Don't Try This at Home

by Angela Readman

A girl repeatedly chops her boyfriend in half but, while her “other half” multiplies, she is still not satisfied. Love transforms a mother working down the fish and chip shop – into Elvis. Clary’s father puts antlers on stuffed rabbits to make jackalopes, but when her mother walks out on them, Clary has to help her father if they are to survive.

Beautiful, sharp and fearless, Costa Short Story Award winner Angela Readman’s debut collection is aptly titled, for each story packs its share of explosive material. Exposing all kinds of prejudice – against age, status, disability – the stories also offer quirky new strategies for troubled lives.

If Angela Carter is Readman’s fairy godmother, then David Lynch is her wicked stepbrother. Don’t say you weren’t warned. . .

Genres: Short Stories, Magical Realism, Fiction, Short Story Collection, Fantasy, Contemporary, Adult Fiction

176 pages, Paperback

First published May 5, 2015

About the author

Angela Readman is a twice shortlisted winner of the Costa Short Story Award. Her stories have won the National Flash Fiction Day Competition, The Mslexia Short Story Prize, and The Fish Short Memoir Prize. They have also been shortlisted in the Manchester Fiction Prize.

Her debut story collection Don't Try This at Home was published by And Other Stories in 2015. It won The Rubery Book Prize and was shortlisted in the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. She also writes poetry: her poetry collection The Book of Tides was published by Nine Arches in late 2016. Angela's debut novel, Something Like Breathing​, will be published by And Other Stories in 2019.

Reviews

[Kinga · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used to subscribe to ‘And Other Stories’ and every few months a package would arrive with a new book. I would open it and do what I did with all the other hundreds of books I bought – I would put it on the shelf so that it can patiently wait for its time to come.

I would, of course, obediently flip through it before shelving it. I owe the book that much.
So when ‘Don’t Try This At Home’ arrived I opened it on the first page and read
“I cut my boyfriend in half; it was what we both wanted.” I thought “oh!” but put the book on the shelf and went back whatever I was already reading. But still, I kept thinking, how, why, was it true? Did the boyfriend really want it too? Eventually I broke all my rules, upset my carefully designed reading plans and spontaneously read ‘Don’t Try This At Home’.

This might not seem like much to you but you don’t know how obsessive-compulsive I am about these things. I can count on one hand all the instances I have ever defied my carefully designed systems.
Let me tell you, this little book was worth risking the wrath of OCD gods – it’s one of the most inventive, touching and batshit crazy collections of short stories I have ever read.

“We lived as conceptual artists. […] My sister wore Ophelia’s drowning dress, and Dad was the king some in a medieval painting swept around. I wore a smock from a haystack. Kids called me Yoko Weirdo.”

The sentences from those stories just stay with you. The above is the beginning of ‘Conceptual’ and here is the ending:

“And all I could think about was finding a stone, the same size and shape as me, ground down into fine powder. I wanted to give it to everyone every time I was called to crack a smile I didn’t mean.”

I remember reading that sentence and the pain of it hit me hard. It reminded me of my own pain I was recovering from at the time and I thought to myself: “Imagine if everything still hurt as much as it did on the first day”. Having the pain echoed back to me like that had a very cathartic effect.

I suppose those stories are often about ways to be weird without letting anyone see it and the price we pay for hiding it. They are surreal, fantastical and symbolic to various extents but they always remain emotionally authentic. It’s up to the reader how much they want to take at a face value and how much they want to see as purely symbolic. You draw the line where it's comfortable for you.

I would pick ‘transformation’ as one of the main themes here. The characters’ physicality is not something fixed and reality is not something to be relied on. Any lesser writer could easily make a total mess of all of this, but Readman pulls it off brilliantly.

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not usually one for short stories, but this is something else. This collection has everything, from cute and quirky tales to some very dark and disturbing ones. A great range, with characters I was left wanting to know more about and some really great ideas. A fantastic collection.

