Okay, first of all, how stunning is this cover? It's the first thing that attracted me to this collection. Story collections are often hit or miss, because there's usually such a range of ratings for each story individually. Almost every single one of these stories was an absolute home run for me. Erin Slaughter's writing is lush and poetic and relatable. She writes about the ennui of being, about anxiety, about women's grief. Even as someone with several content sensitivities, I couldn't put this down. It is one that I will return to and carry with me (literally and figuratively). I am obsessed and I can't wait to see what else we get from Slaughter.

CW: parent death, gun violence, cancer, eating disorders, cancer, medical trauma, miscarriage, suicidal ideation, child loss, CSA

This was a slightly darker compilation than I expected. Slaughter explores emotions in relationships that aren't healthy or good for us. While there were a couple standouts, I often found myself wondering what the point of the story was, and hesitated to rate each story individually as it made the compilation itself seem a book of poorly received short stories. However the concept of feeling alone while in a relationship, the distance and pain between partners, was a stunning and reflective overarching theme.

This collection is difficult to describe. At turns evocative, disturbing, and almost painfully candid, A Manual for How to Love Us is guaranteed to stick with you. Definately not for everyone, which does make my job as a bookseller a bit difficult. However, when the perfect person for this book comes through the door, I'll know exactly what to recommend.

A Manual for How to Love Us by Erin Slaughter is a collection of short stories that heavily focuses on womanhood and the suffocating attempts to survive (read: live normally) as a woman in a world created by and for men. With magical realism at play, the immediate danger that "I will be the next", "life is over for me" kept me on my toes, although I am not sure if it was because of the simple lyrical writing or that the world is indeed dangerous and I am just being reminded of it like any other day.

My favorite stories are: "Anywhere", You Too Can Cure Your Life", "Watching Boys Do Things", and "A Manual for How To Love Us" (a silent appreciation because this title deserves to be on the front cover). The book is separated into three parts, so It is easy for me to conclude that part three was a big miss. I fell in love HARD with the first two parts.

Boy I probably highlighted 80% of "Watching Boys Do Things". The main character seems to suffer from schizophrenia, and yet her thoughts on the invisibility of women, their life energy, contributions to daily lives as mothers, daughters, neighbors and probably just herself is spot-on. There are indeed, things only several can point out. Girls melting in and out of walls. God, that was such a beautiful description of how useful and useless women are in the eye of men who are peacefully existing. Only there when needed like some pizza delivery services.

The core theme of women and our un-beingness is what's special about this collection. The point is being hammered down, again and again, and by part three it is only fair to feel too fuzzy to take in any more of brutal truths. It was not until I came across Erin Slaughter that I finally have words to express the grief of female's intentionally-unnoticed existence, that it is so much easier to cram our brains hours into audiobooks instead of narrating our lives with the melody of our own voices with the sound of our own gardens.

May we be enough on our own if that's what it takes to be.

#netgalley #amanualforhowtoloveus #erinslaughter

An auspicious collection held together by loss/grief, among other threads. I savored Slaughter's sentences, and was beguiled by nearly every story. I look forward to whatever she writes next. Thanks to the publisher for the e-galley!

𝑰’𝒎 𝒈𝒐𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒄𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒆 𝒎𝒚 𝒆𝒚𝒆𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒘. 𝑫𝒐𝒏’𝒕 𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒗𝒆.
𝑰 𝒅𝒐𝒏’𝒕, 𝒃𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝑰 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒊𝒕’𝒔 𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒆𝒗𝒆 𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒑𝒆𝒐𝒑𝒍𝒆 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒄𝒂𝒏’𝒕 𝒔𝒆𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒎.

The stories in this collection were unsettling and I was most drawn in by 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐵𝑜𝑥 for its dissection of love in a marriage that is haunted by tragedy. It is revelatory, marriage is a universe unto itself, we disappear from ourselves and each other, and return. We share pain that leaves us gasping and try to repair wreckage, marriage is refuge and sometimes disaster. Who we were, why we love changes with the things the world does to us. All the stories pack a powerful punch and peels the skin off the masks we wear. There is a lot of barking in the world, about claiming our power and yet there still exists this universe where people take any love they can get, pacts of secrecy, relationships that we should never consent to and yet the world tells us we are lucky to have one at all. In 𝑊𝑎𝑡𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐵𝑜𝑦𝑠 𝐷𝑜 𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠, the weakness and self-debasement introduces us to a woman who expects cruelty from the world. Watching how her lover James and friend Callie, a term used loosely here, move through the world unencumbered by thoughts of what they do and don’t deserve is evidence of the division in class. His comments about where she is from, as if he speaks from an elevated realm, arouses suspicion of his distaste for poverty. She doesn’t have the beauty that exonerates other women in her social standing, and of course she envies Callie’s place, that easy breezy air the world welcomes with open arms. It’s a mean story, and the ants are as invasive as the eyes of the world. The job she takes on is incredibly strange, it demands her invisibility but not truly disappearing, not with the ugly things some of the boys do that beg a witness. There is a lot to think about here, it’s provocative.

