I tend to lean towards reading poetry and essay collects or short story anthologies so I figured it would be right up my alley but I just found these stories kind of mediocre. I think Ling Ma is a good writer but I just wasn’t really struck or wowed by anything I read! Maybe I’ll have to reread a couple stories after I get some space from it! I think this was a case of me being the issue, not the book.

It took me a while to get past the first story, Los Angeles, that starts with a couple lines mentioning the narrator's 100 ex-boyfriends. But I was quickly drawn into the blunt mysticism of the remaining stories.

The author explores themes that range from love gone stale to chasing a domestic abuser; from (literally) escaping the stuffiness of academia to challenging victimhood as a Chinese immigrant. Depending on the topic, the tone shifts between wry humor and more earnest reflectiveness. Although the voices sound matter-of-fact, they are not overbearing. My favorite story was Office Hours—maybe because I've always secretly wished for my own timeless Narnia to escape to while in grad school.

I was pretty entertained reading this in fits and bursts during subway commutes. Since I'm used to suspending my disbelief on the train, the whole magical realism angle lended itself well to that setting. I think the best aspect of this book, though, is that it never feels too gimmicky or cloying. I could feel myself being seduced by worlds that made no objective sense...they still managed to feel deeply familiar to me.

I just didn't click with the author's style. To me the stories seemed pointless and reading them felt like a chore. I'll give their works another try some time in the future, but for now I can't say I'm satisfied.

I thoroughly enjoyed this strange and surreal short story collection. While I appreciated the writing style, which alternates between archly humorous and poignant, what really stands out are the fantastic (and fantastical) premises. In one story, a woman in Los Angeles lives with her husband and children and her 100 ex-boyfriends; in another, a woman living in a decaying near-future America becomes pregnant and discovers that the arm of her baby is growing outside her body; and in a third, a woman follows her husband to his home country for a festival in which residents are buried overnight to heal themselves or fix their problems. Along the way, Ma cleverly and thoughtfully reflects on themes of belonging, homecoming, motherhood and relationships with mothers, and the first-generation Asian-American experience. I am probably going to buy myself a paper copy and reread the collection at some point to watch how Ma plays with these themes in each story.

My primary quibble was that the narrative voice didn't really change from story to story. I wasn't sure if this was intentional, but it meant that the narrators tended to blur together a little (though the surprising premises kept the stories distinct in my mind). And as with most story collections, some of the stories felt stronger and more coherent than others. My favorites were G, Office Hours, and Peking Duck.

I would pair with Rivka Galchen's American Innovations, Ted Chiang's Exhalation, and Cathy Park Hong's Minor Feelings.

I always have to be in a certain mood for short stories, so I held off on this one for a little while. There are some REALLY solid stories in this one - Peking Duck, Office Hours, Return. However, the rest fell flat to me. I continue to want to see more of Ma's writing and will be reflecting on these stories for quite a while.

Bliss Montage was quite different from my usual reading, more experimental, less conventional, completely different from what I tend to read. This collection of short stories felt dreamlike and speculative. Although the collection was far outside my comfort zone, it was clear that these odd stories were composed by a gifted writer with an ear for dialog and an appreciation for the macabre. Her talent is evidenced by her ability to make even Yeti Lovemaking seem somehow plausible. Or a baby's arm dangling out of a pregnant woman's body. Ling Ma is so mater-of-fact in her description of these strange phenomena, that it's easy to imagine just such a thing occurring regularly. My favorite of the collection was "G," about a drug that induces invisibility and the perils of overindulgence in this type of erasure. The bottom line: This may not have been the book for me, but I'll try other works by Ling Ma, just to see what she does next.

3.5...After reading these stories, I do feel a bit enlightened. Bliss Montage, by Ling Ma, is a surreal and shocking collection of short, claustrophobic stories that exist like marginal spaces. A woman lives with her husband and 100 ex-boyfriends; a yeti wears human skin as a disguise and enjoys record collecting and chain smoking; there are drugs that make you invisible; a sexual romp with a yeti who collects human skin; a passage into a mysterious world; and so much more that you can never be sure what surprise awaits you on the next page. One of the characters says, "It is in the most surreal situations that a person feels the most present, the closest to reality," and Ma is a master at squeezing social investigations into the most outlandish settings. In eight stories that will haunt and delight you, Ma examines aspects of immigrant culture and storytelling itself by distorting reality into the weird and wild.

Thank you so much to #netgalley and @Farrar, Straus and Giroux for this advanced reader's copy for an honest review.

Ling Ma is a fantastic writer. Let's just acknowledge that. Her writing entrances me. It's fascinating, confusing, shocking, and inexplicable. There is a play between really mundane and ordinary things, and the most bizarre scenarios you could think of. Is this metaphor? Is it speculative? Is it satire? It might be a blend of all of this. Whatever it is, it’s unputdownable.

I waited a long time to write this review, mostly because I didn’t trust my own judgement when I turned the last page. I still don’t. I just know I loved Bliss Montage.

Thank you @fsgbooks and @NetGalley for the digital review copy.

I would give this maybe a 2.5 or 3 star rating. I enjoyed each of the stories but honestly it took a lot out of me to try and understand what some of them were trying to get across. I may just not have enough brain power, so I am going to blame it on me, lol. I am still thinking about ordering Severance though. I hear so many great things about Ling Ma. I want to experience them too, damn it!

I may pick this one up again once it is fully released to try again.