[Els Book Hunters · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Amb allò dels llebrílops hi havia normes, li havia explicat el pare. La mare era l'encarregada de caçar-los. Només els podies caçar de nit. Els llebrílops eren esquívols, astuts i tan cars de veure com les dents de gall dindi.
- És per això que no n'he vist mai cap saltironant per aquí? - va preguntar un dia la Clary, badallant mentre el pare li parava el llit. - És per això que la mama sempre és fora?
El pare li va posar un dit a sobre el nas:
- Bingo!"

Els relats d'aquest recull es construeixen barrejant realitat i fantasia, partint d'escenes quotidianes, sovint també dramàtiques: famílies desestructurades, amb problemes de salut físics o mentals, problemes sentimentals, situacions de dol... La genialitat, però, és la capacitat que té l'autora per parlar-ne sense caure en el sentimentalisme, sense buscar la llàgrima fàcil. Ho aconsegueix ajudant-se dels elements fantàstics o imaginaris, i fent servir també molts cops els infants com a veu narrativa, donant-li un toc de tendresa addicional al relat. També en destacaria que els elements fantàstics hi són en la justa mesura per tocar de peus a terra i seguir el fil de la història, en un equilibri molt ben cuidat. I sobretot, m'ha encantat la manera que té de començar els relats: els primers paràgrafs solen ser explosius, xocants i interessants: la píndola perfecta per captar el lector i no deixar-lo anar.

Aquest llibre va arribar a casa per recomanació de l'Helena de @llibreria_laromantica, i la veritat és que ha estat un encert i n'he gaudit molt. Si us hi animeu, dediqueu-li temps i llegiu-lo amb els cinc sentits. Si us ve de gust llegir una cosa diferent, amena i molt ben feta, crec que aquesta lectura pot ser una sorpresa molt agradable.

(LAIA)

[philosophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Θυμίζει τη γραφή του Murakami, ως προς το μαγικό ρεαλισμό και την ακρίβεια στην αποτύπωση των καταστάσεων και των χαρακτήρων. Κερδίζει για την εικονοποιΐα και την αίσθηση του ρεαλιστικού παραλόγου.

[Andria Potter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the strangest and unusual reads I've read in a long time. Weird, slightly disturbing of a woman slicing her partner in half again and again, it is definitely memorable and I'm giving this 3.5 stars rounded up.

[Wye Peng · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, I enjoyed every story in this collection! I was on the fence about picking it up but I'm so glad that I did. A great collection.

Don't try this at home is about a woman who multiplies her boyfriend by splitting him up with a spade. 5/5

Conceptual is about a dysfunctional family. 4/5

Surviving sainthood is about a boy who has a "miracle" sister. 5/5

There's a woman works down the chip shop tells us of a woman who is transformed by love into Elvis. 5/5

Birds without wings is about a mother and daughter on holiday in Mexico. 5/5

Shine on is about a woman who has a gift whereby she can see through other people's viewpoint. 4/5

When we were witches is about a witch who takes in and raises a young girl. 5/5

Everywhere you don't want to be is about a woman who meets herself- only she is an old beggar woman. 5/5

Dog years is about a girl who has so much fur that she looks like a dog. 4/5

The keeper of the jackalopes is about a father and daughter. Her mother having abandoned them, Clary has to help her father survive. 5/5

Catwoman had something is about a young lady who inherits her aunt's secret. 5/5

Boys like dolls is about a boy whose father is away at war who takes comfort in his talking toy soldier. 3/5

[Holly Dunn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection was a bit hit and miss. I loved the first story about a woman who cuts her boyfriend in half, and in half again, and again, until they start to live their own individual lives. However, the rest of the stories were a little ho-hum. There were a few others that caught my attention, but sadly nothing lived up to that first one, which I think was a shame. It has some great magical realism elements though, and there are definitely stories in here that are creative, interesting, and well worth reading.

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dark, whimsical and grounded. A very good collection.

