Show Them a Good Time

by Nicole Flattery

A blisteringly original and wickedly funny collection of stories about the strange worlds that women inhabit and the parts that they must play.

A sense of otherworldly menace is at work in the fiction of Nicole Flattery, but the threats are all too familiar. SHOW THEM A GOOD TIME tells the stories of women slotted away into restrictive roles: the celebrity's girlfriend, the widower's second wife, the lecherous professor's student, the corporate employee. And yet, the genius of Flattery's characters is to blithely demolish the boundaries of these limited and limiting social types with immense complexity and caustic intelligence. Nicole Flattery's women are too ferociously mordant, too painfully funny to remain in their places.

In this fiercely original and blazingly brilliant debut, Flattery likewise deconstructs the conventions of genre to serve up strange realities: In Not the End Yet, Flattery probes the hilarious and wrenching ambivalence of Internet dating as the apocalypse nears; in Sweet Talk, the mysterious disappearance of a number of local women sets the scene for a young girl to confront the dangerous uncertainties of her own sexuality; in this collection's center piece, Abortion, A Love Story, two college students in a dystopian campus reconfigure the perilous stories of their bodies in a fraught academic culture to offer a subversive, alarming, and wickedly funny play that takes over their own offstage lives. And yet, however surreal or richly imagined the setting, Flattery always shows us these strange worlds from startlingly unexpected angles, through an unforgettable cast of brutally honest, darkly hilarious women and girls.

Like the stories of Mary Gaitskill, Miranda July, Lorrie Moore, Joy Williams, and Ottessa Moshfegh, SHOW THEM A GOOD TIME is the work of a profoundly resonant and revelatory literary voice – at once spiky, humane, achingly hilarious-- that is sure to echo through the literary culture for decades to come.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Irish Literature, Ireland, Feminism, Contemporary, Book Club

256 pages, Hardcover

First published February 28, 2019

Reviews

[Dem · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book of eight short stories that are dark and quirky and while I struggled to connect with any of them them or understand them, they were easy reading and while not my cup of tea (my tea is strong, no milk , no sugar) I am sure others( more adventours coffee drinkers) will find the dark, eccentric humour smart and entertaining.

Eight bizarre stories about Women, dating, relationships and modern life that for me were farcical and weird and yet I kept reading and finished the book which I think this was really more about me needing to connect or try to find someting logical in just one of the stories that would resonate with me. There is modern and contemporary style to this book which drew me to the stories in the first place but this one may have been just a bit wacky and for me and I came away from this one more bewildered than entertained.

I did like the character development and there is a nice hint of modern Irishness about the collection and while I didn't connect with the stories I think readers of short stories might find this quirky and dark collection right up their street and I wouldn't be suprised if this is one that will be nominated for book awards by the end of the year as it has a uniqueness and differerence about it that judges tend to gravitate towards.

[Emily B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a review copy of this book. I loved the look of the cover and the description.

I really liked the authors writing style, which was bold, contemporary and unique. This and the overall quirkiness of the stories made it enjoyable to read.

The stories were definitely wacky and at times I don’t think I completely understood them. I felt a lot was unsaid. However despite this I found that I was still captivated by each story and the beauty of the writing

[Henk · Rating 2 out of 5]

Repetitive, weird and due to a distinct lack of humour, reading this bundle of short stories felt more like work, than being shown a good time.
The term that comes to mind for me when reflecting on Show Them a Good Time is lukewarm. But that is really too mild, because often the stories seriously annoyed me or just felt unbalanced and not well thought out.
The eight stories in this book all relate to modern Irish women struggling in life. All the main characters seem to live in a distinctly atemporal and non-descript, urban, late capitalism world.

