Topics About Which I Know Nothing

by Patrick Ness

Scintillating, surprising, inventive fiction from one of the most talented writers in Britain - this is a superb collection of short stories from the acclaimed author of the Chaos Walking series and 'More Than This'. Have you heard the urban myth about Jesus's double-jointed elbows yet? 100% true. Or seen the latest reports on the 'groomgrabbing' trend - the benevolent kidnapping of badly-dressed children by their well-meaning (and more dapper) elders? Heard the one about the Amazon from the Isle of Man? Or perhaps you'd like a job in telesales, offering self-defence classes over the phone? Don't worry, as long as you meet the weekly quota, you won't be sent to the end of the hall...Wonderfully original, fresh and funny, 'Topics About Which I Know Nothing' is stuffed to the gills with dizzyingly inventive writing and warming, puzzling emotions - a fictional guide to how the world might have turned out.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Contemporary, Science Fiction, LGBT, Young Adult, Anthologies

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Patrick Ness, an award-winning novelist, has written for Radio 4 and The Sunday Telegraph and is a literary critic for The Guardian. He has written many books, including the Chaos Walking Trilogy, The Crash of Hennington, Topics About Which I Know Nothing, and A Monster Calls.

He has won numerous awards, including the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, the Booktrust Teenage Prize, and the Costa Children’s Book Award. Born in Virginia, he currently lives in London.

Reviews

[Natalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have a confession.
I have a huge, almost unlady like crush on Patrick Ness.
Here's a picture of my room:


Just kidding.

However, I admire his writing so much that I would give a book full of absolute drivel two stars automatically. Not kidding.

I like to think that I am not easily offended by opinions. I will not maul anyone over their religious, political, sexual beliefs. If you know you are easily offended, please know that you most likely will be while reading this book.

I just thought you should know all this before I start gushing about reviewing this ten short story collection. Let's break it down!



Implied Violence
The first story in the collection.
The first (but not the last) story to remind me that Patrick Ness is so much smarter than I am.
The setting is a very small office with limited seating. There is a hallway, but we don't know what is at the end of it. All we know is that you don't want to find out what is at the end of it. Except that we do want to know.



The Way All Trends Do
The trend here is "Groomgrabbing" and "Fabgrabbing."
"Huh?" I know, I know. Essentially adults (usually a pair of gay men) grab children and take them shopping for nice clothes/accessories OR just to have fun (such as to an amusement park).
This was hilarious. Allow me to demonstrate why I was laughing out loud (you heard me - I was straight up LOLing):

I was a fat little kid, and unfortunately I wasn't even that funny which is pretty much the only thing that saves you if you're a kid and you're fat. Actually, my grabbers, who weren't even black, said it's pretty much the same thing with being gay. If you're a sissy, you better fucking be funny, or you're going to get your ass kicked.

In regards to parents intentionally leaving their children in solitary spots hoping they would be grabbed:

Not that it mattered. Colin, in the interview quoted earlier, indicates that groomgrabbers were expert at picking out fakes:

Are you kidding? We have to spend all our lives secretly looking for other gay people in things like church and work and school. Oblivious is one thing we're not.

Ponce de Leon is a Retired Couple From Toronto
A couple says they are not coming home after a trip. Their 39-year-old son is convinced it can't be true and that something happened to them. He cannot accept that they are staying in Australia willingly and contacts various governments (Canada, the United States, Australia). He looks straight up crazy in his investigations as we see letters from his mother and hear about phone calls. He is convinced young couples are taking the identities of old couples. Is he nuts or is he right?
I loved this one. I was also pretty freaked out by it. It went from funny to chilling in the blink of an eye.



See? Like THAT.

Jesus' Elbows and Other Christian Urban Myths
This is my favorite part of the book. It is brilliant (per usual) and also a bit brave. It contains (mostly) fictional outrageous accounts about the Bible/religion/etc. from a variety of characters.

I consider myself to be spineless and indecisive when it comes to religion, so I found this section to be exceptionally hilarious. However, I think even a good Christian could see the humor in some of this.