[Δημήτριος Καραγιάννης · Rating 3 out of 5]

Original, witty social satire garbed with the robes of magical realism. Readman has a rare talent with language and is incredibly fluent with the written form ; the vast majority of her sentences amazed me and left me at a loss. She is a dark, flamboyant writer that gets more and more engrossed in her thoughts and passion as she writes, resulting in some incoherency and difficult textual moments at several points. Still, these short stories were unlike anything I had ever read before (with some exceptions), and great praise is owed to Readman for writing in her own, unique way.

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of twelve short stories which won The Rubery Book Prize and was shortlisted for the The Edge Hill Short Story Prize. The author is also a poet and this is evident from her writing and from the imagination that features in all the stories.

Take the opening story as an example. It starts, “I cut my boyfriend in half; it was what we both wanted. I said we could double our time together.” And from that starting point it gets weirder. If you’ve cut your boyfriend in half once, why not do it again and then again and then again and so on? There’s always more work to be done around the house, there’s always a benefit from additional salaries coming in. But what happens when parts of your boyfriend start to “play away from home”. Readman takes an absurd concept and uses it to explore real emotional issues that arise in a relationship.

This kind of fresh way of looking at things is evident in all the stories. There’s a lady who works in a chip shop but who turns into Elvis for a period (the degree of the transformation is slightly ambiguous). When you read the story, you will realise what causes that transformation and whilst it might not mean for most of us that we turn into a global rock and roll icon, it is something that can change all of us in one way or another.

Again and again, Readman starts with the absurd or fantastical but ends up with real world issues. It’s just that these real world issues have a slightly different light shone on them.

None of the stories is very long and you can easily read the whole collection in a morning if you want to (I speak from experience).

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this was a passably interesting book of short stories. They mostly belong to that category of modest surrealism-- so in the first story, a woman cuts her husband in half and in half again so they can get more out of his labor, etc. Other stories are less explicitly magically realistic-- so a story like "The Keeper of the Jackalopes" has a character who taxidermies jackalopes for sale, but it's never really implied the jackalopes are real, just the creations of his art. But generally, there's a fuzziness around the edges of the real in these stories.

I thought a few of them were effective-- "Keeper," mentioned above, was a pretty good, sad coming-of-age story. "When We Were Witches" is similarly melancholic and mostly effective, though the ending was maybe too-much-at-once. Other stories, though, I felt fell kind of flat-- the gimmick or conceit didn't seem all that tied to the themes of the story or just that surprising. It's not a bad collection, but it's not one that I think I'd want to return to or reread.

This is a collection that might work better for other readers, though: a lot of these seem informed and even take some of their punch from fairy tales. I'm not a big fan of fairy tales, so maybe someone who is would be more enamored of this collection.

[Gardenia Plant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastical, imaginative and superbly written, this is a genius collection of short stories.
Loved it and didn't want it to end.
I look forward to much more from this talented author.

[Ross Jeffery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don’t Try This at Home by Angela Readman is an exceptional and masterful collection of short stories. It contains the short story ‘The Keeper of the Jackalopes‘ which won her the 2013 Costa Short Story Award – plus another twelve mouth-watering offerings which in there own rights could be award winners too.

The collection kept me enraptured from start to finish, such is the originality on show. Each story is unique and memorable and then there is the writing, which is masterful. I have to admit that I’d not read any of Readman’s work previously, she seemed to have evaded my attention, but now I have her in my crosshairs, I’ll be reading everything else she ever writes.

The collection starts off with the title story Don’t Try This at Home – this story is why I love weird fiction, Readman’s writing is strikingly beautiful, and her story hits you like a meat cleaver, leaving its mark long after the story has finished. It’s the type of story that can define a short story writers career. It’s bold and direct and for me, it summed up all the different hats we put on to please a partner or spouse, all the parts of our personality we either lose or box away when we find that person we want to be with. Readman shows that however hard we try to compartmentalise these traits, feelings and thoughts – sometimes they can’t help but surface and when they do they can have drastic effects. It’s like having your cake and eating it too. It is a masterclass in writing and the central themes were handled with guile and a deft touch which sets you up nicely for what is an beguiling collection.

