Thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for this advanced reader copy.

This week’s headline? “You’re materializing.”
Why this book? I should’ve read Severance but now here I am.

Which book format? ARC

Primary reading environment? Under the cover of darkness aka at night in my bed
Any preconceived notions? It’ll be literary and dark 🖤

Identify most with? No one

Three little words? “a cinema screen”

Goes well with? Oranges and ex-boyfriends

Recommend this to? People who enjoy weird literary fiction

Other cultural accompaniments: https://www.newyorker.com/books/this-week-in-fiction/ling-ma-07-11-22

Grade: 3.50/5

I leave you with this: “He wanted to disquiet me, I suspected, without leaving his own fingerprints.”

📚📚📚

Bliss Montage is a beautifully written anthology of short stories that covers trauma, race, sexuality, and relationships. I haven’t read anything by Ling Ma but I definitely have added Severance on my TBR after reading this. Why did I only give it 3.5? I’m not sure I could fully connect with the narrator, but then again, I’m sure if we’re supposed to. I still recommend this, though.

Bliss Montage will be released on September 12, 2022.

tw: physical abuse, drug use

The opening story is about a female vampire living in LA in a huge mansion and all of her exes live IN ONE OF THE WINGS OF THE HOUSE! I was hooked immediately. Bravo! Incredibly interesting short stories that have you thinking for a long while after you close the pages.

If you want to make sure I'll be interested in a book, all you need to do is put some type of citrus fruit on it. This one also happened to coincide with my wish to read more short story collections. Thank you so much to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley. It gave me a reason to cut a bunch of oranges as my toddler stared at me with questioning eyes.
This one is a collection of "eight wildly different tales", each answering a bizarre what-if question. I really enjoyed these stories and Ma's writing style. The husband that speaks in $$$$ will be something I will probably be thinking about every time I hear certain people talk. I think my overall favorite was G, outlining the effects of an illicit drug, rendering the user invisible and the toxic relationship of two women using the drug.
Despite the seemingly odd situations and magical realism, many stories were similar to known scenarios of some shared female and immigrant experiences. Some stories are more open ended and I'm learning to make my peace with that. I don't think it's for everyone but if you enjoy it, I think you and I can get along on some weird levels.

With all of these stories, I got so sucked in. The ends are sometimes a little abrupt or disjointed, and maybe that means something, but I'll leave that to lit majors who haven't graduated already.

I’m not usually a short stories girlie but after Severance I will read anything Ling Ma releases, and this one did not disappoint. Yeti Lovemaking was the biggest highlight for me, I love her weird little approach to litfic

I really enjoyed this collection! The stories are quiet but elegant and will stay with me. Highly recommend!

Bliss Montage is a collection of eight short stories examining our humanity when fantasy threatens to overtake reality. With brilliant writing and unique prose, Ling Ma explores love, friendship, connection, culture, motherhood, and much more through various Asian woman protagonists.

Bliss Montage reminds me of Murakami Haruki's work; it resonates differently every time you read it. People with various perspectives will likely take away diverse lessons as well. The stories I understand are so touching, but not in a cry-my-eyes-out way, but in a wow-that's-deep-only-Ma-has-the-brilliance-to-write-like-this way. My favorites are Los Angeles, G, and Returning. And I'm a bit embarrassed to say I didn't fully grasp Yeti Lovemaking, Office Hours, and Tomorrow.

Bliss Montage is probably not for those looking for a light or plot-driven read, but if you're in for a literary wild ride or want to explore something completely different and feel mind-blown, this is the perfect book! Bliss Montage would also be fantastic for book clubs because I might take away more of what Ma is depicting.

Ling Ma is an incredible writer and every story was unique and bizarre… in a good way. I don’t particularly like magical realism, but her writing had me interested. I am only rating this 3 stars, but that is just due to me not particularly enjoying the content, although intriguing. I would say pick this up, if you are interested in great writing and odd stories.

Having read Severance, I was very excited for Ling Ma's new book. The short stories blended nicely together having similar characters and themes. Each story deals with relatable struggles while adding strange elements to each one that made the stories thought provoking and unique. I don't think this book hit as hard as Severance did, but it was an enjoyable read that was beautifully written

So weird. So good. I buddy read this and I’m glad I did. It was much easier to absorb by sharing thoughts with another person.

Favorite story was Yeti Love Making. Chefs kiss!

Plan to pick up severance now. Loved this author and I’m so happy I found her!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

From the author of Severance, Bliss Montage is a collection of short stories that often blur the line between fantasy and reality, and always work to investigate even the most mundane aspects of what it means to be a wife, a mother, a friend, and a human.