Show them a good time: 2.5 stars
They disregarded me, but in a practical way: the way you might ignore the weakling in a bomb shelter. - the main character about her parents

A slightly older woman in a reintegration project, a shop without any wares, and a sulky 19 year old. There is also an unnamed Management and some parodies on modern office life and apparently the main character did adult movies (What was it like? he asked. Like everything else after a while. Almost boring. Unpleasant. A lot of hanging around.).
Depressing and a bit weird.

Sweet Talk: 2 stars
In that hot, rotting kitchen, the flies conspiring above our heads, my mother talked to Genevieve about her life as though it was still a work in progress.
The dreary growing up (I had become too good at being who I was) of a girl who develops a bond with a stranger and his fiancée. Nice touches of world building, some missing girls also add to the atmosphere, but little more than an impression.

Hump: 1.5 stars
Again hate against work, this time coupled to a relationship with the boss and some kind of unspecified mental breakdown after the death of a father.
Rather vague and forgettable.

Abortion, a love story: 1 star
A longer story but the characters do not become less weird, or more than just that. Natasha is suffering from an ailment annex laziness that lets her not absorb information. She uses her body and looks to get it on with her professor and stay on the elite campus. Some quotes in respect to her are actually quite fun:
...the professor told Natasha that she reminded him of the music of his era - which he had loved at the time - but now whenever he listened back, with intelligence and reason, it was baffling. It was just a lot of empty noise. & The real issue is Natasha made him feel like a young man and he hadn’t liked being a young man.

Lucy, the other main character, just pops up in the story and is a kind of extroverted drama student/sexbomb on steroids who shoplifts at fancy department stores to collect all the major brands. She is also weird as even noted in the story itself:‘What is wrong with you?’ the girl-actor asked Lucy, genuinely interested.

Both are from working class backgrounds and are treated as orphans in the families of their upper class boyfriends. Both try to block reality using cotton wools in their ears.
Maybe it sounds interesting but strangely enough both characters, in their separation from the world and common sense, reminded me not of other literature but more of an absurd manga I read a while back: Aho-Girl: A Clueless Girl, Vol. 1.

The end is a mildly hilarious description of a play one of the girls (rather hard to distinguish them) wrote during a surreal getaway in Spain in all inclusive resort.
It all felt rather disjointed, just thrown together.

Track: 1.5 stars
My boyfriend compared me to a painting of a glowing, alien foetus he had once seen - powerful but unborn. Same kind of look. Work that, he suggested. Own it. I nodded like I understood and I stopped auditioning.
Disassociating, recovering depressed Irish girl (I felt like I ordered myself from a store window) reflects on her relationship with a New York comedian also full of issues (This was what he wanted more than anything, more than sex, more than love - to be told he was normal, to feel normal.)
A freak psychic and a hell of a lot of mental issues are added to the mix and lead to an incoherent ending.

Parrot: 2.5 stars
Again a psychological challenged Irish woman, this time a college drop out and a surrogate mom to a troublesome nine year old.
Better, but with some unclear relationships between the mother and the narrator.

You are going to forget me: 2.5 stars
Que the ingredients: dead mother, a miscarriage and two sisters almost dying in a pool because of *drumroll* some kind of psychological trauma.
At least in this story the main character is not self destructive or disfunctional.
And the alzheimer like forgetting of stuff by her sister was quite interesting, made me think of The Buried Giant of Kazuo Ishiguro.

Not the end yet: 3.5 stars
‘Do you like clever people?’ ‘Not really.’ ‘You would have liked him then.’
Liked this story best, Angela is a middle aged woman, a bit too straight talking while she is going on several dates. Because the end of the world is coming and social norms and politeness are also going, the setting is interesting and the main character is finally actually fun.

[Peter Boyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmmm. I am feeling quite torn on Show Them A Good Time. I disliked the first story so much that I almost gave up on the whole thing. But I'm glad I gave it a second go - there are moments of genius here and I began to see why the book has been so hyped.

