Equal parts absurd and authentic, Ling Ma never fails to fascinate. It's been awhile since I've read a book in a single sitting, but Bliss Montage was mesmerizing—think of it as a contemporary take on the themes of Edgar Allan Poe. Bizarre, provocative, and always unexpected, Ma's latest book has earned a spot at the top shelf.

Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the digital ARC to review!
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Wow.
I finished this book a few days ago, and had to let it digest before I felt like I could review it with the thoughtfulness it deserved. I came to this book via the author, having really enjoyed Severance and its totally unique tone: a strange alternate universe that felt fully realized and just a few shades from our own reality. Bliss Montage offers something similar through its short stories: an eerie, one-of-a-kind collection that feels connected in a deeply emotional (not necessarily thematic) way. Each story is a new little world, created so succinctly, yet with an incredible amount of depth and emotion. My favorite of the stories, Tomorrow, is a "saved the best for last" scenario. I don't want to reveal too much for fear of giving away the delight of discovering each story!

Reading up on the title/term "bliss montage" only gave me more respect and context for the book: "a woman's small piece of action, her marginal territory of joy" in movies (coined by Jeanine Basinger) feels like the perfect subtle nod to the connecting thread in these stories.

For readers (like me) who enjoyed The Office of Historical Corrections, this is one to pick up. Comparing in any detail sells both books short, but the arc of each collection–exploring the author's individual life experiences through deftly crafted, compact worlds–is where they shine.

I was eagerly anticipating what Ling Ma would write next after thoroughly enjoying Severance, and in Bliss Montage, she writes eight short stories that are complex and weird, often dealing with interpretations of reality and delusions. A woman lives with her husband in a huge mansion with 100 of her exes. Two childhood friends indulge in a drug that turns them invisible, their relationship strained as one tries to move on. We encounter festivals where people are buried in hopes of being reborn in the morning with their wishes granted, a hidden door leading to a wooded escape, and a world which is focused on de-Americanization. As with many collections, some stories resonated with me more than others, but this is a strong, weird collection from Ma. I appreciated her cohesiveness more in novel-format, so I look forward to what she writes next.

Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux via NetGalley for the advance reader copy in exchange for honest review.

Just as I hoped after enjoying Severance so much, Bliss Montage was full of similar quirky, detached, meandering, thought-provoking amusement. I realize those are an odd assortment of adjectives, but Bliss Montage is a wonderfully odd assortment of short stories.

While shining a light on East Asian values, loneliness, friendship, and whatever on earth the story "Yeti Lovemaking" is about, these eight stories cover a lot of ground and offer quite a bit to mull over. Like any anthology, some stories stuck with me more than others, but I can't deny that each one was terrifically creative. I mean - a woman that lives with her 100 ex-boyfriends (and husband)? A pregnant woman where the baby's little arm is already dangling between her legs? As I said - it's unique!

I'm so glad I got my hands on this #ARC of Ling Ma's BLISS MONTAGE, which I devoured in two sittings. I've been looking forward to this collection since I read "Office Hours," which follows a young woman's journey from student to film studies professor as she navigates the dark, surreal spaces of academia.

This collection did not disappoint; BLISS MONTAGE has propelled Ma to my all-time favorite authors list. Ma creates a world that feels utterly mundane yet strange, hitting that perfect note of surrealism that I find captivating but sometimes overwrought in contemporary literary fiction. Ma's writing feels airy and luminous, shining through in stories like "G" and "Office Hours," which remain my favorites in this collection. "Peking Duck" is reminiscent of Susan Choi's TRUST EXERCISE in its interrogation of racism in MFA programs and the nature of creative writing. The main character is a writer who shares a story inspired by her Chinese immigrant mother's job as a maid in a creative writing workshop. Ma deftly navigates multiple perspectives to ask: do we have the right to tell our loved ones' stories? what lies do we tell each other - in real life and in fiction - to survive the choices we've made?

As someone who immigrated to the U.S. as a child, stories about young immigrants just hit differently. I really love the way Ma writes about the process of learning English as a second language as a child in "Peking Duck" ("English is just a play language to me, the words tethered to their meanings by the loosest, most tenuous connections.") and the intimacies and prejudices that structure friendships between immigrant children in "G." There are so many reasons that this book feels special to me, including the fact that its release date falls on my birthday!

BLISS MONTAGE will be out on September 13.

Thank you @fsgbooks and @netgalley for the digital copy of this book to read and review!

This is a powerful collection of stories that sucked me in more with each one. Ling Ma is wonderful at creating these unsettling, bizarre narratives. She has such sharp observations and commentary on the being the child of Chine immigrants, experiencing micro aggressions and blatant racism. My favorite stories were G, which is about a drug that turns you invisible temporarily, and Peking Duck, which was so beautiful and heartbreaking.

