattan with first world problems. Following them through their anxiety just left me exhausted. I generally enjoy a short story collections but this one, not so much.

A group of literary short stories I was drawn in from the first story the horror of losing a child in Times Square.These are stories that women will identify with find themselves in,Kate Walbert continues to write gems of literature.#netgalley #scribnerbooks.

(Thank you to Scribner & NetGalley for a free e-arc of She Was Like That)

I leapt at the chance to request an early copy of Kate Walbert's collection of stories because I really liked His Favorites (published last year). I don't recall the experience of reading that book to be as anxiety-inducing as reading this collection.

Throughout, it felt to me that the stories were about the feeling of being alone and of trying to make sense of things. Grief, pain, confusion, trauma - these pop up continually, to the extent that, at times, the stories ran together for me (i.e. I'm not sure I could distinguish between some of the main characters). And that might be the point - that all women encounter such difficulties and feel such ways. That, although our circumstances may be unique, we have such shared experience.

The focus in this collection is on women who aren't poor (I interpreted them as occupying the range from lower to upper middle class). Many of the main characters also are mothers - the relationships both with their children and their own mothers are explored. Race, if I'm remembering correctly, was only mentioned once - identifying a woman's hired help as black.

I like that She Was Like That is part of a larger conversation beginning about the (often emotional) labor women take on. I did like some of the stories better than others - while some were just okay, others were so deeply felt.

Content warning: suicide, mental illness, substance abuse, autism, eating disorders

Navel-gazing for upper middle class white women in New York City. The quality of writing in these short stories is wonderful, but I saw little point to the stories themselves. These pieces of writing came across as character studies, perhaps for a novel the author plans to write in the future. I enjoyed the first couple of stories, but I soon became bored with the subsequent ones. They all seemed to run together in the end. Nice "slices of life" in New York, but ultimately, I got nothing out of them.

I am the perfect audience for this book: Middle aged, young kids, daily asking myself how I ended up where I am, etc, but I didnt find myself itching to pick this book back up after putting it down. While I did finish it, and identified with many of the slices of life highlighted in each story, it just didn't do much for me. Im happy to try out a novel by the author, maybe it was the form that held the writing back.

Note to self…no more Kate Walhbert. This is a third book I’ve read of hers, two novels and now a collection of short stories (more than an adequate sampling by any standards) and her writing just really doesn’t work for me. And to be fair, I’m completely willing to admit this isn’t entirely author’s fault or possibly not even at all, there is definitely such a thing as a lack of author/reader chemistry and this is most likely it. Wahlbert is a well respected and acclaimed author, I’m sure she has her readership. Although it stands to mention possibly not a very devoted one, since I’m the first person on GR to review this book and I’m definitely not at all a fan. I would also be absolutely willing to admit that she isn’t without talent, it’s mainly about how indifferent her talent leaves me. She writes women’s fiction, very much estrogen driven stories about and for women, but her protagonists never really come alive for me, no matter how nice the language gets, there’s always an emotional distance from which these stories are viewed and from that perspective they leave a lot to be desired. So even if intellectually I was able to appreciate Wahlbert’s storytelling abilities, I just didn’t care about the stories she was telling. Maybe it requires a different audience to be appreciated, somewhere along the lines of a white upper middle class, possibly New Yorkers, early to middle age women of a certain mindset with heavy concentration of the trials of motherhood. That’s entirely possible. It’s just really outside of my realm of interest. And so, no more Wahlbert for me. Really, the best thing about this book was how quick it went by, but even still…nothing to show for the time spent. Pass. Thanks Netgalley.