I wanted to read this because of how much I adored Severance. I loved this so much. The writing was sparse but evocative. Melancholic and dystopian. Weird but linear. This is in a similar vein as Moshfegh’s Homesick for Another World which is also a collection of zany stories but for me that collection fell flat. It was weird for the sake of being weird and the stories were directionless. This collection is so strong though. Touching on themes of otherness and womanhood, each story was a page turner for me. I’m sad there aren’t more stories. Looking forward to what Ma writes next.

Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for this ARC!

This story collection is imaginative, compelling and so smart. Ling Ma shows us how technology, capitalism, social media, etc. interface with the dark parts of our psyche. There are stories about dark topics like abuse and the writing addresses it directly and from a contemporary, surprising angle. You never know what to expect - the stories are unpredictable. Love this one.

Short story collections are usually a miss for me, but I was (mostly) pleasantly surprised by this one. These stories are bite-sized pieces of fiction that cover themes like immigration and growing up in an immigrant family, the concept of home and belonging, relationship dynamics, language, and more. I could definitely see some parallels to Ling Ma’s debut novel, Severance, and was gripped by the magical realism elements that were weaved into the collection.

My main gripe with short story collections in general (and why I don’t typically enjoy or finish them) is that often the stories feel TOO short, and as a result, underdeveloped. The abrupt endings of some of the stories in this collection were similarly disappointing, but maybe I just don’t understand enough about flash fiction to appreciate what authors are going for when they do this.

Overall I genuinely did enjoy this collection, even if not every story worked for me. My favorites were G and Peking Duck.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC! This collection comes out September 2022.

These stories were very formally interesting and beautifully written. Fans of Kelly Link will enjoy these.

A short story collection that for me personally just didn’t live up to the expectations of what I had in mind. All the stories started off strong but as they all went along and their stories were developing they just seemed to plunder and start to droop in my enjoyment.

I will say of course as we like to focus more on positives, ling ma is such a brilliant writer and her imagination and thought process to these stories is second to none

I'm going to call most of the stories weird. Ma is a strong writer which made them palatable for me since weird is normally not my thing. I'm going to circle back and read her other book.

I really appreciate the free ARC for review!!

As someone whom LOVED the eeriness of Severance, I knew Bliss Montage would be next on my list. Ling Ma has such an interesting writing style where the reader is left wanting more, in the best way of course. Her short stories were fascinating and such an interesting weird combination, that touched upon an array of topics. I'm so grateful for NetGalley & the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read an ARC of Bliss Montage.

Publishing date: September 13, 2022
Plushlished By: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
e-ARC courtesy of NetGalley

Bliss Montage by Ling Ma was so so so good. I cannot stop gushing over these 8 stories! Each being playful, witty, and a bit dark evoked by a young female immigrants experience. From the opening story where our narrator lives with her 100 ex-boyfriends, to (one of my favorite) stories of fading friends taking G and the elegant descriptions of drifting too far and taking too much, to going home with a man who then later strips off his human skin suit to reveal the hot yetti beneath. There are stories that tackle more universal themes like in "Peking Duck" where we see the effects of immigration affecting a mother and daughter and their relation to each other differently. Nevertheless are these stories more shockingly human the deeper you dive in.

All in all, this Bliss Montage is intelligent, fresh, fun, and I cannot wait for the world to love and adore this collection like I do.

3.5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giraux for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

“What happens when fantasy tears through the screen of the everyday to wake us up? Could that waking be our end?”

Bizarre and surreal. A collection of unsettling fever dream-like stories that felt like episodes in black mirror.

Ling Ma’s writing style is melancholic and brilliant, so you can understand my frustration when I wasn’t satisfied with the conclusions of her short stories. Let me explain. After reading 2 stories I started to recognize a pattern. The conclusions were so abrupt that I would legitimately sit there and ask myself if somehow my kindle malfunctioned and didn’t download the rest of the story. I understand that some things are supposed to be left to the imagination, but these just felt unfinished. That was until I hit my lightbulb moment later in the book and found the answer in the text (or at least I think I did). I won’t disclose the full conversation from the story (if you read this text, please let’s discuss) but I will leave you with a quote. “The movie doesn’t show you the answers. The ending simply reflects back to us what we all want”. However, even though this shifted my perspective of the curt finality of the stories, I still don’t believe it was my cup of tea.

