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Single, Carefree, Mellow: Stories

by Katherine Heiny

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26215102,059 (3.56)11
Fiction. Literature. Humor (Fiction.) HTML:

??Katherine Heiny's work does something magical: elevates the mundane so that it has the stakes of a mystery novel, gives women's interior lives the gravity they so richly deserve ?? and makes you laugh along the way.?
??Lena Dunham
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Single, Carefree, Mellow is that rare and wonderful thing: a debut that is superbly accomplished, endlessly entertaining, and laugh-out-loud funny.
 
Maya is in love with both her boyfriend and her boss. Sadie??s lover calls her as he drives to meet his wife at marriage counseling. Gwen pines for her roommate, a man who will hold her hand but then tells her that her palm is sweaty. And Sasha agrees to have a drink with her married lover??s wife and then immediately regrets it. These are the women of Single, Carefree, Mellow, and in these eleven sublime stories they are grappling with unwelcome houseguests, disastrous birthday parties, needy but loyal friends, and all manner of love, secrets, and betrayal.
 
In ??Cranberry Relish? Josie??s ex??a man she met on Facebook??has a new girlfriend he found on Twitter. In ??Blue Heron Bridge? Nina is more worried that the Presbyterian minister living in her garage will hear her kids swearing than about his finding out that she??s sleeping with her running partner. And in ??The Rhett Butlers? a teenager loses her virginity to her history teacher and then outgrows him.
 
In snappy, glittering prose that is both utterly hilarious and achingly poignant, Katherine Heiny chronicles the ways in which we are unfaithful to each other, both willfully and unwittingly. Maya, who appears in the title story and again in various states of love, forms the spine of this linked collection, and shows us through her moments of pleasure, loss, deceit, and kindn… (more)

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Showing 1-5 of 15 (next | show all)
The stories in this collection are well written. I was unsure about the ones written in second-person, an odd narrative voice uncommon in fiction, but one that certainly puts the reader in the character's shoes, more like being the dude in Quantum Leap who becomes different people each episode, all of a sudden. But, I also found that I felt like I was reading a book about a totally different species, aliens who think so differently and who have such different expectations and standards that I could not really relate for very long to any of them. Most of the main characters find themselves in sexual relationships that make one wonder if their species as a whole is one that cannot resist engaging their sexual organs whenever they get within a few feet of a potential partner. If I related more to them otherwise, this sort of mindless sexual liberation would not have been an issue, just a theme for the stories, but it seemed for me to be a metaphor for the mindlessness with which these characters go about all the rest of their lives, too. I suppose there are people around me, even people I know, who relate perfectly to the characters in this book, and that is a fascinating and somewhat disturbing thought. In any case, while I liked this book enough to recommend it to some people, it is not a favorite.
I won my copy of this book through a Goodreads giveaway. ( )
  JBarringer | Dec 15, 2023 |
This was not my thing. ( )
  Tosta | Mar 7, 2022 |
Helped my female authors goal. Enjoyed the stories, but man -- why get married, ever? ( )
  amandanan | Jun 6, 2020 |
The stories in this collection are well written. I was unsure about the ones written in second-person, an odd narrative voice uncommon in fiction, but one that certainly puts the reader in the character's shoes, more like being the dude in Quantum Leap who becomes different people each episode, all of a sudden. But, I also found that I felt like I was reading a book about a totally different species, aliens who think so differently and who have such different expectations and standards that I could not really relate for very long to any of them. Most of the main characters find themselves in sexual relationships that make one wonder if their species as a whole is one that cannot resist engaging their sexual organs whenever they get within a few feet of a potential partner. If I related more to them otherwise, this sort of mindless sexual liberation would not have been an issue, just a theme for the stories, but it seemed for me to be a metaphor for the mindlessness with which these characters go about all the rest of their lives, too. I suppose there are people around me, even people I know, who relate perfectly to the characters in this book, and that is a fascinating and somewhat disturbing thought. In any case, while I liked this book enough to recommend it to some people, it is not a favorite.
I won my copy of this book through a Goodreads giveaway. ( )
  JBarringer | Dec 30, 2017 |
I received this book as part of the goodreads first read giveaway. I wasn't sure what to expect because I don't normally read short stories. I'd give this book 3.5-4 because some of the stories stuck with me and left me with a better feeling than others. I enjoyed that there was one character, Maya, that was revisited several times. I think that might say that I am more of a novel reader than a short story fan. Some of the stories ended with me still wanting more. ( )
  Michelle.Jaffe | Jul 1, 2017 |
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Showing 1-5 of 15 (next | show all)
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Fiction. Literature. Humor (Fiction.) HTML:

??Katherine Heiny's work does something magical: elevates the mundane so that it has the stakes of a mystery novel, gives women's interior lives the gravity they so richly deserve ?? and makes you laugh along the way.?
??Lena Dunham

Single, Carefree, Mellow is that rare and wonderful thing: a debut that is superbly accomplished, endlessly entertaining, and laugh-out-loud funny.
 
Maya is in love with both her boyfriend and her boss. Sadie??s lover calls her as he drives to meet his wife at marriage counseling. Gwen pines for her roommate, a man who will hold her hand but then tells her that her palm is sweaty. And Sasha agrees to have a drink with her married lover??s wife and then immediately regrets it. These are the women of Single, Carefree, Mellow, and in these eleven sublime stories they are grappling with unwelcome houseguests, disastrous birthday parties, needy but loyal friends, and all manner of love, secrets, and betrayal.
 
In ??Cranberry Relish? Josie??s ex??a man she met on Facebook??has a new girlfriend he found on Twitter. In ??Blue Heron Bridge? Nina is more worried that the Presbyterian minister living in her garage will hear her kids swearing than about his finding out that she??s sleeping with her running partner. And in ??The Rhett Butlers? a teenager loses her virginity to her history teacher and then outgrows him.
 
In snappy, glittering prose that is both utterly hilarious and achingly poignant, Katherine Heiny chronicles the ways in which we are unfaithful to each other, both willfully and unwittingly. Maya, who appears in the title story and again in various states of love, forms the spine of this linked collection, and shows us through her moments of pleasure, loss, deceit, and kindn

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813.6Literature › English (North America) › American fiction › 21st Century

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PS3608.E3823Language and Literature › American literature

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