Example 1:
Dinosaurs couldn't fit on the ark, and that's why they're extinct. Duh.

Example 2:
For you see, the full name of the greatest leader of the greatest nation on Earth was Ronald Wilson Reagan, and if you count up the letters, you get six for his first name, six for his second name, and six for his last name. Even the lowliest of laypersons has some idea of the supernumerary significance of this particular combination of digits.

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?
You want unique? Here it is.
A hermaphrodite with an "impossible" name (referred to as "_______" each time he/she is mentioned) is a janitor at an office that contains books with all the languages ever known. He/she throws a old book into the incinerator, and the language that was in the book is gone. POOF. Vanished. Not just from the books, but no one in the world can speak it or remember it. This wormed its way into my head because I couldn't quite figure it out. Who is "_______?" What is the true significance (or insignificance) of one language? Of two? Of any?

Sydney is a City of Jaywalkers
If I had to pick a least favorite out of the bunch, this would be it. I can't explain why. And because I was underwhelmed, I am convinced that I am missing something. There is a young man who vacations to Australia and finds his "dead" brother who faked his death to escape his "previous" life. His brother keeps breaking or delaying appointments to meet up with him. Both brothers are gay (but were not openly at home). I just don't know what the point was here. WHAT AM I MISSING, NESS?! TELL ME! TELL ME, DAMNIT!

2,115 Opportunities
This one is going to replace the corny romantic comedy that I watch every year on Valentine's Day. Or rather, it would replace the corny romantic movie that I watched every year on Valentine's Day IF that was something I actually did.
This is sweet but in a Patrick Ness way and not a chick-lit way. It entails documenting different scenarios (presumably 2,115) in which a couple does or does not get/end up together. Is there such a thing as fate? How small is the chance of ending up with that "one?"

The Motivations of Sally Rae Wentworth, Amazon
This confused me more than the first time I read Keats.
I think the general idea was a woman comes to the Amazon with her missionary parents when she is young. Her parents are killed by Amazons, but she is spared and raised with the Amazons. There is a war in which Sally is playing both sides and giving information on the Amazons. She questions her identity: Who is she? Which means more? Blood or environment and upbringing?

It sounds simple enough, but the construction made it so that this was the point in the book when I threw my hands up in the air and admitted defeat.



"Patrick. May I call you Patrick? You are officially my IQ times a gazillion. I might as well start using finger paints again to express my feelings."

Two A-M-A-Z-I-N-G quotes from this one:
The stupid, naive, selfish, little cow.

It was love clearly or at least what the young so often mistake for love and, frankly, who are we in middle age to say that it isn't love, that rush of adrenalin and hormones that feels hot and cool at the same time like a frozen creamy cocktail. Why is that not love but yes this companionable settling that we do as life goes on is? Maybe love really is only for the young and the old co-opt it as we do everything and call our watered-down if quite comfortable version the only 'real' love.

I dare you to read that and not agree that every word is absolutely perfect.


International Military War Games Dance Competition
Exactly what you think it is.
+

Plus it is written like newspaper articles. So cool.

The Gifted
I can't explain this one without giving too much away. This one reads a little more like a YA book and accomplishes being a little funny, a little creepy, and more than a little smart in not a lot of pages. This is the easiest to read but still open to the same interpretation as the others.


This is one of my favorite short stories collections because every story is:

1. Something I will read again.
2. Incredibly unique.
3. Thought provoking.
4. So well written that it practically brings tears of joy to my eyes.
5. Like a modern day Swift.
6. Written by Patrick Ness.

An absolute must read for all human beings with even a smidge of brain activity any Patrick Ness fan.

FIVE/5 STARS

[Potassium · Rating 4 out of 5]

Continuing my trend of reading everything written by Patrick Ness, here is his collection of short stories.
It is always hard to rate a collection of short stories because unless you LOVE or HATE all of them... how do you rate a book where you loved some of the stories and felt a bit meh about the others?
So it gets a 4 because it is Patrick Ness and he is funny. No 5 this time though because of the meh stories... That is all.
It's still a fun collection of short stories though. He does a very good job making each story totally unique from the others - whether it's by varying the writing style (series of letters vs. a newspaper article vs. a story written by ghosts vs. a series of urban legends vs. an essay, etc) or the theme or both. Highly recommend it... Then you can tell me which stories (if any) YOU think are the "meh" ones....