There are a few stories that stand out to me, but my favorite must be “G”. Imagine taking a drug that makes you completely invisible to the outside world. What would you do? “Do you know how easily the world yields to you when you move through it in an invisibility cocoon? It lifts the tiny anvil of self-consciousness”.

This book now holds some of my favorite quotes of all time, and aside from the conclusions, I adored it. I can’t WAIT for a physical copy so I can annotate the entirety of it.

This is an excellent collection of strange and surreal stories interspersed with some stories of domestic realism that, despite being realist, venture into the extremes of our shared realities. The writing is top notch, the ideas are interesting. Highly recommend.

i think ling ma is extremely talented and i was very excited for this after reading severance
however a lot of these stories don't bring a ton of nuance/commentary to the table - they read like pieces written in your freshman creative writing class
there are a couple where ma really shines - peking duck and g - and i really got a true sense of the message she was trying to create but for a lot of the others it felt too distant/vague for me to really enjoy

I really love the way this author tells stories. Each one took such a unique viewpoint and the descriptions of different things just took you into such a different world each time. It was great. For instance one mentions her 100 ex boyfriends who live in the house but really it's the affect they still have on her. But when she talks about it like they are really there you're so busy trying to make logical sense out of it the meaning and weight of her words really gets you when you see what she's doing. Well done!

I found each of these eight stories compulsively readable, though my satisfaction in the endings varied somewhat. I loved Severance, Ling Ma's first novel, and was very excited to see this collection. The stories were beautiful and surreal, often jarring. I would definitely recommend to any reader of literary short fiction.

Ended up getting a physical copy of this book and will be reviewing that version since I love a physical copy of a short story book. I can't wait to start what Im sure will be a new fave of mine.

I had previously read Ling Ma's "Severance" so upon hearing that she was writing another book, immediately jumped at the chance to read it. "Bliss Montage" is quite different from her earlier post-apocalyptic novel, the primary factor being that it is a collection of short stories, but there are still many similarities between the two - including the melancholic writing style, the primary voice and character being an Asian-American woman, and the surreal aspects that pervade each of her stories.

Each of these eight stories is a slightly jarring read, starting with "Los Angeles", where a married woman recounts living in the same house with her husband and her 100 ex-boyfriends, and the weight each of these relationships continues to hold on her. This story segues into "Oranges", where a woman encounters an abusive ex-boyfriend and follows him home to confront him and is current girlfriend. "G" was one of the more standout stories for me, where a woman describes the impact that an illicit drug has on her and her friend, leading us to wonder if the toxicity present is due to the drug or to each other. Some of the stories, like "Yeti Lovemaking", where a woman is misled at a bar by a Yeti in disguise of a man, and "Office Hours", where a female professor looks back at her time as a college student and her interaction with her previous professor whom she now has the office of, felt too out-of-reach for me. I think the story I resonated most with was "Peking Duck", where a Chinese American girl describes the experience her mother went through as a nanny for a wealthy white family in Utah, and the repercussions she's faced with when a stranger enters the home, taking advantage of her situation.

Giving a rating to a collection of stories is difficult as, in this case, it's giving 8 individual scores and aggregating them into one. While there were some that felt impactful, others were just too far from understanding for me and my own experiences. For me, personally, "Bliss Montage" wasn't as strong as Ma's earlier novel, and across each of these different stories, the similarities in voice and tone became monotonous over time.

✏️ ARC Review: Publication Date, September 12!✏️

📚65/100
Bliss Montage by Ling Ma
Format: 📱(ARC e-book via NetGalley)

All the thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus * Giraux for the ARC in exchange for publishing an honest review!

I was SO excited to get this after being such a fan of Severance. This short story collection was unsettling- in the way Black Mirror or Twilight Zone is unsettling. It’s a uncanny closeness to our own world, but a version in which peculiar rules change everything. Ling Ma is clearly brilliant. I had a hard time rating this- as I couldn’t decide most of the time whether I was loving it or just deeply invested in the shock value and storytelling. And I think that’s the strength of the author- to tell stories in such a way that you’re both able to relate and EXTREMELY far removed. This read is best geared toward a very specific kind of reader- but this particular ready loved the journey.