I've been lucky enough to read some *excellent* short story collections this year (Bad Thoughts by Nada Alic, Stories from the Tenants Downstairs by Sidik Fofana, You Never Get it Back by Cara Blue Adams), and Bliss Montage by Ling Ma is yet another standout. (How I'll manage to wedge it into my already-overcrowded "favorite short story collection" section of my bookshelf is unclear, but a great problem to have.)

The stories in this collection are surreal but they all *feel* real. This is the brilliance - Ma brings it all to life, as implausible (and at times grotesque) as some of it may be. She finds the universal in the specific (not to mention the impossible) and writes it in ways that stun in the moment and reverberate long after you've finished. Her style is detached, not intimate - so the fact that she manages to hit the emotional nail on the head in such an indirect way is all the more impressive. I loved this book and can't wait to reread.

Thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Netgalley for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A collection of whimsical, speculative short stories that follow themes of marriage, divorce, workplace fatigue, and the aftereffects of generational trauma. While I enjoyed each story's unique wackiness, I do wish that they all culminated in a grand narrative or, at the very least, each had their own conclusive endings. I also didn't care for the heavy-handed nature that the fictional stories some characters encounter reflect their own lives - I feel like this parallel storytelling could've been done in a much more subtle and clever way. As this collection stands, however, it's an entertaining, harmless string of stories laced with just enough magic to take you to a different world, if only for a little while.

4.5 - Thank you NetGalley for an eArc of this book! (though I actually ended up purchasing a physical copy before I read it because I knew I would love it…and I did!)
I haven’t read many short story collections so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect going into this book. I knew that it wasn’t intended to be anything like Severance but I found myself pleasantly surprised to find the same strangeness and surrealism within each story that I had loved so much in Ling Ma’s previous work.
Overall, a very strong set of stories - I didn’t feel like there were any misses for me personally though “G” was my favourite <3

Bliss Montage is a collection of eight short stories which are all strange and unsettling. I’m still trying to wrap my head around a few of the stories as they went over my head, but to give you a flavour of what you’re in for my favourites include a story about a woman who lives in a luxurious mansion with her husband and 100 of her ex-boyfriends. Her boyfriends end up leaving her one by one. Interestingly, the husband speaks with dollar signs instead of words. “$$$$$”!

In another story a woman and her frenemy take a drug that makes them invisible. The last story burned into my mind is of a woman who begins a new relationship with a yeti while reflecting on a past relationship.

The collection is engaging yet odd and completely different than anything I’ve read before. It was a wild ride but I didn’t want off! I would describe the collection as inventive, bizarre, haunting, and surreal. They will linger in your mind.

Even if speculative fiction or weird little stories aren’t your cup of tea, I would encourage you to give Bliss Montage a read. The collection is filled with unique prose and there’s so much to mull over. Read it with a friend! Bring it to book club!

This is neat collection because there is technically a single thread that runs through all of these stories, but each is able to stand on its own narratively. Each of these stories also has a speculative undercurrent to them, but also address themes like isolation, loneliness, change, the gap between the life you want and the life you have, and what you present to the world. I actually haven't read Severance, so this was my first introduction to Ling Ma's work, and from these, I'd definitely read more.

This was so good. What can Ling Ma not do? The first story sucks in you with it weirdness but oddly understandable and the reader is able to connect to it. So great. I cannot wait for more from her!

So refreshing and a great collection of stories. I highly recommend checking this one out and am now a big fan of Ling Ma’s I cannot wait to read more of her work in the future.

This book felt like a fever dream in the most entertaining and thoughtful way. The stories were extremely out there, but at the same time so relatable. I really enjoyed the abstract approach and otherworldly nature of the stories - they allowed you to focus more about the feelings, thoughts, and emotions being drawn from you, rather than just the plot of a story taking place. One of my favorites was G. I think the vagueness of the whole book made it so easy to shape it to your own reflections and get out of it what you subconsciously were looking for. Okay now I’m just rambling I guess. This was a strange, but excellent read that I would definitely recommend! Thanks so much net galley for an e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

Bliss Montage is the second book from Ling Ma, author of 2018's Severance, and first collection of essays. Severance was my favorite novel of 2018, and I've been eagerly waiting for her next work. While Bliss Montage doesn't disappoint, I did find myself wondering where each of the short stories would go if given more pages to breathe. In particular, Oranges and Peking Duck stick out as being ripe for the full novel treatment. Perhaps that is the sign of a great author -- always leave your audience wanting more.

I thoroughly enjoyed the writing of these essays. I found the themes of forgiveness to people that you were in past relationships with interesting and something that i could relate too. I also enjoyed the sue of humor with traumatizing situations. My favorite essays was the first one where she used the metaphor of all of her ex's living in her house when really all of them were just living in her brain and her current boyfriend being upset about it

I wished I enjoyed this more but my reading experience was less than poor. Trying to make sense of each story was too much hard work than I was willing to put in. I wasn't even sure what I was reading most of the time — magical realism? Speculative fiction? Whatever it was, I didn't get it nor did I care for it.

I even tried reading 'Returning' 3 times but it was just terribly hard to follow and impossible to enjoy. The last 3 stories were slightly better and I liked how they explored themes I could actually resonate with, such as the immigrant experience and intergenerational trauma. I was particularly struck by the babysitting episode and how it was told. But still.

Overall, this short story collection failed to engage me at all and wasn't my cup of tea. It reminded me of Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata, which I liked much better. To be fair, Bliss Montage is self-aware and has a distinct style that speaks for itself...

"I used to have questions too. But eventually I found I was able to enjoy this place without any answers."

"I didn't get the ending. I mean, I like that it's kind of open-ended, but it feels like a cop-out."

Personally, I was unable to enjoy this book without any answers.