Each tale is disturbing, sometimes it’s a disease, like in 𝑌𝑜𝑢 𝑇𝑜𝑜 𝐶𝑎𝑛 𝐶𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑌𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝐿𝑖𝑓𝑒. How much is surrender, is numbing your soul going to make a woman bloom? Our health guru is going to cure womankind, eradicate the toxins of others’ needs. The toxins she describes are like a scream, a release from the weight of the demands so many women carry, all the expectations that eat away at their bodies inside and out. 𝑊𝑒 𝑊𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑊𝑜𝑙𝑣𝑒𝑠 is the devastation that remains when you think someone understands you, that you have a stellar friend only to discover they are fast to abandon you. I loved 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐷𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑅𝑜𝑢𝑡𝑒 , such an odd story, but the traces of the woman who was the narrator’s first wife, all the remembering of people that are gone, for me was a reminder that some places keep us anchored to the past, won’t let us be anyone else. It can be good; it can be terrible. We can disappear in a collective, our lives can feel like anyone else’s, as if who we are is just a reflection of a million others. Choice is at play, always, if we are lucky and free to choose.

Part II is like a fruitful dictionary describing the meaning of words like Story, Body, and Well. It’s creative and moving.

Part III is about rooms and wall people, even Emily Dickinson makes an appearance of sorts. Then 𝑁𝑒𝑠𝑡, is a knot of love tangled in a warped sort of unhinged grief. 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐹𝑜𝑟𝑔𝑜𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑛 𝐶𝑜𝑎𝑠𝑡 is a misguided attempt at family, and criminal. Piper is a tyrant, and yet somehow there is always someone who will tend to the mad needs and demands of another. In other stories there are women with smoke in their hearts, a hum that drives a woman to therapy, men with carless, rough hands, and a story about being 𝐸𝑙𝑠𝑒𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒.

Some of the stories didn’t hit their mark with me but the ones that did blew me away. There were gorgeous sentences I highlighted, things I have thought about and felt myself. I can’t wait to read what Erin Slaughter will whip up next.

Published March 14, 2023

Harper Perennial

Thank you to Harper Perennial for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.

This collection of short stories is eloquent. Some of the stories are a bit to dark for my liking. I think this would be a good book to discuss in a book club, to dive deeper into the meaning and prose of each story. This is a 3 star for me.

This book was written in such a beautiful way, very poetic but sadly even if I was liking its prose I couldn't make myself care about this stories and its characters, it bored me most of the time and the only thing that made me want to continue reading it was because I didn't want to give up on a book written so nicely but by the end it still disapponted me and I didn't enjoy it.
Thank you to Harper Perennial and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

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

A Manual for How to Love Us is a collection of short stories which explore themes of loss, grief, and womanhood/femininity.

One thing that is glaringly obvious in this short story collection is that Erin Slaughter is a poet. Though some of these short stories were much more up my alley than others, all of them were equally poetically written, in the kind of way that makes you feel a story in your bones even before you've fully consciously processed it. There is a lot of variety here, too; at times stories are loud and weird, while other times they are quiet and deceptively simple. I don't think that every story in this collection is for everyone, but I do think that there is a lot to love and to dig into in these pages, and in all it is a really solid short story debut.

Not going to lie, the gorgeous cover is what sucked me in. But the stories kept me there. Some of them I didn't really understand but there are one are two that just stuck under my skin and I can't get them out of my head. Definitely one to watch out for.

A Manual For How to Love Us by Erin Slaughter is one of the strongest story collections I've read in a long while. This interlinked collection of stories explores the primal nature of women's grief and offers insight and so much perspective through the lens of varying degrees of loss.

What I loved about this book was how seamlessly Slaughter shifts between the speculative and the real, balancing the bizarre with the subtle brutality of the mundane. I was so impressed by her writing voice. The stories are unconventional and unpredictably connected, with the book's title story put smack-dab in the middle to connect the other stories.

My favorite stories in the collection were "The Box," "The Forgotten Coast," and "You Too Can Cure Your Life." In "The Box," a couple speaks only in their basement in a large box, and in "You Too Can Cure Your Life" A woman treats herself and others with LifeCure, an unregulated diet and health plan, both of which explore the absurd ways in which we seek control in an unruly world. In "The Forgotten Coast," a throuple navigates loyalty and the division of not just love, but responsibility.

Slaughter's writing is powerful and I found myself feeling seen so many times as I read. These characters were raw and real for me and I absolutely recommend this book to those who like books rich in emotion and depth.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Harper Perennial for an ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts!

This was a great short story collection. I really enjoyed Burrowing and Watching Boys Do Things. I would definitely recommend this is if you enjoy short stories about girlhood, female friendships, and grief. Thank you for sending a copy along for me to read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Perennial for allowing me to read this ARC!

This was such a beautiful collection of short stories. Grief, life, love and more are covered in such a touching a meaningful manner. This was a great read, and an adventurous one for sure.

