Short stories seem to be enjoying a surge in popularity. I would not normally choose a book of them, but had read and enjoyed Emma Cline’s debut, The Girls, and that was enough for me to want to pick this up. Cline is hugely talented and her way with language is admirable - everything down to the manner a ponytail is described (meaty! So perfect, yet who would have thought?) is clever. I devoured these. Truthfully, I would have preferred a novel to get my teeth into (meaty!) but if you want a quick read, these are great.

Emma Cline's novel "The Girls" blew me out of the water when it first came out a few years ago so I was ecstatic that she was releasing a collection of short stories at the end of this year. From the first page of the first story, I was hooked. Cline's writing style and storytelling skills were so compactly wrapped up in each story that I was left wanting more from each. Each character within the stories felt completely developed and fleshed out. One story in particular, "Los Angeles" stuck out to me. It grabbed my attention almost instantly and by the time I read the last few paragraphs, I was craving for more. Emma Cline's stories are addictive and swift. I can't wait to see what she puts out next.

I loved Emma Cline's last book, The Girls, so I was thrilled when I received this one from Netgalley. This might be a case of setting my expectations too high but the majority of the stories in this book left me wanting more...and not necessarily in a good way, more of a "thats it?" way. I will definitely continue to try Cline's books, though, because despite my issues with Daddy, her writing style is absolutely beautiful.

I loved Emma Cline's debut novel "The Girls." Read it if you haven't already! Her second book is a collection of short stories. She proves herself equally adept at writing short pieces as she does a novel. The collections consists of pieces she previously published in The New Yorker, Granta and The Paris Review as well as a couple new ones.

Like "The Girls", many of these stories are set in California. Her writing is fluid, characters perfectly captures in a few deft strokes. Read it!

Thank you to the publisher for sending me an arc in exchange for a review.
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I would like to start out with a strong positive about this book (because the rest of my review isn't as nice): the writing is fantastic. Emma Cline's prose is tremendous and fluid, a rarity.
Okay, onward to the negatives:
After enjoying The Girls, I was very curious to see what else Emma Cline would release from her notoriously large book deal. And, well, this unfortunately is it. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed this book for what it was, but when it comes to infamous situations like hers, I believe there's an expectation set, and this just didn't meet that.
As far as the short stories go, they are less of well-rounded, conceptual stories and more of slice-of-life, depressive stories. Most of them left me scratching my head thinking, that's it? While that reaction can be fascinating and ambiguous, when over half of these left me wanting more, I knew something was off. I think the themes of some of the stories were pretty insightful- familial issues, the Hollywood scene, internet culture. However, some of them just felt like a soft jab at "watch this person's life be ruined, the end" and had no real purpose other than a teetering downward spiral.
So the structure of the stories were pretty bad, but what about the characters? Think as interesting as burnt toast. Plain like white bread but burnt to the point that you want to throw it away. These characters were overly damaged that any sign of hope was lost, and you, as a reader, are there to just see it get worse. Again, a pretty interesting thing to watch for one or two stories, but all ten? Really?
So I must've hated this book, right? Right? That's where you're wrong. And that's where my three stars come from. The stories aren't enjoyable, the characters are flat, however there's something enticing about the book as a whole because, while the stories are separate, the tone is continuous. It makes the book feel as if it is a novel, just choppy and dysfunctional. Again, I can't explain why this worked to any degree, but it did.
My favorites were: What Can You Do with a General, Los Angeles, The Nanny, and Marion. All of these left me satisfied and are worth a read.

(Also, can we talk about the title "Daddy" for a second? It's totally there just to be a buzzword to get people drawn to this book. Daddy- in ether of its connotations- can only be attributed to one story in my opinion, and that's even a stretch. It feels like clickbait, but for a novel.)

Emma Cline is a very talented writer; while I wouldn’t say I necessarily enjoyed The Girls or this collection, they are both extremely compelling and well-written. This leaves you with a slightly “yuck” feeling as it highlights the worst parts of human nature.

Emma Cline book of shorts stories drew me in each story a gem.The characters their moments their lives come alive.An author who is magically talented.#netgalley#randomhouse

Emma Cline shows off all her skills in the 10-story collection “Daddy”. She is a master of character and setting development; her pacing and dialogue as good as it gets.

I’m often reluctant to read and especially rate collections. I feel a little twitchy while reading, afraid I’m going to miss that certain word or turn of phrase that was key to understanding the whole. I had no such issues with “Daddy”. Cline’s stories are less unexpected sudden twists of fate and more falling deeper and deeper into an abyss. Characters come in all shapes and sized, but are often broken or on the verge. Many come from a life of privilege where head-starts may have once helped,, but were ultimately wasted or abused. Others have had to hard-scrabble to survive and are doing it by the skin of their teeth.

“Daddy” is not for the faint of heart. There is great deal of self-medicating, never for the best. There is abuse of all kinds, often brutal and cringe-inducing. There is a good deal of coming-of-age where imagining what is becoming is not terribly cheerful or light. Deep, dark broken people and relationships. Just what I thrive upon.

Thanks to RandomHouse and NetGalley for the eARC.

After reading The Girls I knew I'd want to read anything by Emma Cline. Something about her descriptions of people are just so compelling. The young, the old, the shitty. You just understand them deeply, feel their motivations, accept their mundane as your own, even when they're so different.

