‘A Small Apocalypse’ is an utterly incredible collection that deals with themes of seeing and knowing yourself, of the experience of being queer and a person of colour, of grief and change and healing, of big and small disasters. The stories are searing and raw and real, merging the otherworldly (bottling memories, slowly becoming a lizard person, ) with the mundane (the breaking and reforming of relationships, grieving a friend, watching over a movie theatre in a hurricane). They are primarily set in Florida, muggy heat, alligators and mosquito bites to the ankle a reoccuring theme.

Laura Chow Reeve is an incredible author, and I was blown away by her prose and storytelling across these stories. There wasn’t a single one that I didn’t enjoy, and I think I’d really struggle to pick a favourite (possibly ‘Happiest’, I had a feeling as soon as I started reading that it was going to rip my heart apart, and it absolutely did). This collection has some of the most striking first lines I’ve read in a long time. I need to get my hands on a physical copy so I can go through and underline so many parts of this book!

I also really enjoyed how a lot of the stories followed different people in the same friend group. I loved gaining insight to the different people one by one, and the stories stand up incredibly well on their own too even without this loose overarching narrative tying them together.

Totally incredible. I am going to be eagerly awaiting news of anything else Laura writes. One of my fave reads of the year so far.

Thank you so much to Northwestern University Press and Netgalley for the ARC!

I found this short story collection enjoyable, if occasionally slightly flat. I wanted a little more toothsomeness, a little more strangeness, a few more quiet, awkward moments. Overall, I liked the homages to other famous works -- Notes of a Crocodile, or the novel Rebecca -- and the setting of Florida was a visceral presence throughout. The characters were all interesting, I liked the way the stories overlap and interlink, the idea of a sprawling group of queer people affecting each other was well-executed. The way race in relationships is discussed was, in my opinion, among the weaker points of the collection. Often framed as bits of internal monologue, or thoughts voiced aloud by the characters, I had trouble settling these ideas into the themes and textures of the stories. They seemed to be signifiers of authenticity (these being, of course, things that people really do think and talk about) but I was underwhelmed by this aspect of the book.

This book is a breathtakingly gorgeous queer read. I’ve been on a short stories collection kick this year, and have yet to read anything quite like this. The author does a phenomenal job at linking characters, climate, and connections in a way that makes you feel like you’re along for the ride with them. I love the stories throughout that examine different members of the same friend group and their ever changing relationships, grief, and desires. However, my top favorite stories were actually two of the standalone ones. Very highly recommend. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC.

4 stars.

A Small Apocalypse is a very queer, very Florida (petition to make 'very Florida' a descriptor for things), and very well-written short story collection that explores race, sexuality, gender, identity, and grief. While short story collections are always a hit or miss for me -- mostly because I have the tendency to just want more from them -- I did really love the majority of the stories found within this collection. In particular, 'Happiest' was my favorite and the point where my opinions on this book really began to solidify.

Through A Small Apocalypse, Laura Chow Reeve uses magical situations (think: sex with ghosts, transformations into lizards, and the apocalypse) as a way to expand on ideas of identity and the self. I also enjoyed how the same characters made appearances over and over again -- that was an excellent touch. Overall, the ideas within this novel are excellently crafted, but there were a few stories that I wanted a bit more from.

Thank you to the Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I love it when an author keeps on returning to characters and themes within a collection, as if they are as haunted as we are. Things you will find in this book: mixed Chinese sapphic characters navigating relationships, inconsiderate boyfriends, quiet revelations about grief and love, memories, animals as pets and symbols, Florida, and repeating cycles of relationship dynamics.

While I truly loved that we kept returning to certain characters, I also thought that the stories about the main group were the weakest of them. The ones about animals and grief in turn hit the hardest.

There is this great atmosphere that permeates the book which highlights so many small moments and acts to paint this larger, beautiful picture. It also has a sense of place and identity that I adored. And Reeve has a special talent of how she end each story, I've always highlighted the last sentence in each peace - it was the perfect closure every time.



Milked Snakes | ★★★★✩
Possibly the most magical story of them all – a woman is turning reptilian. There is this metaphor about pain being externalised and affecting the people around her, like her boyfriend.

Rebecca | ★★★★✩
Grace moves across the country for her boyfriend but there's something off about the lingering presence of his ex-girlfriend. Such a quiet but satisfying unravelling of her relationship to both of these people.

One-Thousand-Year-Old Ghosts | ★★★★✩
Plays with the idea of how much we are shaped by our past and our memories by giving you the option to remove – and forget – about them by centering 3 generations of Chinese women.