[arc review]
Thank you to Harper Perennial for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
A Manual for How to Love Us releases March 14, 2023

“Love is the name we give to the precise moment when we recognize Someone as a protagonist, because what People love more than being in love is feeling like part of a Story. We want to be a narrative with purpose, structure, referenceable blueprints, a definite ending. When we tell each other our Stories, we are attempting to construct A Manual for How to Love Us.”


A Manual for How to Love Us is Erin Slaughter’s debut collection of short stories.

I found this to be unique but at times it was hard to distinguish one overall theme with such variance in each short story.

My favourite and the standout of them was the first one called “Anywhere” — the writing was languid yet intentional and at times the fluidity of the prose was comparable to that of poetry.

The first half of this collection was definitely stronger, in my opinion.

Some content warnings include: gunshot wound, gore, cancer + chemo, voyeurism, grief, and more.

This was a solid short story collection! I really loved some of the stories (You Too Can Cure Your Life, We Were Wolves, Nest, The Forgotten Coast) but other stories didn't resonate with me in the same way. Regardless, the writing was beautiful and I would recommend picking this up when it is released if you are into short stories

This was truly a mixed bag for me. I found the first story and the last story within this collection to be engaging, thought-provoking, and worth the time spent reading. Unfortunately, that was not the case for the rest. I don't feel confident in recommending the collection, as I did not particularly enjoy a great many of these.

A Manual for How to Love Us

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and appreciated how much artistry there was in the book. Following the stories of all of these women and seeing important, meaningful, and tragic moments of their lives felt so real and reflective of the world we live in. While sometimes the artistry evaded me and I didn't quite understand the premise of a short story, the meaning behind the tragedy was always clear and I felt for each and every character.

Stunning. Truly exquisite writing. Every couple of pages I'd whisper to myself: yes, this is why I love literature, this thirst for words can only be quenched by a book like this.

I decided to take notes after each story and give each their own rating out of 5. I won't give any details as to what each story is about, but I will share my individual ratings below. My absolute favorites were Watching Boys Do Things and A Manual for How to Love us.

1. Anywhere || 4.5/5
2. You Too Can Cure Your Life || 2.5/5
3. The Box || 4.5/5
4. We Were Wolves || 4/5
5. The Dragging Route || 3/5
6. Watching Boys Do Things || 5/5
7. A Manual for How to Love Us || 5/5
8. Burrowing || 2.5/5
9. Nest || 4/5
10. The Forgotten Coast || 1/5
11. Crescendo 1.5/5
12. Instructions for Assembly || 3.5/5
13. Elsewhere 4.5/5

Recurring themes all throughout: girlhood, womanhood, female friendships, parenthood, marriage, grief, coping mechanisms, feeling trapped/stuck, poverty, class, etc.

Slaughter divides this book into three parts (six stories in Part One, one story in Part Two, and the last six stories in Part Three), and at first I didn't see why you would break up a collection of short stories into different parts when all stories are different in their own way...until I reached Part Three and it all made perfect sense. Even though my least favorite stories were in Part Three, I still enjoyed the clever shift in writing style, and it all starts with the single story that makes up Part Two: A Manual for How to Love Us. This was the catalyst, the story that lets the reader know what Slaughter is capable of. Anyone that has read short story collections knows that the story behind the title of the collection is usually the first one. But in this book, the title story is in the middle. It's a key to a door, one that leads you to a room with a magnifying glass and tweezers, inviting you to open your mind's eye a little wider, and find what cannot be easily seen. In the first half, I was impressed by Slaughter's brilliant writing and the variety of themes presented, but the latter half impressed me by Slaughter's use of allegory. I found myself pausing more often, highlighting what I felt needed to be carefully dissected.

There are feelings that I have never tried to put into words (thinking it would be too difficult), but Slaughter captured them perfectly and put them in writing; as I read these intimate realizations, I was forced to swallow them, accepting their truth.

This collection is for any and all who love coming across proof that words are magic, and that this magic is deliciously satisfying.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Harper Perennial for an ARC in exchange for my honest review (:

A Manual for How to Love Us was a beautiful collection of stories about grief, love, hardship, and resilience. Each story was a four or 5 star story for me.

A Manual for How to Love Us is a beautiful short story collection with themes of womanhood, grief, identity, and isolation. Each piece was full of meaningful allegory and creative storytelling.

The earlier stories in the collection really blew me away - the first half had stellar stories including "You Too Can Cure Your Life" and "We Were Wolves." The author did a great job of developing characters quickly and giving us empathy for them, even the characters who were messy and broken. Near the end, "Nest" and "Coast" really blew me away. There were moments of heartbreak in each, and wonderful representations of emotion, grief, and hardship.

There were a few short stories that lost me and I had a harder time getting through. I felt as though they had thoughtful messages beneath the surface, too, but sometimes I just couldn't fully get what it was going for.

Overall, this is a beautiful complication of stories that all reflect similar feelings and themes. Even though they are all different, they flow well into one another and give you a lot to reflect on about life, love, and relationships.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and HarperCollins for the eARC. I will share my review on social media platforms as the pub day approaches!