Oh man, was this book good. I’ve always been a fan of weird stories anyways, so Ling Ma really hit my exact genre of interest with this collection. These stories were whirlwinds, odd and dazzling and unexpected, and I left every single one absolutely befuddled. I am so looking forward to when this is out so I can get a hard copy and annotate the heck out of it.

Of the eight stories in this collection, I think that Peking Duck and Yeti Lovemaking were my favorites, the first for its style — the story is told in a series of vignettes, occasionally alternating perspectives, with each new section recontextualizing the previous ones — and the second for how well it worked even though it was just absolutely balls-to-the-wall weird.

Even beyond the strange concepts of these stories and their interesting trajectories, the writing in this collection is just absolutely immaculate. Every sentence is rich with detail and lends even further depth to these poignant and beautifully realized stories. Seriously, I cannot sing this book’s praises enough. If you’re a fan of short stories and you don’t mind a little bit of oddness and some relatively unconventional choices, this book is an absolute gem and well worth your time.

Bliss Montage from Farrar, Straus and Giroux

So, after this, Ling Ma’s novel Severance is definitely now on my TBR.

Stories (*favorites):

Los Angeles - I am captivated. Who starts a story like this?! I must know more. “The house in which we live has three wings. The west wing is where the Husband and I live. The east wing is where the children and their attending au pairs live. And lastly, the largest but ugliest wing, extending behind the house like a gnarled, broken arm, is where my 100 ex-boyfriends live.” Slightly jarring transition from the first story to the second - thematically similar in a way that had me briefly think this was somehow a novel rather than a short story collection like I was expecting

Oranges - A hard story about surviving domestic abuse, and having it simply become a part of the background noise of your life long after that part of you life is in the past. An orange that rolled of a table at a diner, lost if you don’t look for it.

G - “She wouldn’t stop, I thought, until she had totally consumed me. I’d end up in her digestive tract, as she metabolized my best qualities and discarded the rest.”

Yeti Lovemaking - There were parts that totally reminded me of that tumblr trend six or seven years ago where people wrote weird descriptions of “domesticated clown” pet care manuals as if they were a type of exotic pet. Also WtF

*Returning - how do you plan for a better future than the one ahead of you? How do you heal a broken relationship?

*Office Hours - “The sanest way forward—you have to learn how to split yourself up into other selves, like an earthworm”

Peking Duck - how do you remember something that happened to someone else, when you were on the sidelines? Can that memory be as important to you as it is to the person who was at the center of it?

Tomorrow - Baby Arm.

I really liked [[Ling Ma]]'s debut novel, Severance, which was an odd blend of everyday observations and utter weirdness and I'm happy to report that her collection of short stories, Bliss Montage shares those traits. There are odd situations, presented matter-of-factly, like the woman who lives in a mansion with her husband and children and all one hundred of her ex-boyfriends, and also astutely observed ordinary moments, like a woman meeting a man in a bar.

<i>He bought me a cocktail without asking, and proceeded to explain, casually, that he lived in this neighborhood, just a few blocks away. Actually, what he said was six blocks. No, five and a half blocks. That's what he said, five and a half blocks, as if he were afraid that at six blocks I would say no. I didn't tell him that actually, I liked him up to eight blocks. In our city, that equals a mile. I liked him up to a mile.</i>

These stories are full of young women figuring out life, how to move on from the things their mothers taught them, working out how love and life work in the world as it is. Sometimes the worlds these women exist in are different from this one, other times the author stays with this one.

<i>What I wouldn't give to escape these late winters in Chicago. Especially the deep, post-holiday extremes of January and February, when, no longer buoyed by festivities and merriments, you're confronted with the empty expanse of a new year, discarded resolutions in your wake, resigned to your own inability to change.</i>

I really like how Ling Ma writes, both on a sentence level and in the way she views the world. I ended up liking each story in this collection a little more than the last and would have liked it to be much longer.

Ling Ma, author of 2018's "Severance", is back with eight delightfully weird, surreal little gems in this short story collection. Exploring themes such as immigration, isolation, familial history, relationships between husbands and wives, exes, being "other", writers and writing, each left me wanting more story. There are books within the stories, books that I would read in an instant, if they existed. So much imagination. Did I say they were weird? They're really weird.

Out the gate we get "Los Angeles", about a woman living with her husband and children, in Los Angeles, in a really big house. They don't live alone. It's pretty out there.

A few stories later is the poignant "Returning", which reminded me of the infamous Sea of Trees in Japan. I really wanted more story at the end of this one.

"Peking Duck" is a multi-layered masterpiece, a story within a story within a story that is a big knotty brain tease.

Last but not least is "Tomorrow", the oddest of them all, and that's saying a lot. A woman finds herself pregnant after the relationship with the father has ended. Speaking of ending, yeah, I didn't want this one to be over either (shocker).

My thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the ARC in exchange for this review. Bliss Montage will be published on 9/13/2022.

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!