Conceptual – is artistically brilliant, the writing is whimsical, and this combined with the key themes that run through the story like a thread in a beautiful tapestry ensure they are hard hitting and in some way personal to the reader. It’s about artistic freedom, about being who you are no matter the cost – but we soon find out that the cost is too much to bear, that in searching for this freedom, you might just lose it all. I found the story quite sad and depressing (in a good way), watching a family dynamic be stripped away, being forced to change, bend and submit to external factors – heartbreakingly awesome.

‘Then things changed. Mum gave dad a Valentine’s of skin she had shed in the past year. He flew a photo of her up to the sky and let go of the strings. There was nothing conceptual about the woman he left us for. She owned a paper shop. It was nowhere near as exciting as it sounds. It wasn’t a shop build of paper which the wind moved to where it was needed. It just sold stationary and magazines.’
Surviving Sainthood – Is a tragic tale about a childhood accident involving a brother and sister (who has been disabled ever since the incident), but a tale which is masterfully told. I really enjoyed the echo pattern that Readman uses here to highlight and move the reader forward through the ongoing ripples that have happened since that ground zero event. The story is laced with bitterness and tenderness, but there is a great big dollop of hope in the middle, but mottled with the desperation of a parent to see their child healed.

‘Every night, Mom slipped photographs of sick kids under your pillow and read you letters from strangers like bedtime stories, ‘God bless you both. I know what you’re going through… my son has ADD… my daughter has diabetes… my husband’s battling with… You’re in our prayers, Jessica. Please pray for us.”
There’s a Woman Works Down The Chip Shop – a meandering, transformative tale which was very fun to read and interesting to observe. It has some wondrous moments where we see what this woman wants to be, what her carnal instincts are, but she is battered and bruised, suffocated by a previous life and outdated belief systems. So, she is forced to live the life she wants in secret (behind her chip shop counter). When this life starts to seep out into the community she faces a backlash. It’s a great LGBTQ story and goes someway to showcase the bigotry that is in the world and what some people have to endure when all they want to be is the person they were born to be. But like a power animal the main protagonist of our story channels the spirit and physicality of Elvis. Strange I know, but it works, it works so so well. Also let me tell you Elvis came, he conquered and then left the building!

‘My mother was like a Custard Cream, nothing special, an ordinary sort of nice enough. She was just there, like gravity.’
Birds Without Wings – is a great observational piece of writing and a story which has such a hidden depth to it. It is in essence a story about a mother and daughter who go vacationing in Mexico. They try to have a good time, but there are constant undertones and sarcastic comments from her mother and we get a small glimpse into the childhood she has had to endure. It’s a story about children not living up to their parents expectations, always being a disappointment, always having to bite your tongue and watch your manners, dress a certain way or whatever the fuck you need to do to please them. It’s a very touching story, expertly told and riddled with meaning.

‘A traveller without observation is a bird without wings.’
Shine On – is a fabulously rich and weird tale, set around a mother who is fighting to get custody of her baby, but she hides a secret, she is able to see peoples shine. She’s able to see them through a vision (which is the shine), not just imagining what they are doing, but actually see them. It’s a skill that comes in handy, she can shine in on her son and see him where he is. But with great power comes great responsibility. She shines on her friends without their knowledge, hearing what her friends actually think about her, as they talk behind her back, discussing her current problems, her idiotic boyfriend and that she won’t be getting her child back. It’s a sad story, it’s heartbreaking in places and builds subtly to a very powerful and poignant conclusion. It’s a story that I am glad Readman brought to the collection – it breaks my heart each time I think about it, that is the mark of a great story.

