Cover Image: The Invention of Love

The Invention of Love

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Member Reviews

Overall I liked the stories. The stories are about woman who are reflecting on life and the choices they have made or not made. Like any collection some stories are stronger than others. Enjoy

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The writing in these stories was very human and with a great degree of emotional intelligence. Having said that, the stories were not exactly remarkable; verging on forgettable. I would, however, read a longer piece of fiction by this author.

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I really enjoyed this collection of stories. I was introduced to a wonderful cast of characters who overcome a lot. They were easy to relate to and I felt a connection with them.

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I absolutely adored these short stories and could happily have read another book of them. Broadly about artistic or creative people trying and sometimes failing to make their way in the world, there is in fact a huge breadth of perspectives and experiences explored here, all in an incredibly fresh voice. Whole worlds are created in just a few pages and there are some beautiful turns of phrase. One of my favourite things Iโ€™ve read this year and Iโ€™ll be looking out for more from both Sara Schaff and Split Lip Press.

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This short stories collection was a mixed bag, a lot of the stories I felt "meh" about, with only few really catching my eye. The stories revolve around women, mostly women facing struggles in their relationships, careers, their position in life, and the general feeling of loss.

There was a story about a breakup and its effects on our main characters after years, a story about an art student and how her perception of her classmate whom she rarely noticed changes after he survives a deadly fall, a story about a group of friends at different stages and levels of success in their writing careers, a story about two sibling cleaning their mother's house after her death and the realizations the daughter has as she starts getting rid of her mother's belongings, a story about a woman dealing with the imminent loss of her husband leaving her with 3 children. These are just some of the stories here, and while some of them really were relevant to our modern age, I wasn't totally in love with the writing style.

Maybe it wasn't just for me, but I like any short story collection that focuses on women.

I thank Netgalley for the digital ARC

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I opened The Invention of Love thinking I was picking up were I closed Say Something Nice to Me. Happily, this was not the case. These stories are very different. Schaff has introduced me to a new set of wonderful characters who are very real in Schaff's very capable hands. These are women who have complex issues that are easy to identify with yet are the characters' uniquely own. Much like the characters in Say Something Nice to Me, these characters are unapologetic in their rawness; in their truth, making them so utterly real. They don't solve their problems nor do they rationalize them - they just live them which makes for such a wonderful read.

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๐‘ฐ ๐’‚๐’๐’๐’๐’˜๐’†๐’… ๐’Ž๐’š๐’”๐’†๐’๐’‡ ๐’‚ ๐’ˆ๐’๐’๐’…, ๐’”๐’‚๐’•๐’Š๐’”๐’‡๐’š๐’Š๐’๐’ˆ ๐’Ž๐’Š๐’๐’–๐’•๐’† ๐’๐’‡ ๐’…๐’†๐’†๐’‘ ๐’“๐’†๐’”๐’†๐’๐’•๐’Ž๐’†๐’๐’•.

The women in Sara Schaffโ€™s second collection of stories face and often wonder at their former selves, are plagued by the aftermath of their decisions, long for who they could have been, wonder how they can still be, fight the shifts of time as years slip through their exhausted fingers, and try to make sense of love. Pivotal moments are sometimes dull, other times ugly and filled with betrayal.

In ๐‘จ๐’‡๐’‡๐’†๐’„๐’•๐’Š๐’—๐’† ๐‘ด๐’†๐’Ž๐’๐’“๐’š a woman recalls her short-lived relationship with a man named Luke and the โ€˜particular pain of this receding momentโ€™. The contradictory emotions that plague us when what we have slips away and we grieve it even if we donโ€™t want it. The title story ๐‘ป๐’‰๐’† ๐‘ฐ๐’๐’—๐’†๐’๐’•๐’Š๐’๐’ ๐’๐’‡ ๐‘ณ๐’๐’—๐’† delves into a strange incident one night at a party and its tie to an art studentโ€™s hunger to create something meaningful. She is loaded with envy for the true genius in her lithography class and maybe wants his attention? ๐‘บ๐’๐’Ž๐’†๐’•๐’‰๐’Š๐’๐’ˆ ๐‘ฌ๐’๐’”๐’† is a โ€˜grad school coming-of-age story, a tale of being over educated and under employed. Big things are happening for one friend, while others are settling to the bottom.