Real Bodies | ★★★★✩
An exploration of the assumptions when it comes to dating where a website has turned matchmaking into a mathematical equation. The protagonist is doing what is expected of her but you can see her want to rebel: to respond to the racist comments by prospective partners, to break the pattern, to date a woman.

Suwanee | ★★★✩✩
A friend group dynamic.

Hunted | ★★★✩✩
Self-reflection (literally).

Happiest | ★★★★★
Ellie goes to Disneyland with her family. Then, her brother dies. Incredible.

A Small Apocalypse | ★★★✩✩
Back with the friend group. The mundanities of life and a hurricane warning.

Paper Wasps | ★★★✩✩
A therapy session and the changing dynamic between Lily and her girlfriend.

Beloved Flamingo Stoned to Death | ★★★★★
This one just got to me. It's just about a new zoo employer who is in charge of disposing of the flamingo's body but it's also about grief and holding on to the past and unprocessed emotions and irrational violence.

Upstairs | ★★★★✩
The upstairs neighbors are too loud but something isn't adding up. This had the perfect length.

Three-Card Spread | ★★★★★
A story told in three parts about a man who has a fraught relationship with his parents and who then gets married and leaves his own daughter. Beautifully told.

Migratory Patterns | ★★★✩✩
The friend group again, this time discussing new futures and old grudges.

A Packing List at the End of the World | ★★★★✩
Apocalypse musings.



I received an advanced reading copy from Northwestern University Press through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed these atmospheric and unpredictable short stories. It was great to be genuinely surprised by some of the turns these stories would unexpectedly take, even if some of those turns were truly macabre.

There are a lot of heavy and important topics that were tackled well and from interesting viewpoints in this collection as characters grapple with racism, identity, estrangement, climate change, and grief. I also loved how many of the stories were connected to each other through a messy group of queer friends living in Florida.

Many thanks to Northwestern University Press and NetGalley for providing the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Enjoyed it. Loved the queer representation and the fact it is short stories was a total win for me. There’s definitely one or two that I’d love to go back and read again. Just great.

A collection of short stories representing queer culture and themes in Florida. The writing is good but I could not connect with the characters as they were not fully developed.

I am so thankful to Northwestern University Press, Laura Chow Reeve, and Netgalley for granting me advanced digital access to this riveting collection of prose before it hits shelves on March 15, 2024.

Maybe I'm realizing that short stories aren't necessarily my jam?

I did enjoy this read, but I was hoping for so much more. As a Florida kid, and one who grew up in Jacksonville, I loved that element of the writing - Florida itself is a weird entity that these characters all exist within. I also loved the amount of queer representation and relationship dynamics that were a through line through all of the stories.

I also wanted to be more connected to the characters than I was. Danny was the closest I got to being invested in a character, and I really enjoyed their presence in a few of the stories. I would have liked feeling that way about all of the characters. I know it's a collection of short stories and they are supposed to exist independently of the others. I feel like with this style, though, and having those overlapping characters, more time could have been spent diving into their motivations and development.

Following the turbulent lives and relationships of Floridian residents, A Small Apocalypse examines the difficulty of confronting past traumas and mistakes in addition to race and sexuality. Incredibly atmospheric, each story was laced with metaphors and deeper meaning. The intertwining characters and relationships really tied this collection together, though a few of the stories were too short to be memorable. Many of these narratives would've benefited had the author spent more time delving into their complexities. Still, a thought-provoking collection that I believe many readers will enjoy. My personal favorites were Hunted and Happiest.

look out, short fiction lovers: we have a new voice on the scene! Laura Chow Reeve's debut A SMALL APOCALYPSE is out now, and it is absolutely worth a read.

these short stories are a really gorgeous example of the form, and the collection is SO well put together — about half the stories are standalones, and the other half are interlinked, following a group of queer friends in Florida through their personal joys and disasters as well as their group dynamics, all overshadowed by the death of a beloved member of the group. they largely alternate. the whole collection is beautifully steeped in the wild, strange atmosphere of the state — as a queer ex-Floridian myself with an enduring soft spot for the place, there was a lot that resonated with me. the content is mostly more realistic and less speculative, but there’s a kind of fantastical tone which shines through every story really beautifully, allowing the stories to cohere together through atmosphere and style rather than content.

top three favorite stories in no particular order: “Happiest,” “Packing List for the End of the World,” and “Suwannee.” genuinely, though, none of these were misses for me - and how rare is that in a short story collection?

I recommend this enthusiastically to lovers of short fiction, queer people who have ever lived in a place they love but doesn’t always love them back, and anyone who enjoys the work of Kristin Arnett or Lauren Groff. Thank you so much to Northwestern University Press and Netgalley for the ARC copies!

unfortunately this was a DNF for me.