I'm excited to see what Ling Ma does in the future. She has become one of my favorite authors!

I will say that although i was thoroughly entertained while reading this, I was initially very very confused.
I went into this book blind, having picked this up solely because it was written by Ling Ma - I hadn't even skimmed the synopsis prior to!
The imaginative direction of this literary fiction was confusing on its own... but the writing style and tone of each short story read so similarly that I hadn't even realized this was a collection of short stories and NOT a typical novel until I was already 2.5 'chapters' in!

I liked the cover, recognized the author, remembered I enjoyed Severance and decided to give it a go.
Long story short: I was pleasantly surprised!

The stories in this collection were very 'fantastical' and followed plots with illusory subjects and scenarios that wouldn't take part in the reality that we are familiar with.
It's... tough? to explain? Each story was unique and discussed a topic of being lost/ confused/ unsure/ unsatisfied that could be relevant to anyone, but Ling ma explored the subject matter in the most wild, unrealistic way.
I found that these unreal plots were symbolic of insecurities we may have or traumas that follow us (ie: an MC who lives with her 100 ex-boyfriends could be representative of the memories/ trauma that she carries into her future). Ling Ma used a lot of magical realism to talk about the 'elephants in the room' and all the taboo topics our foreign (East Asian) parents don't discuss with us.

This book isn't for everyone... Honestly, I almost thought it wasn't for /me/ before i realized it was a collection of short stories! haha
I'd say that it helps to go into this book with an open mind and with the expectation that in this book, not everything makes /literal/ sense.

TLDR: I inferred based on my own experiences and interpreted the morals in my own way and it was a great time! An odd, weird, confusing, not-sure-what-i-just-read-but-i-liked-it time!


Thank you Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for providing me with this advanced reader's e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

An intriguing collection of stories! Veering on the edge of science fiction at times, Ling Ma's stories are a treat.

An intriguing and frustrating collection of eight stories. Read these one at a time- one a day or one every couple of days- because they aren't linked but the voice is very much the same, which can be confusing as you pass from one world to the next. Several of the stories are more relatable that others but each has something fantastic about it. There are ghosts (or at least I assume they are ghosts), there'.s a woman whose unborn child is sticking an arm out of her, and so on. I appreciate the writing and Ma's vision. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC>. This is very much literary fiction.

3.5/5 stars - I’ll start by saying that short stories aren’t my preferred reading format, and so I tend to find them more difficult to connect with. But these stories were really impactful in the subtly horrific ways they pointed towards loneliness, various relationship complexities, and how people, especially Asian people, tolerate everyday racism and digs at their humanity day after day. I will also say these stories and their mastery make me extremely interested in “Severance,” which I’m sad to say I never read!

I’m actually surprised that I even requested this arc because I can’t say the author’s Severance was a favorite. But I just wanted to read this one. And turns out I may not be able to glean the underlying messages in the author’s writing. Despite that, the writing in this short story collection is oddly compelling, I never wanted to put it down, it went from weird to heartbreaking to bizarre to something else - but the author’s imagination is top notch and I could really feel so much of the pain and restlessness within the narrative.

Now that I’m done reading, I don’t think I could articulate what it was about. It’s certainly about the female experience and an immigrant experience, but it’s so much more than that. All I know is that you should give it a try and decide for yourself, and I can’t wait to read more of the author’s works in the future.

Thanks to netgalley and the publishers/author for this ARC in exchange for my honest review!

Back at it again with the short story collections. They are still my fave type of literature. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started this book. I’d only heard about Ling Ma’s debut novel and wasn’t familiar with her at all and went in very blind.

In Ling Ma’s second book, we get a wide variety of different stories that explore all sorts of different traumas and the experiences of being an Asian American. She perfectly blurs the lines of magic realism and fantasy with both shock and cliches. There’s sex with Yetis, a woman living in a house with her 100 ex-boyfriends, a pregnant woman with a baby arm falling out of her vagina, and much more.

I’m not sure if I had a favorite in these stories. They were all unique and beautiful in different ways. I think the one I was able to see myself in the most was “G” for its portrayal of toxic friendships.

I saw in a few different reviews where some folks said they weren’t sure they truly got the message in some of the stories and I can relate. But maybe these weren’t stories that everyone was supposed to get? The way I felt after finishing this book was the way I feel after watching an artsy foreign movie. Maybe I got the message at the end and maybe I didn’t, but I still really loved the vibes. I would recommend to anyone who likes anthology novels, Asian literature, magical realism, or just books that really wanna make you think.

Major thanks to Netgalley for this ARC. In exchange, I will leave my honest review.