[Kaethe · Rating 4 out of 5]

In his introduction Ness says he likes stories as a way to experiment. After finishing the volume, I concur. Most are successful, but the urban legends about Jesus one soon became tedious. My favorite was "Ponce de Leon is a Retired Married Couple from Toronto" which is worth at least six stars.

So, a good collection for fans of Ness, for fans of short stories, and for those who study writing. If there is such a thing as a book club comprised of all writers, it would be really cool to discuss which stories work best, and why.

Personal copy

[Ian Laird · Rating 2 out of 5]

Be very careful choosing the title of your book lest it draw attention to the sins of which it speaks.

I was attracted to this collection of early Patrick Ness stories by one entitled Sydney is a City of Jaywalkers, which it certainly is, so I plunged in.

American Drew Becker is on day six of a 19 day vacation in Sydney, when he sees his brother Peter drinking tea in a ‘coffee house’ in Paddington, causing my first furrowed brow because Australians would call the establishment a café rather than a coffee house, but I forged on. What is important here is that Peter has been dead for five years. This is not a spoiler, it’s revealed in the first paragraph. So this turns into a very promising start, raising important questions. Is Peter really Peter? Did he fake his own death? If so, for what possible reason? We are full of anticipation.

Surprisingly, Ness immediately backtracks to the start of the holiday and occupies a full quarter of the tale with day by day detailed descriptions of how Drew spends his time in Sydney. It’s very detailed: full of suburbs, streets and sights. I am a Sydneysider of 36 years standing and so far he has been pretty accurate. But he then says: ‘He [Drew] stops at Victoria Station Mall.’ (p127) Oh dear, there’s no such station and the mood cracks. Ness probably means the Queen Victoria Building which sits above Town Hall Station. Who knows? A little later when Drew is looking for Lady Jane Beach, which is on Sydney Harbour, he refers to visiting ‘the marker at the spot where Captain Phillips (sic) first set foot on Australian soil’. (p129) I was puzzled. Captain Arthur Phillip (not Phillips), Commander of the First Fleet, initially landed south, at Botany Bay, three days before settling on Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour) as the site for settlement. It’s a long way from Lady Jane Beach.

I can forgive Ness for not getting these things quite right, because of the intriguing questions Drew has for his no longer dead brother. But then, Ness denies us any explanation for Peter’s disappearance, so we’re none the wiser. And the geographical and historical mistakes remain in my head.

Accordingly I decided to abandon the book before going any further, leaving the rest of the stories to be enjoyed by whomsoever. As to what attracted my attention in the first place, my home is indeed a city of jaywalkers; Sydneysiders regard a flashing red pedestrian signal as a challenge rather than a prohibition, as I have found out to my cost (AUD 72) when I ran such a signal and was ambushed by a waiting walloper, who asked me to explain why I had run across four lanes of traffic. I couldn’t. I will add that aggressive jaywalking in Australia is not confined to Sydney.

[Christina · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. In general I'm not a fan of short story collections, but I can honestly say that this one is the best/most interesting one I've ever read.

[Moniek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Children don't really learn irony until they get to Joseph Heller in the eighth grade.

Lektura ta przypomniała mi, dlaczego uznałam Patricka Nessa za tak wyjątkowego lata temu, oraz nakłoniła mnie do głębszej refleksji nad jego twórczością.

Topics About Which I Know Nothing to zbiór opowiadań, fikcyjnych historii czy skrzywionych zobrazowań elementów życia społecznego i politycznego.