I wouldn't normally gravitate toward a short story collection, but I love Emma Cline's work. As it turns out, she didn't disappoint - the stories are rich, layered and unforgettable. And in many ways, a short story collection was the perfect answer to quarantine attention spans - a surprise that has led me to revisit other short story collections since!

I admire Emma Cline as a writer; however, this collection is a bit more uneven than I prefer for the standard short story collection. “Los Angeles” is one of my favorites of the collection, but the stories felt largely unsatisfying and the prose was less elegant than in The Girls, and I left the book feeling that I prefer Cline as a novelist to a short story writer. On the bright side: I will purchase the book when it comes out, and I may still teach from the book, particularly “Los Angeles.”

*I received a free ARC of this book from Random House in exchange for an honest review*

This is a collection of slice-of-life stories that run the gamut of comedic tales to gritty and dark stories. Not for those who don’t like ambiguous endings.

Each story is impeccably crafted and I only found one to be too uninteresting for me to finish. There are two that have really stuck with me and the rest, while I thoroughly enjoyed reading them, have sort of muddled together into an indistinguishable pleasantness in my brain. Overall, these stories display Cline’s great craft in episodes that are digestible but still thought-provoking and often play upon the small displeasures and dirty workings of everyday people.

I don’t know that I would recommend this to everyone who enjoyed her novel “The Girls,” as the stories here are rather small and mundane compared to that. I do think that literary fiction lovers and people that love stories about everyday life will get a lot out of this.

There's no denying that Emma Cline is a fantastic writer. Even though I had mixed feelings regarding her debut novel, "The Girls", I knew whatever Cline decided to publish next I would be willing to read it. I was surprised that she decided that her next book would be a short story collection, but I'm happy she went that route. I think these 10 short stories burst with personality and dramatic tension. Even though some stories left me feeling unsatisfied, Cline's writing is smooth like butter. Her prose just flows so effortlessly, no awkward sentences or dialogue. Short stories can be tricky because they usually have abrupt endings, but I enjoyed my reading experience. "Los Angeles", "The Nanny", "Arcadia", and "A/S/L" were some of my favorites.

Thank you, Netgalley and Random House for the digital ARC.

Release date: September 1, 2020

These stories left me wanting more. While most characters aren’t quite likeable, with their flaws shining through each story, the personality traits presented are captivating enough that I was left wanting to know more about them, especially that many of the stories leave out crucial details that would provide more context: what misbehaviours got a son kicked out of school, why is there discomfort between a father and daughter,...

Overall, it was an engaging read. I have to admit that I read the author’s hyped novel, The Girls, and was left disappointed. This collection of short stories, in the other hand, was a more satisfying read, despite the various characters’ darkness.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the ARC.

I really tried to like this book. It just wasn't for me. I chose the book because I enjoy reading short stories. I knew nothing about the author. I felt like I was reading tabloid stories from the Enquirer-there was no depth or significance to these stories. It was a struggle for me to get through the book.

I should preface this review by saying that in light of apocalypse I’ve been binging tv shows, the latest one being Prime’s Transparent. A good and very bingeable show, but it gets occasionally tiresome because the characters in it are mostly all selfish bastards. Or to be more accurate confused indecisive selfish bums. And when I read the first story in this collection about a family of five coming together for Christmas yet so completely disconnected from each other, it made me think of the show immediately. And throughout the collection, though the stories differed, the general mood remained. Kinda bleak,, kinda misanthropic. Not that it’s an immediate turn off, in fact it’s quite relatable, but it just didn’t really wow. Too monotonous somehow in its quiet desperation slices of life. Realistic, yes, and very well rendered, the author’s natural talent for starkly honest character representations in on a proud display here. But very emotionally draining in a way. Some of the stories weren’t finite enough for my liking, which is neither here nor there, it’s just a personal preference for short stories that essentially read like complete novels just on a smaller scale. Some of there just ended in a generally uneasy way, some of these spun the entire tale in a mode of unease. These are the tales of people who have stumbled in major or even minor but consistent ways and ended up traveling down the roads they never planned to take. A world where relating is tough, forgiveness is unavailable and love unattainable. Where people do the sort of things that make you stay away from people in a way that’s more profound than mere social distancing guidelines. It isn’t a world that’s easy to visit, it’s depressing and grey and very, very bleak. Albeit very, very well done. I really enjoyed the author’s debut and was excited to find her sophomore effort on Netgalley. And I am glad to have read it, she is very talented, an excellent writer, a terrific observer. But it was an emotionally tough read and it’s actually a good thing it wasn’t very long, just ten stories, more of the same might have been too much. Difficult book to recommend, really, depends on how much water you think is in the glass. But the writing alone is worth checking out. Interested in what other reviewers will think, since mine is the first one. Thanks Netgalley.

I loved THE GIRLS, so when I saw this was available I instantly requested it. To be perfectly honest, the word "stories" on the thumbnail of the cover was super hazy, which I know is the intent of the design, so I downloaded this thinking it was her second novel. So on that front I was a little disappointed, but that's on me. Regarding the book's merits, though... Cline is obviously a hugely gifted writer, and while I love novels I don't usually dive into short story collections. That said, good writing trumps all, and I really enjoyed this collection.