‘Shania sucks a frozen lolly like a Sex Ed teacher gone rogue. It’s October, but that doesn’t stop her. Once, I saw her buy ice cream in the snow like she was daring herself to feel all of the cold.’
When We Were Witches – Reminded me of the Slavic folklore of Baba Yaga. It’s a wonderfully dark and mesmeric tale (had me thinking about Zoe Gilbert’s work), it is so different from the other stories in the collection. It’s creepy and dark and unravels gradually as you tuck into the beautifully crafted prose, unravelling inch by inch like a ball of twine with each turn of the page. A deftly crafted tale that feel remarkably like a folktale but told in a fresh and unique way. It has a twist in the tale which brings the whole story to a dramatic conclusion, which was enjoyable to witness all the pieces littered throughout the story fall into place. There was so much I enjoyed in this story – but I won’t quote any of it to you, I’ll leave you with an image I saw online recently which I feel sums up the tale beautifully (I have no idea who drew it, but I thought of this story as soon as I saw it).

unnamed

Everywhere You Don’t Want To Be – Our main protagonist stumbles over a homeless woman who looks like her, its not a big deal, but then she keeps seeing her everywhere she goes. If she changes her mind and goes to another coffee shop…she’ll still be there sitting outside waiting to berate her with intimate details about her life. It’s a cracking story which I loved, it’s haunting and disturbing and darn right brilliant. This vision, this homeless woman is her, its an echo of her through time, showing up and guiding her through wrong decisions and staying hidden and aloof when right choices are presented and taken – its a warning, a blessing and quite possibly a curse. Weird fiction may have just found its queen with Readman.

‘I recognised it, I recognised her. The bag lady. It was horrible. She looked just like me. She was me, in how many years’ time?’
Dog Years: Life As A Dog-Faced Girl – This is more of a flash fiction piece, a witty tale with a smashing closing line. It follows the life of a little girl that is sold into a circus freak show, and who inevitably is put to work and made is made from her unfortunate circumstance, with many people taking advantage of her. It’s short, sweet and ends with a great throwaway line, which whenever I think about it, it makes me laugh to this day.

The Keeper of the Jackalopes – a taxidermist father and his daughter entertain a man offering to buy the land that their mobile home sits on, so his company can build a new shopping mall, but this land is precious and they won’t give it up without a fight. It’s where the Jackalopes roam. This is the Costa Short Story Prize winning story – any bloody hell is it good. The story is so deep, it’s got so many layers, Shrek would say it was like an onion. We have the ongoing issues of a company trying to buy the land, in order to build a new shopping complex. Then we have the subtly laced information that father and daughter don’t have a pot to piss in, so they have the inevitable struggle of the mind, the money would make their lives easier, but would rob them of their home and that of the Jackalopes. We witness them dumpster diving in the evenings to get food for the week – but through all of this we see they are content, they are happy with their lot…there are some things money can’t buy. It’s a story about pride, about not giving up no matter the odds. There are various tools that Readman weaves into this story which I loved, the repetitiveness of coming back to the stuffed animals and various taxidermy items, the fathers various words that he uses to shield his little ‘pumpkin‘ from his cussing – each tool works wonderfully well and add further depth and brilliance to this astounding piece of fiction. This is one of the best short stories I’ve ever read.

‘The hunting store in town used to buy the animals, the museum too. Since the store closed and the museum got computers, business isn’t what it was. Clary feels the animals are breading, crowding in. Yet still her father can’t pass anything on a roadside without stopping and wondering if he can make it work.’
Catwoman Had Something – is a fabulous tale that centres on an aunty who could have been Catwoman and her sister who was and is anything but. The story hit a cord with me, we can all relate to having that aunty or uncle who is the black sheep of the family, the one as children we couldn’t help but lap up (for me it was my archaeologist uncle – he was just and is so damn cool), it causes serious hero worship, but to the consternation of the parents as they try to dissuade you from being anything like that bum. As the aunty gets older we witness her still clinging to her flirtatious harlot ways that have been a mainstay in her life since she was young, men seem to swoon around her like wasps around jam sandwiches – she can’t seem to give up that life, although her looks have depreciated over time. But she has a secret – and Lana her niece is soon to be the recipient of an inheritance that will reveal the hidden secret of the woman who could have been Catwoman and the tropes of men that fling themselves at her daily.