Topics About Which I Know Nothing to historie groteskowe, szokujące i nierzadko makabryczne; pozostawiające czytelnika wpatrującego się w przestrzeń, samotnego na moment. Patrick Ness rzeczywiście przygląda się tematom, co do których pozornie nie ma żadnego pojęcia: polityce światowej, kapitalizmowi, religii czy nawet tak odległym kwestiom jak życie po śmierci. Powiedzieć, że to obraz w krzywym zwierciadle, może być niedopowiedziem. Nawet jeśli jesteśmy pewni, że nigdy by tak naprawdę nie zaistniało, to pojawia się w nas niepokój i choćby cień wątpliwości.

Zdaje się, jakby Patrick Ness nie uznawał taboo. Przełamuje się i pokazuje nam obrazy i zdarzenia, których, jak odnoszę wrażenie i nie dziwię się, przedstawienia boją się mainstreamowi twórcy i wielkie firmy. To bardzo ciężkie tematy, trudno jest spojrzeć na tragedie czy Wielkie Złe Rzeczy, ale... wiemy, że w jakiejś formie dzieją się one cyklicznie czy nawet cały czas. Przestraszyłam się przy tej lekturze, ale cieszę się, że tak się stało.

Opowiadanie Jesus' Elbows and Other Christian Urban Myths było dla mnie najzabawniejsze, The Gifted mrożące krew w żyłach, a Now That You've Died najpiękniejsze.

Wątpliwości wzbudza we mnie tylko to, że opowiadania wydają się zbyt przegadane. Dodatkowo jako osoba, która nie używa języka angielskiego jako first language, nie wszystkie słowa czy odniesienia zrozumiałam i potrafiłam docenić. Jednocześnie cholernie doceniam Patricka Nessa za to, jakim kameleonem staje się w swojej twórczości. Czasami trochę zapominałam, że to nie anioł śmierci czy podwójna agentka się do mnie zwracają, że to wszystko pochodzi tylko od jednego człowieka, tak mi znajomego.

Patrick Ness w swojej wyobraźni i story-tellingu coraz bardziej wznosi się ponad niebo, a ja nie spotkałam żadnego innego autora, z którym mogłabym porównać tego dowcipnego, dziwacznego Brytyjczyka.

'Who brings a book to a party?'
It is the wrong thing to say, and he knows it as soon as it leaves his lips, as soon as it reaches her face.
'I do, obviously.'

[Ashley Lynne · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF at 51%

I like the writing style of Patrick Ness but the stories in this were boring and hard to get into. And they’re short stories. So I spend a few minutes trying to get into them, then they’re over. Sorry. I wanna love Patrick Ness but I think I’ve only ever really loved one of his books. And I keep trying!

[charlotte, · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rep: gay characters, character with OCD

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you haven't guessed already, I love this man. He is an absolute genius.

Topics About Which I Know Nothing was just what I needed. It made me laugh, made me think and actually made me want to tell people about it, just so we could have a discussion about their understanding of the storylines.

Honestly, I just don't know how Ness does it. He continues to surprise me with every book, regardless of the fact that this was a collection of short stories and not a series. His outlook on the world is mesmerising; I literally hang on to every word.

Onward to his next masterpiece.

< / fangirling >

(Honestly, a restraining order isn't necessary...)

[Emilie Guan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this collection of bizarre and irreverent and humorous and dark stories (though at times Ness’ writing sounded a lot like “gen z” writing, which was humorous, I guess?). The execution was extremely innovative, ranging from interviews to letters to oral storytelling to the whispers of slaughtered genius children ghosts.

Here are some of my favorites:

1. The Way All Trends Do : GROOMGRABBING which, contrary to common sense, does not involve grabbing grooms (sorta).
2. Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes : It’s about archaic languages; do I really need to say more.
3. 2,115 Opportunities : Meet cute but uh 2,115 times?
4. The Gifted : Possibly my favorite out of all? This gave me so many different vibes, ranging from schoolyard bullying to a zombie apocalypse so that was fun. The ending definitely stayed with me way after I finished the book.
5. Now That You’ve Died I LOVED THIS ONE also it basically had a plot-twist that was the exact opposite direction of “The Gifted” which might be why they’re in such close proximity?