The writing itself was good, There is no doubt that Laura Chow Reeve is a good writer but I just couldn't get into the stories. I am a plot girlie and I tend to struggle with short stories more often than not because they do not feel complete but I saw this book and the cover and I thought it looked and sounded good so I decided to give it a go. I read the 1st 3 stories and they felt incomplete, I think I might be missing the point/message in them which to me I don't think there is one? Anyway, I put the book down one day and just didn't feel the urge to pick it up again for weeks so I had to call it quits. This is just my personal preference.

many thanks to Netgalley and Northwestern University Press, TriQuarterly for providing a digital copy to read, as always opinions are my own.

Thank you to TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press (@nupress) and @netgalley for the advanced reader copy.

This week’s headline? Is there adrenochrome in the water supply? LMFAO

Why this book? At this point Idk anymore because I request these ARCs months in advance and then forget. Obviously the synopsis intrigued me enough and it’s been a minute since I’ve read a collection of short stories. The cover is pretty, too.

Which book format? ARC

Primary reading environment? Bed and couch

Any preconceived notions? I no longer have expectations for anything and in this case it was a good thing because it ended up being great.

Identify most with? n/a

Three little words? “as ghostly, weightless”

Goes well with? Punk shows; things the dead leave behind; the heat and humidity of Florida

Recommend this to? Crust punks

Other cultural accompaniments: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/laura-chow-reeve/a-small-apocalypse/

I leave you with this: “You think you’ll find your body whole if you can, just this once, sink deeper into the earth.”
.
A Small Apocalypse is a collection of short stories with repetitive themes, recurring characters, and interwoven plots that explores racial and queer identities and relationships against the backdrop of Florida. Overall, I enjoyed this weird little collection. My favorite stories were “Milked Snakes,” “One-Thousand-Year-Old Ghosts”, and the eponymous title.

A Small Apocalypse will be published on March 15, 2024.

A Small Apocalypse took me by surprise, weaving varying tales of grief, horror, Floridian heat, and queerness.

We frequently revisit one specific friend group, as they make their way through loss, changing relationships, and the undulating, inevitable, changes as they grow older.

I loved that we were returning to some of the these characters throughout the stories, at different points in their lives. Sometimes I feel
like short stories can suffer by ending too quickly, and leaving too many questions hanging in the air - seeing the same characters weave in and out of the stories throughout this collection helped give them a sense of place, and weaves together a beautiful over-arcing narrative.

The unconnected stories are equally compelling - my particular favorites being about a family who suffer a horrific loss at Disney World, and a practical packing list for how to survive the end of the world.

Each story was haunting and atmospheric, wether it was dealing with working through the feelings of losing a friend, trying to hold onto something that is already lost, or something even more supernatural in nature. A true mix of different kinds of world-changing events - big, world-ending ones, set alongside smaller, more personally devastating ones, each written with care and pitch-perfect execution.

Thank you to the publishers, and Netgalley, for the copy to review.

4.5 Stars
Genre - Queer fiction, related short stories, romance subplots
Tone - humid, skin-crawling, hallucinatory
Tropes & devices - metaphors, some magical realism; romance - friends to lovers, slow burn; found family
Reps - Asian American FMCs, NB / trans / queer MCs and secondary characters.
CW - fetishization, rape, sexual content, racism, colorism, homophobia, transphobia, animal death, explicit language, drinking.

This collection features repeating themes, recurring characters, and interwoven storylines. The author paints a detailed picture of muggy Florida, lizards and heat lamps, stifling homophobia and relationships, the comfort and concerns of chosen family. There are lots of metaphors and rich, descriptive language. The sense of place is well developed; the characterization also shines - there are an impressive number of characters painted vividly in just a few pages. The short story format breaks up the "main" storyline repeatedly - sometimes making it hard to keep track of which stories plug in where. I found myself going back and forth, trying to figure out which names had reappeared in which stories; but that's part of the fun of a read like this, in my opinion. There was also a lot of "serious" content; I found myself wishing for a little more joy for the characters (like water in the desert with this read), but really appreciated the thorough, multifaceted exploration of the themes covered. Would recommend for fans of Land of Milk and Honey for the detailed, nearly queasy descriptions and the exploration of queer and Asian American identity; Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology is another great short story collection that examines racial identity and the way it intersects with gender and sexuality and impacts relationships.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

You know that feeling when you read writing so perfect that you don’t know how you can possibly formulate words into a review that clearly articulates the perfection…? Yeah, that's me as I attempt to write this review.