‘She was part of our family like a cat who comes and goes, but mostly goes. We left a hole in the door all the same.’
Boys Like Dolls – This is an interesting story about a boy called Nathan who has an imaginary friend in the form of his GI Joe figure. It’s a bittersweet story as we learn that the boys father is in the army, off fighting a war somewhere. Joe is Nathan’s only real friend, and we learn that his family is at breaking point, both emotionally (a warn down mother trying to cope, raising two children and living in constant fear of her husbands life being taken away from her) and financially. Nathan’s mother is struggling to put food on the table for her young family. It all comes to a head one day when Nathan shoplifts some new clothes fo his GI Joe at the shops. Readman again excels in giving us a heart-wrenching tale to end such a masterful collection.

Don’t Try This at Home is an arrestingly beautiful collection. Readman’s words seem to linger in your mouth like a very expensive whisky, making them a delight to consume, like honey on your lips, I wanted to savour every morsel that was on offer. Readman showcases her brilliance in the short story form time and time again, and on the back of this collection and I would say that she has raised the bar considerably, for other short story writers to follow.

Readman with her unique style and masterfully crafted collection, will become a defining voice in propelling the short story genre forward to new heights. If you are learning your trade in the short story form, this book needs to be on your core reading list…such is the brilliance on offer!

[Joanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

And this, right here, is why I subscribe to andotherstories.org. I love crazy weird stories. These stories are as fantastical and wonderful as those of Kelly Link and Aimee Bender but by an author I'd never heard of and likely would never have otherwise found.

The stories have some great premises--the girl who keeps chopping her boyfriend in half (both halves of which become full people); the girl given to a witch; the dog-faced girl with a circus; and onwards. As with any short story collection, some of these stories are better than others. But overall, the whole collection was entertaining and weird and cool.

I read these over two months--dipping into a story here and a story there. I had the ebook on my phone, so these were a perfect distraction while waiting for a prescription to be filled or for court to start. It was nice to put some separation between the stories so that they didn't run together too much.

[Tanya (aka ListObsessedReader) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Barrita · Rating 4 out of 5]

En serio, no lo intenten en casa.

[Shona H · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really interesting collection of short stories - I felt like I should be writing commentaries on all of them!

[Shirley Golden · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favourite short story collections of all time! These surreal stories work so well because they never lose their sense of emotional reality - a woman chops up her boyfriend (to multiply their time together), a mother transforms into Elvis, a girl inherits magic perfumes, another meets her older self, but reality is at the heart of each story. And I very much cared about each character. Readman weaves her own spell with her exceptional use of language, and for this reason alone, I'll return to this book to savour every sentence. Highly recommended.

[Chris Davies · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an utterly brilliant collection of short stories. These tales are clever, strange (in a good way), thought provoking and pack an emotional punch. Best of all, they are superbly written and, unusually for a short story collection, there is not a duff one amongst them.

What more is there to say other than read this book now! It's quite short and I expect some people could polish it off in an afternoon, but you'll want to savour every exquisitely turned phrase. Easily the best book I've read this year.

[Helen McClory · Rating 2 out of 5]

Stories tell you something, then tell it again in a slightly different way, then again just in case. Stories that don't seem to trust the reader to make out the message. Stories with a message that is so simple it might as well be written with a motto on the end. Stories where the POV is confusingly located, disrupted by lines that glitter and would not come out of the minds of children - obviously writerly-lines set there because they look good. Not for me.

[Dan Coxon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had high expectations for Angela Readman's debut collection, and I wasn't disappointed. This is a bold, colourful and exciting selection of short stories, including the stunning Costa winner 'The Keeper of the Jackalopes'. Other highlights included 'When We Were Witches' and 'There's a Woman Works Down the Chip Shop', but there's not a duff note in here. One to revisit with a pencil.

[WaterstonesBirmingham · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not usually one for short stories, but this is something else.
This collection has everything, from cute and quirky tales to some very dark and disturbing ones.
A great range, with characters I was left wanting to know more about and some really great ideas. A fantastic collection.

Grace

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first story was wonderful and really made me engage with ideas of self and identity. The other stories were alright, some I enjoyed and others I had to force myself to finish but we're thankfully short.

[Lydia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great collection of short stories. They took place in that place that is halfway between our world and a magical world. They were dark, twisted, and emotive. I'm not well-versed in short stories at all, but I really enjoyed this.