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*Spoiler Free Summary*

Ling Ma’s collection of short stories range on a variety of subjects: portals in collegiate walls, mythical creatures, apartments where every ex-boyfriend resides. But somehow, she intermingles the phenomenal with the struggles specific to immigrant families, and the struggles we all have to let go of our pasts and our hopes of the future.

#bookstagram #bookreview #fictionbooks #readersofinstagram #booksta #4starreview #noshelfcontrol #bookish #bookishlove #bookstagrammer #tbrlist #bookworm #netgalley #arc

This was my first time reading this author. I found the stories intriguing and at times thought provoking. However, I really found myself struggling to get through some of the stories. A few I found very interesting, others not so much. I will probably try her prior book to give this author another try.

Bliss Montage is an incredible collection of short stories that range from slightly unsettling to completely surreal, and I couldn’t put it down. Ling Ma’s writing style is beautiful and unique. Her words skillfully draw you into each story’s world, and even the most fantastical stories are deeply rooted in reality and visceral human emotions.

“I felt amazed, jostled out of character. I had never done this before… I thought, How bizarre that you can be someone else and the world will still absorb you.” – “Returning”

These stories often feature the protagonist reuniting with a figure from their past in some way, whether it is an abusive ex-boyfriend, a toxic childhood friend, a former professor, or a distant relative, and we follow as they realize or explore how their pasts continue to affect the ways in which they see themselves and the world around them.

“Her flamethrower gaze annihilated all women’s magazine adages about loving yourself, all body-positivity Oprah episodes; it could reverse all waves of feminism.” – “G”

Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for sending me this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This the first book I've read by Ling Ma. I honestly love her writing style, a little dry and melancholic.. This whole book feels like collection of fever dreams. I will admit that the first few stories are my favorite; Los Angeles, Oranges, G, and Yeti Lovemaking. This novel starts out really strong and then I was left feeling like it was lacking a bit towards the end. I also kept finding myself wondering if the narrator was the same throughout each story or if it was a different person, as the tone stayed the same for each one. This book still felt powerful to me and I am continuing to think about it's absurdities days later.

Some of my favorite quotes:
-"I want to masticate him with my teeth. I want to barf on him and coat him in my stinging acids. I want to unleash a million babies inside him and burden him with their upbringing".
-"Under what I'm looking for I Put: I want to know someone for longer than a few years. I want to know what it feels like. I also want not to flee. By that I mean I want constancy."
-"What If I dissected my feelings, pulled them apart and brutalized them so that he would know they were true? Is this enough? I'd ask. How about this? They would explode and drip over everything like bodily fluids and finally he'd be forced to look away."
-"...He gave me a glass of water. And by the time I finished it, his human suit lay crumpled on the floor, cleaved in two by a zipper seam, to reveal a shiny sweat-dampened abominable snowman."

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for this ARC.

Severance is one of my favorite books, so I was very, very excited to receive this ARC! Bliss Montage is a collection of short stories that follows in the same vein as Severance, in that they are dark, sometimes grim, and definitely surreal. I would compare it to the feel of Black Mirror, specifically the episodes that focus on social issues (like the video game lovers or social media one).
Most of the stories were really intriguing. I loved G, Returning, Office Hours, and Tomorrow for how bizarre and sometimes dark they were, and I think that's where her writing shines the most. Peking Duck was another favorite for the double perspective we got about the same scenario, which completely changes how the reader views the mother. Love that kinda thing.
My only complaint with the book was that it felt like the stories ended just a few pages too soon! I love a good abrupt ending, but for me, I feel like I didn't get enough details from the story to piece together an ending of my own. I felt this the most with Returning and Office Hours, and a little bit with Tomorrow.

Favorite quotes:
"It is in the most surreal situations that a person feels the most present, the closest to reality."
"An ideology defined only by what it opposes is doomed to be defined by that exact thing."

Overall, a really excellent read and one I would recommend to others.