The first word that came to mind as I sat down to gather my thoughts was ‘timeless’. The range and depth of subject matter, the characters and their relationships, the exquisite settings, and the writing, my god, the writing. All timeless. I am confident that people will be reading and raving about this short story collection until the actual apocalypse is upon us.

I am absolutely astounded by how flawless this short story collection is. I need a physical copy asap because I am definitely going to end up re-reading this one many times over.

Every single story in this collection is not only enjoyable and complete in and of itself but somehow every single story says something entirely unique and leaves you as the reader reflecting in a new way every time. I just know that these characters and reflections will stay with me for a while.

I am genuinely overwhelmed and struggling for words. I need everyone to just read this so that my lacking ability to write a coherent review is justified.

Laura is without a doubt a new favourite, and I am so incredibly grateful to her for sharing this true labor of love and genius with the world.

Thanks to NetGalley and Northwestern University Press for the e-ARC. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my free digital ARC of A Small Apocalypse! Laura Chow Reeve is an author to watch if you like your fiction heavy on the queer with a tinge of surreal, and brimming with found family and unease. It’s a lovely mishmash of unnerving and heartwarming, melancholic and hopeful. Honestly probably more melancholic and dark, but those moments of togetherness with the queers just hit you right in the chest!
.
A lot of the stories are interlinked, so characters weave in and out of them. That was where my main caveat came in - for some reason I had trouble keeping all of the names straight. Though no doubt the glorious messiness of queer love lives in a tight knit group didn’t help, with relationships forming and changing with every story 👀 I just need to reiterate how amazingly Reeve depicts queer community, like the dynamics and heartbreak and togetherness is wonderful!
.
Beyond the interlinked stories, which is more rooted in reality and following the ups and downs of our lovely big group of queers, we delve into sci-fi, dystopian, horror - a little bit of everything, but all of it feeling very much in the realm of possibility! I loved Real Bodies, where dating is now under the government’s control and mandated for everyone; Three Card Spread, where a man is haunted by a twin who died in the womb; and Happiest, where a family’s idyllic trip to Disneyland is shattered by a tragic accident.
.
Reeve leans heavily into themes of identity and belonging. Of power imbalances in interracial relationships. Of transformation and transition. Of prejudice and the way those prejudices get projected onto marginalised bodies. Of erasing parts of yourself to fit in, but standing out regardless, feeling less than whole with those missing parts. Loved it and can’t wait to see what she comes out with next!

🦩BOOK REVIEW 🦩

Synopsis: In her debut short story collection, Laura Chow Reeve seizes the familiar Florida landscape of postcards and headlines—and pries open spaces for unlikely affection and sun-soaked eeriness. A pair of queer friends make themselves at home on the banks of the Suwannee River. A family tragedy unfolds at Disney World. A hurricane floods a theater during an apocalyptic movie marathon. A flamingo meets an untimely end at the Jacksonville Zoo. A relationship falters, only in part due to one partner transforming into a reptile. Characters weave in and out of this collection’s fourteen stories, finding moments of intimacy with ghosts and moments of alienation from loved ones.
A Small Apocalypse is a gorgeously wrought exploration of what it means to exist in the in-between. Heavily steeped in the swampy, feral heat of Florida, its stories plum the joys and dissonances of queerness, hybridity, Asian American identity, and cultural inheritance, with an eye for both the uncanny and the nakedly true.

Review:
• Milked Snakes - While I loved the idea, it unfortunately was very similar to a novel I read last year called Shark Heart, and when comparing a short story to a full novel, Milked Snakes really did not compare.
• One Thousand Year Old Ghosts - it is at this point I realise the author has an incredible talent for writing and a very creative mind, there is no doubt about it that.
• Bodies - Loved it!
• Suwanee - at this point, approximately 34% I’ve DNFed. It’s very clear the author has an incredible talent, but this book is not the right book for me right now. I need to revisit it in a different headspace. But the queer representation is sensational and consistent throughout. I wish I had known that characters in earlier stories would reappear in future stories, as I read each story independently and spaced apart, so once they reappeared, I had forgotten who was who, and all their details. Hence why I need to revisit it again and read it cover to cover.
Highly recommend! Especially for queer folk.

#bookhaul #bookhoarder #bookaddiction #bookstoread #whattoread #bookish #bookreview #netgalley #bookstagram #aussiebookstagrammer #reading

I picked this completely at random because it sounded interesting and it did exactly what it said on the tin.
I loved this read. I was only two stories in and knew I’d be ordering a physical copy.
Literally every story had purpose and I’m left with so many things to think about and that I’m desperate to discuss with someone. I’ll be making sure my friends read it so that I can share my think pieces with them 😂

Absolutely stellar collection, I recommend it!