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

[3.5 stars]

[toria (vikz writes) · Rating 5 out of 5]

A couple of blog posts ago, I reviewed Fables, a work published by Pigeonhole books. Since I liked that work, they emailed me asking if I would like to see more of their output. I chose to look at two works. The first, of which, Don't Try this at home will review in this post. The publishers kindly sent me a copy of the work in exchange for an honest review.

As I stated in the review of Fables, Pigeonhole Books release their work in a different manner to most other publishers. They release books in a serialized form, releasing “staves” of the work at regular intervals.

I believe that this publishing method may be a good model for short story collections like “Don’t Try This At Home”, works that have beautifully lyrical prose and/or an experimental structure/writing style. These books deserve time to percolate into the brain. If gorged in one single sitting: you will miss the nuance of the writing, each story will bleed into each other, they may seem repetitive, and you may feel bloated as if you have eaten too many rich chocolates. This method of slow release, almost rationed publishing slows the speed-reader, like me, down, making us take more time over each story.
These stories are linked by a shared writing style and language play. The writing is at the same time sparse and lyrical. The following, from the story contextual, is a good example of this:

“My mother invited the kids to my birthday party. She shook hands with other parents from behind a canvas. We cut cake to throw at billboards. I blew out a candle and wished we could have normal parties. I wanted to wear Nike or Topshop like everyone else. But when the guests left and it was just us, we were happy. Never bored, we spent winter evenings catching the moon in a bucket a hundred times.” P8.

You get a very sparsely written, matter of fact description, of a party followed by the beautiful phrase “Never bored, we spent winter evenings catching the moon in a bucket a hundred times.” P8

The stories


The first, title story, of this collection has received a lot of attention from reviewers. Therefore, I will focus on three other stories, starting with ‘Before the Song’. This story puts the reader in the head of a young girl living on a rural semi-isolated farm. The character speaks in vernacular dialect. Which, while distancing some readers from the story, actually works to put you squarely in the characters head;

“The mornin’ slipped by. Small flies floated in my eye, spottin’ the landscape. I looked towards the house and squished it between my fingers like a bug. The preacher crossed the plain on foot, waving thanks to the pick-up he’d got a ride from. Could only be the preacher – black cloth, a hole in the middle of the day. I watched him get smaller nearin’ the house, the black of his robe furred with dust. I wiped my brow and bent back to the cotton. Didn’t see him leave. Next time I looked to the house, Momma was a-hollerin’, leanin’ out the back door and wavin’ a pair of long johns up and down. Red on blue sky, red as a scratch on my leg, bloody enough to catch my eye. Suppertime. I walked up to the house, saw Pa go inside and Clift pass him. ‘Y’all wipe your feet,’ Momma called, flies a-buzzin’ in and out her mouth. The closing back door made a rainbow of dirt on the floor. Everyone sat down. “ p.16

I love the line “the closing back door made a rainbow of dirt on the floor”. It speaks not only of the house in which the character lives with its dirt floor but, also, the poetic way that the young character sees the world.

In this work, we trace her; life in her socially conservative town/family, her sexual awakening and, the consequences of that sexual awakening. The story is heartbreakingly beautiful. It had me sniffing into a hankie at times

Like the earlier story, “Conceptually” is told from the point of view of a young girl. However, unlike the protagonist of the early story who lives in a conservative family, the main character of this story lives in an eccentric family of conceptual artists. Here she describes her family
“We lived as conceptual artists. It’s what we were. If anyone wanted to know who we were, they had only to look. On special occasions, my family cut their clothes from paintings. Mum wore Botticelli. My sister wore Ophelia’s drowning dress, and Dad was the king some woman in a medieval painting swept around. I wore a smock from a haystack” p8

The story, heartbreakingly, speaks of; society’s cruel and officious reaction to this family, of the bullying from other children, and the officious meddling if the authorities. The narrator speaks of the effects that these outside agencies have on the family. The ending is once again heartrending.