Anyways, sorry for the low-key incoherent and probably not very helpful review, but I do hope you give this book a try (even just for the concepts and delivery alone).

[hollie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really really good book full of short stories, I love Patrick ness a whole lot but this is probably my least favourite book of his. It is by no means bad, I really enjoyed reading it but in comparison with his other works it is probably bottom of the list.

[sophie ⚘ · Rating 3 out of 5]

some stories were really interesting, i wish some of the stories could have been longer, and some stories just weren't for me. which is fine. still, if you like patrick ness' writing, you might want to check that out

[Alicia Ingram · Rating 3 out of 5]

Such a bit and miss collection of short stories, all very odd in their own special way. Maybe a 3.5? I dunno, it was weird.

[Kerstin Brüning · Rating 3 out of 5]

pocket size stories, some of which you hoped were longer. Some just to random

[Bbgirl28 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection was a mixed bag with some definite highs and lows.

As the title would suggest "Topics About Which I know Nothing" is a collection of satirical stories surrounding unusual situations that a plethora of narrators find themselves in. These narrators range from children and adults, to angels and ghosts.

What's unique about each story is the format in which they were told. While some stories were told in traditional first/third person narration, others were told in the form of reports, interviews, college thesis and diary-like entries. While I found this initially amusing, the novelty of the different formats wore thin fast. In particular "The Way All Trends Do" suffered because of this.

My biggest problem with the collection was that some of the stories felt as if they were stretched too thin, and would have benefited if they were condensed further. For example, I initially found "Ponce de Leon..."- a story told in letters about a man who is convinced that his parents who have retired to Australia have actually been kidnapped- hilarious, but after two letters I felt that its point had been made, yet the story dragged on. "Jesus' Elbows..."- a collection of Christian urban myths by religious fanatics- and "Now That You've Died" could also have benefited from shortening, in my opinion.

However, Patrick Ness is one of my favourite authors (V.E Schwab being the other), and there were some fantastic stories in this collection where his style and creativity shone through. "Implied Violence"- a Black-Mirror-Esque satire on the workplace- was the perfect opener for this collection, while "2,115 Opportunities"- a romantic tale that takes place across 2,115 different realities- was both charming and delightful. I would give both 4/5.

"The Gifted" was by far my favourite story in the collection. Told by the ghosts of talented children, they describe the events that lead up to their deaths. It was phenomenal- creepy, haunting and completely captivating. If Ness ever decided to expand upon it or develop the story in a different medium, know that I would consume it in a heartbeat. 5/5 stars.

In conclusion, this collection was a mixed bag. While the lows could be tedious and challenging at times, they were oh so worth it for the highs.

[Rustic Red Reads]

Just testing my new header. Review to come for each stories

[Soumyaditya · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of weird and quirky short stories. Patrick Ness is the master of crazy. A must read!

[Sabrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 Stars!

[Zach Koenig · Rating 2 out of 5]

After reading most of Patrick Ness's standalone novels, I came across this story collection and wanted to give him a try in that regard. Unfortunately, I was mostly disappointed/underwhelmed--with a few key exceptions.

For the majority of the stories in "Topics About Which I Know Nothing", they did not emotionally move me. In fact, a few I just skimmed through because they were so esoteric, confusing, or uninteresting to my personal tastes in fiction. One story--about the young man who sees his deceased brother on a trip to Australia--held my interest, but other than that I was sort of just plodding along to get through it more than anything else.

But then, the final story--"The Gifted"--absolutely blew me away. Truly one of the best works of short fiction I've ever read. It rattled around in my brain for quite some time before I completely understood it, and it will certainly remain there for awhile. My favorite Ness authorial qualities--mysterious atmosphere with a large helping of authentic human emotion--are on display like in what I consider to be his best novels (More Than This & Burn).

Pinning a star rating on a story collection is always a bit difficult, but in an overall sense I can't go above 2 stars for "Topics" because vast page quantities will remained unremembered. But "The Gifted"? Lifts the whole endeavor a star ranking in and of itself. It's almost worth picking this book up for that solitary story.