This will be the crowd pleaser in cruise control. Delectable stories that play out like a Twilight Zone marathon without any of the horror. Instead we delve into weird worlds. Sex with a Yeti. Baby Arms that aren't supposed to grow 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦. A cache behind the wardrobe, without Mr. Tumnus. 100 ex-boyfriends overstaying their welcome.

One thing is clear here: Ma enjoys creating worlds, dropping herself in like a pin drop, navigating two questions at once: what it means to be and the choices one makes to come into that being. In most of the stories, there are elements in which we unpeel the reckoning that is Asian-American or American-Asian, as we wade through the waters of misinterpretation and miscommunication.

This is literally investigated with 𝘗𝘦𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 that shares a nice deconstruction of one of Lydia Davis's short stories in which a man claims a special memory that doesn't belong to him, but his wife, but found it so endearing that he claims it as his own.

What do you claim? What do you own when in speech act? What makes something yours in naive insecurity? How do you assume authorship?

Perhaps the best collection of short stories to come out of 2022 where I didn't think, "Oh, what was that one about again?" Each one is memorable in its very own right.

This is a delicious, all-consuming collection of short stories that tackle loneliness, the human condition, being an immigrant, relationships, things left unsaid and family dynamics. Some of the stories in the collection pushed beyond reality and trusted the audience to follow along, as the prose was so rooted in dark humor and sweeping narratives. A beautiful book of short stories that mirrors the same ambition present in 'Severance'.

Bliss Montage will be available on September 13, 2022. Thank you Farrar, Straus, and Giroux and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I read Severance so I had an idea of her writing style, so I was pleasantly surprised to find most of the stories were surreal. There were a couple I didn't quite get, but Ma writes so well it doesn't matter if I get it or not. I prefer an author that challenges the reader.

Thank you to Netgalley and Farar, Strass & Giroux for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Tw: domestic abuse, intergenerational trauma, racism,

This was a surprise read from me. I have heard good reviews on her book Severance so I was quick to request this arc to read her stories. Pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoy some of the stories in here. This collection of short stories may baffled some people since it was written in this literary, surrealism, ambiguous and open endings. But I actually enjoyed it despite the weirdness because its so damn interesting. Especially "Tomorrow" where a pregnant woman had her baby arm outside of the womb hanging which is like HUHHH BUT IT HAPPENED and "Office Hours", a favourite of mine thats seem to transcend into a bit of magical fantasy with another world inside a university's office. "Returning" centres around a tradition where people is buried overnight and came out different if you are lucky and this was so intense when i read it, so damn good!

The first story was so weird that i found myself amused and confused at the same time with the protagonist living with her husband who only talk in $$$$$$ and her 101 ex boyfriends in another house? You get thats, thats right. The 2nd story seems to be a continuation from the first though im entirely unsure because most of the time, the narrator/s were unnamed. The lack of emotions, feelings and soulless narration lend to you this barrier from understanding the protagonist. They may purposely written that way but it can take some reader away from the stories.

There are a lot of discussion on the reality of immigrants living in States highlighted in "Peking Duck". In every story, there are insertions of the struggle for the narrator's difficulties to cope with the differences and the intergenerational trauma happened to them.

Would highly suggest reading this if you want some fascinating look at different perspective and the weirdness in some of these stories. Okay, Yeti Lovemaking is so damn weird that i still cannot fathom what the hell is this story 😂😂

this series of short stories reminded me so much of her body and other parties by carmen maria machado — they’re weird and grotesque and surreal and fantastical and strange and compelling. definitely recommend!!!

The deal: From the author of Severance, it’s “[eight] wildly different tales of people making their way through the madness and reality of our collective delusions.” (I got an ARC from Netgalley)
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Is it worth it?: Yep. If you liked Severance and you like weird short stories, you will like this. Not sure how many things you have to read from someone to declare them “one of your favorite writers,” but Ling Ma is rapidly getting up there.
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Pairs well with: persimmons, Bunny by Mona Awad
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B+

An engrossing collection of short stories that left me still thinking about them days later. Some had elements of sci-fy sprinkled in, but they were all somehow completely believable, so I suppose I'd put this in the magic realism category. Each story left me wanting more and in a good way. Ma did not disappoint.

Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the advanced reader copy.

Quite an eerie, odd collection. I definitely think those that enjoyed the more speculative/horror in the mundane elements of Ling Ma's debut novel (Severance) will enjoy this collection, as those themes were prevalent here too. Lots of thematic explorations, too, about familial expectations in immigrant families, returning to one's home country, and academia.

I also found the collection to be stronger as I moved through it, with my favorites being some of the last stories: Office Hours, Peking Duck, and Returning. Thanks to FSG for providing me with an early copy through Netgalley! Bliss Montage is out in September.