The third tale, which I shall explore, is, once again, told from the perspective of a young child speaking of her parents. At the beginning of the tale, she speaks of her mother in the following manner;

“My mother was like a Custard Cream, nothing special, an ordinary sort of nice enough. She was just there, like gravity. There was no need to think about her. She was Mam- shaped, bits of her flattened under a white overall with pearly buttons.”
Isn’t that, sadly, how many of us see our mothers. But, she then goes onto state how her mom changed.

“Then, one summer, she became Elvis. She was yawning, frying chips, and worried if there’d be enough hot water for a bath when she got in, then BAM! She was Elvis, hips a-gogo, rocking onto the balls of her feet with only the counter between her and lasses screaming and promising to love her forever. Maybe she just thought, ‘Sod it. I’d make as good an Elvis as anyone.’ Who doesn’t want to be Elvis now and then? The funny thing is” ibid

This is the story of a woman who takes on a celebrity identity to, temporarily, break out of the roles that have been ascribed to her. She challenges; her role as a mother, her role as a mundane worker, her gender identity, and her sexuality. These challenges allow both; the writer, and the reader to play with these concepts. In fact, the stories I selected for review, and many others in this collection, deal with; ascribed roles and the consequences when we break, or do not conform to those identities.

The collection


The experimental nature of some of these stories heightens our exploration of both the world and character. For example, the use of dialect in ‘before song’ heightens the atmosphere of the story and enhances our understanding of both the main character and her world. I really loved this collection. It takes snapshots of life and makes us examine them in more detail

[Angelique · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don't Try This at Home is a good short story collection. The twelve stories all explore a weird, funny, sad or unusual idea while at the same time being connected through themes like mother-daughter relationships, and 'what if's. Most of the stories take real life and give it a small twist or present a character or event in an unusual light, which makes all the stories really interesting to read.

I loved the title story and "There's a Woman Works Down the Chip Shop," which is one of the few more uplifting stories in this collection. I stopped reading for months after the first two stories because they were pretty gloomy, but I am really glad I came back to the book and finished it. Angela Readman is a really good writer and I am looking forward to reading some of her poetry. I would recommend Don't Try This at Home to readers who enjoy stories that explore relationships, include magical or unusual elements, and are often more on the gritty and serious side.

[Alexandra Bowie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this short story collection. There wasn't a single story that I disliked- however, some stood out more than others. I thought the writing was brilliant and I believe if someone else had written these stories they would not have been as fantastic as they are.

I'm going to rate each story.

1. Don't Try This at Home 5/5 stars
2. Conceptual 3.5/5 stars
3. Surviving Sainthood 3.5/5 stars
4. There's a Woman Works Down the Chip Shop 5/5 stars
5. Birds Without Wings 3/5 stars
6. Shine On 3.5/5 stars
7. When We Were Witches 3/5 stars
8. Everywhere You Don't Want to Be 3/5 stars
9. Dog Years 3/5 stars
10. The Keeper of the Jackalopes 3/5 stars
11. Catwoman Had Something 4.5/5 stars
12. Boys Like Dolls 3/5 stars

I will definitely be reading more by Angela Readman in the future.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. I don't know, I thought one or two of these stories were really good but I found the majority of them to be just okay. They aren't overly written or bloated with metaphors, but I felt oddly disconnected throughout most of this collection. I found it difficult to connect with the stories and grew less and less interested as I was reading.

I think maybe this collection just isn't for me. Like I said, I enjoyed a couple of the stories but none of them stuck with me each time I put this down. The best of the bunch is the title story, in which a woman repeatedly cuts her boyfriend in half. Being the first story in the collection, it sadly went down hill for me after that.

[Mischief Management · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great collection of short stories. They perfectly captured the subjects they tried to convey, and the humanity of the portrayed characters. Even when you can't agree with their decisions, you can't help but wonder if you could do any better under the circumstances. The touches of magical realism are almost an afterthought, leaving it free to interpretation whether they're really there, or whether they're just in the character's mind. That's not easy to accomplish as well as this book manages. I think nobody would regret giving it a read.