[Kara Jackson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This a 3.75 for me

This short story collection is just okay for me. I didn’t love it but I also didn’t hate, one might even say it’s mid. I loved the short story “the gifted” the most. Here are some quotes I liked
“Dinosaurs couldn’t fit on the ark, and that’s why they’re extinct. Duh.’”

“AC/DC which everyone knows stands for Anti-Christ Devil’s Children and KISS which stands for Kids in Satan’s Service and I guess some gangster rap too like those things about taking drugs and killing cops and raping little kids but mainly rap metal…”

“during the current summer break, sitting out under a blue sky towering with cumulonimbus clouds approaching from off the ocean, clouds that will threaten and threaten but never quite rain.”

“If Tippi wasn’t in love, then love’s been scooped by something that looks far better or at least more fun, is my opinion.”

“A people whom I love and hate, persons whom I only love. Perhaps there really is no end to this division.”

“WE ARE GHOSTS HERE, TELLING this story.”

“MEMORIES WITHIN MEMORIES. THE STORY comes to us in a rush, all its bits and pieces simultaneous as is the way with things here.”

“Artefacts have power, They’re the crystallization of everything that the civilization was, of everything the civilization thought about itself.”

“WHO WERE WE? WE ARE forgetting, have forgotten. We are ghosts here, who have told this story. It’s all we seem to have now, our only remaining gift.”

[Marissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars (although rating a short story collection is always difficult, it's so hard to condense all of the different stories into one rating).

I'm not a big fan of short story collections but still glad I read this one. Of the 11 short stories, I liked about 6 of them. The standout ones to me were:
- Ponce de Leon is a retired married couple from Toronto: told through letters, a son thinks his parents are in trouble because their letters say they're having the best time on their holiday to Australia. The son assumes they've been kidnapped and the letters are a cry for help, which various Canadian and Australian officials do not believe. The whereabouts and true feelings of the parents are vague, but not frustratingly so.
- The Gifted: a dark story about two groups of school children taking part in a history assignment about burying and uncovering made-up artefacts. It turns out that one group has been killed and are now telling the story as ghosts. The murderer appears to be a child from the other group. It's unclear exactly what happened, the ending reads like a strange nightmare or a moment where someone's life flashes before their eyes and the ghosts' memories are apparently fading.

[DinosaursAtWork · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've read "The rest of us just live here" years ago and liked it a lot, euch is why this book was gifted to be. The premise seemed so unclear and interesting that I didn't read the book until now.
Unfortunately, I am not a fan. There were several short stories in this book I couldn't finish because I was bored and/or disliked the writing (usually both). Just because you can write realistic, ahm, well, you know, someone told me this, I forgot who, but truly, look it up, conversations, doesn't mean you should.
While I enjoyed some concepts of the short stories (implied violence, the way all trends do, Ponce de Leon is a retired married couple from Toronto, quid custodiet ipso custodes?, 2,115 opportunities), none of them were gripping enough for me to ever return.
To me, the end of a short story is important and ideally changes you point of view or perspective. This book didn't have a short story ending that made me think "wow!"

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's so hard to rate this book, as I loved some of the stories and, well, didn't love, some of them.
What I really did love though is that every single short-story had a unique form - an academic paper, a newspaper article, various types of playing around with language and style - there was one story compiled of ONE SENTENCE for crying out loud! ( not a short one, a two pages long one ) THIS is what I love about Ness, I love that he experiments, and that he uses the formate of the text itself to add depth to his stories - LOVE IT, ok?!

Some of these novellas were a lot darker than I expected, some were funny and most of them made you think.

I think my favourites were SIDNEY IS A CITY OF JAYWALKERS and 2,115 OPPORTUNITIES. The latter exploring the butterfly effect, which is something I always enjoy.

[Carly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book knowing it was a collection of short stories. I read it hoping that I'd get out of my reading slump. I'm sad to say that not even Ness managed to get me out of the slump.