๐‘ฏ๐’๐’–๐’”๐’† ๐‘ฏ๐’–๐’๐’•๐’Š๐’๐’ˆ after the loss of their mother, who died in the very place she herself hated, always wanted โ€˜someplace prettierโ€™ siblings Diane and Toby must decide what to do with the smelly, eyesore that is their pitiful inheritance. Overwhelmed by shame and guilt, Diane escapes by house hunting for gorgeous homes she will never live in and makes a surprising decision in the end. ๐‘พ๐’† ๐‘จ๐’“๐’† ๐‘น๐’†๐’‚๐’…๐’š is about much younger siblings and their grief at having to leave their home in the country for the confinement of the city and their sad motherโ€™s unbearable reality.

๐‘พ๐’†๐’”๐’• ๐‘ณ๐’‚๐’Œ๐’† an expat must deal with the looming birth of her daughter in the midst of her husbandโ€™s infidelity. She chooses to walk out of her life, to deny her husband the vision of her most naked and animal self. What feels like revenge could be self-discovery and a fresh outlook. ๐‘ต๐’๐’“๐’†๐’†๐’ ๐‘ถโ€™๐‘ด๐’‚๐’๐’๐’†๐’š ๐’‚๐’• ๐’•๐’‰๐’† ๐‘บ๐’–๐’๐’”๐’†๐’• ๐‘ท๐’๐’๐’ is the cost and weight of poor decisions, a young woman realizes that wanting a thing to be true doesnโ€™t make it so.

๐‘ถ๐’–๐’“ ๐‘ณ๐’‚๐’…๐’š ๐’๐’‡ ๐‘ฎ๐’–๐’‚๐’›รก Sisters, Marcela and Valentina born to different fathers fight over their dead motherโ€™s jeans in Bogotรก, but more it is what the jeans seem to represent. ๐‘ด๐’š ๐‘ฏ๐’–๐’”๐’ƒ๐’‚๐’๐’…โ€™๐’” ๐‘บ๐’†๐’„๐’๐’๐’… ๐‘พ๐’Š๐’‡๐’† is my favorite, it is beautiful and raw. Anger, admiration, the glamour of the very woman who has stolen the narratorโ€™s husband is impossible to resistโ€ฆ but why are the works of Tolstoy โ€˜like a brickโ€™ to her? This story has the makings of a full novel, the things Schaff could explore. Itโ€™s funny how betrayal creates connections.

๐‘ช๐’๐’‚๐’Š๐’“๐’† ๐‘ป๐’†๐’๐’๐’” ๐‘จ ๐‘บ๐’•๐’๐’“๐’š is about escaping the tediousness of oneโ€™s own life by sinking into the tales of someone elseโ€™s more โ€˜colorfulโ€™ existence. ๐‘ป๐’‰๐’† ๐‘จ๐’๐’ ๐‘ช๐’๐’†๐’‚๐’“ is about an artist who isnโ€™t creating anymore, stagnating, too tired with the demands of survival (family, work) to even remember who she was when she finished the work in her old portfolio.

๐‘ป๐’‰๐’† ๐‘ฌ๐’๐’… ๐’๐’‡ ๐‘พ๐’๐’“๐’Œ๐’”๐’‰๐’๐’‘ is about the strange envy a successful professor feels towards his female student who strays from his assignment with an idea of her own. ๐‘ป๐’‰๐’† ๐‘ด๐’‚๐’ ๐‘น๐’–๐’๐’๐’Š๐’๐’ˆ ๐’•๐’‰๐’† ๐‘ฏ๐’Š๐’“๐’Š๐’๐’ˆ ๐‘ช๐’๐’Ž๐’Ž๐’Š๐’•๐’•๐’†๐’† is how women are disqualified in the hiring process, but itโ€™s not sexism, sure. ๐‘ฌ๐’—๐’†๐’“๐’š๐’๐’๐’† ๐‘ฎ๐’†๐’•๐’” ๐‘ฐ๐’• a copywriter throws her hat in the ring for a job, deals with the heavy weight of politics during the 2016 election while fighting the misogamy in her office, and waits to winโ€ฆ and waitsโ€ฆ and waits.

These stories have one thing in common, the unreliability of life. Who doesnโ€™t face that at some stage on their journey? The big moments often sneak in through our missteps, itโ€™s what we do after that matters. Even if itโ€™s just stepping back to reflect.

Published June 15, 2020

Split/Lip Press

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