But I did enjoy the stories compiled in TAWIKN. There were three stories that I skipped because I couldn't get into them. Those three were: "the motivations of Sally Rae Wentworth, Amazon", "the Seventh International Military War Games Dance Committee Quadrennial Competition and Jamboree", and "the gifted". I couldn't get through these three because I didn't really understand what was going on. They didn't hold my attention. I found myself reading the words but not really absorbing anything. That's the main reason why I gave the book four stars out of five. 

"Jesus’ elbows and other Christian urban myths", "2,115 opportunities", and "Ponce de Leon is a retired married couple from Toronto" are probably my favorite out of all the short stories. The Christian Urban Myths really make you think. I really enjoyed reading those ones. "2,115 opportunities" reminded me of one of my short stories. I really liked seeing all the alternate universes where things went horribly wrong or so close to being right. And there's a twist at the end that just makes the story 100x better. With the third story, the Toronto one, I hated the ending. I'm so curious. I don't enjoy not being told what happened. Next time I meet Patrick Ness, I might just ask him.

4/5

[Maddy Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am so impressed with this compilation of short stories! Each story had a completely different writing style, whether it was a traditional short story or a series of letters or a newspaper article or written in second person; no two stories were ever even remotely similar which made reading each one so much fun!

I also love how Ness has the power to somehow translate so much to the reader just by slightly switching the form of writing he uses. I was able to hear the characters’ accents so clearly in my head by the way he (mis)spelled words. Ness is a master character craftsman!

All in all, I really enjoyed reading each and every story! My favourites being: The Way All Trends Do, PDL is a Retired Married Couple…, 2115 Opportunities, The Gifted and Now That You’ve Died

[Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of short stories which, as ever, I enjoyed some of more than others. These were quite off the wall for many of them - from a set of lexicographers responsible for different languages being thwarted by the new cleaner who inadvertently scrubs Belgian from the world, to a series of urban myths about Christianity, to a story told through the medium of letters between a son concerned for the welfare of his parents who have taken the uncharacteristically spontaneous decision to move to Australia, only to be fobbed off by the consulate, amid rumours that they have got involved with someone who is known for taking older people into the woods and returning with younger people. Some were of course less memorable but these were the highlights for me.

[Andrew Corsini · Rating 2 out of 5]

The ghost of David Foster Wallace has wrapped himself around Patrick Ness and consumed him. Even the title with its "a supposedly fun thing I'll never do again" style-riff is the book practically ripping its face off and declaring, "I really love DFW". Ness recaptures the footnotes and stylistic conventions of DFW's writing to such an extent, by page twenty I was wondering if this was a loving parody and not a rip-off. It's all very endearing, but some Ness fans and Creative Writing Lecturers fawn over him to the extent, I don't want anyone reading this and going, wow! nobody has ever written like this before!

[Casper · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this book up to fill time while I waited for another Patrick Ness book to be available, and was drawn in almost immediately by the style and mood of the writing, reminded once again of why he's such a popular author.
Ness has a distinctive way of dropping you into what seems like an ordinary storyline, only to gradually twist it into something beyond recognition. It's been a while since I've felt the same chills I experienced reading the last paragraph of the Amazons story, or the soft dread during the tale of the poor, dead gifted and talented group.

[Wanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of short stories that are quirky and interesting and sometimes amusing. I think I like short story collections because I can pick up the book anytime I like, read a story, put the book down and forget about it until the next time I feel like relaxing with a book and when I pick it up again it feels like something new. I haven't missed anything and I don't have to remind myself of what happened in the story previously. I'm giving this👍👍👍👍 out of 5, mostly for convenience, but also for quality of entertainment.

[LoKat · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to rate short story collections, because there were some stories that I really liked, and some that I just... didn't understand. Weird, experimental stuff. But I loved several of the author's other books, and I did enjoy the more traditional stories in the collection. The best thing you can do for yourself is stop reading a book you don't like, and so in this kind of collection, it's best to just skip stories that aren't clicking for you. I should've just done that. Also, reading footnotes (or endnotes, technically) is really annoying on a Kindle.