I suppose the theme of this collection is the plight of the modern woman - dating, relationships and gender roles are all explored in a sharp, sardonic manner. Some of the stories take a turn for the surreal, and I notice that these are ones I struggled with most. In the title tale, the narrator performs community service in a fake petrol station - I really didn't get where Flattery was going with this one. Abortion, A Love Story is about two students who collaborate on a strange play which tells their personal experiences. It's the most experimental and longest effort in the book, and I found it difficult to get through.

My favourite stories were the ones anchored in the real world. In Track, an Irishwoman in New York tells us about her brief relationship with a famous comedian. It's very astute on the unique fears and fragilities that fame brings. Hump is recounted by a grieving woman, who develops a hunchback, and has a terrific first line: "At seventy, after suffering several disappointments, the first being my mother, the second being me, my father died."

But for me, the standout story is Parrot. It's about a woman who has an affair with a married man. They move to France to begin a new life and she finds herself entrusted with looking after his nine-year-old son. She's a witty narrator, looking back on old boyfriends with a wry sense of humour:

"All these relationships ended the exact same way, with circuitous conversations and dully rational arguments, as if both participants were politicians lobbying for their own happiness."

But there was something different about her new love, even though she's amazed at how it snuck up on her:

"They always went to the same B&B, the same room, fringed lamps and light curtains. It was like an affair made on an assembly line, everyone playing their part, following a strict pattern. No poetry, no sunlight on the bedsheets. The only surprise was when she found, unbelievably, like discovering a hidden room in a house, that she was in love with him."

There is also a page and half section in this same tale where the woman describes a short holiday to Paris with her mother, and it is so perceptive about dreams and disappointments that it's a brilliant little story in itself.

On the back cover of Show Them A Good Time, three notable authors talk about how hilarious this collection is. I didn't really find it all that funny to be honest - it contains a clever, mocking kind of humour that raised the odd smile at most. I think the book works best when Flattery veers away from the absurd and grounds her stories in real people with genuine problems. There is plenty of talent here, that is in no doubt. I hear she has a novel on the way, and I am intrigued to see what shape it takes.

[8stitches 9lives · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my most anticipated releases of 2019 and the sampler more than whets my appetite for the full publication. Like most others, I often find anthologies featuring a multitude of short stories difficult to review because, naturally, you tend to appreciate some more than others. It's sort of the reading version of Russian roulette, but the big difference here is that each story is written by the same author, and this certainly helps in making the two stories I read coherent and enjoyable. I absolutely loved the stories included in the sampler; they both explore very important, timely issues.

Unusually for shorts the characters are beautifully developed and are easily distinguishable from one another - something that is not easy to do in the few pages dedicated to each tale. They are very authentic and realistic, with legitimate concerns about life which are portrayed in such original, refreshing and compelling ways. They are dark and the sense of foreboding creates a spectacular atmosphere - again, not an easy feat when the stories are so short.

Many thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing for an ARC.

[Abbie | ab_reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

Huge thanks to @bloomsburypublishing for sending me a copy of this to read and review - I BLOODY LOVED IT.
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Do you like short stories that go to some dark places and are brimming with unease (not the supernatural kind) and strangeness? Do you enjoy stories of women refusing to stay in the roles assigned to them by society? If so, then you need to keep your eye out for Show Them a Good Time, out in March!
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As I mentioned before, I got strong Sally Rooney and Ottessa Moshfegh vibes, so it looks like Nicole Flattery will be joining the ranks of immensely talented women wowing my literary world lately! Her writing is subtle yet pulls you in, simple but expresses more than enough to compel, and her portrayal of restless, frustrated, confused, lost, lonely, angry women had me spellbound!
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Among this collection we have a former porn star returned back to her home town in Ireland and working a dead end job in a garage; a young girl experiencing her first crush at a time when a criminal is on the prowl; a stepmother struggling to find a way to communicate with her stepson; and two young women writing a play based on their lives. While it’s true that most of these stories explore relationships with men in various roles, the women in them are always the focal point. They’re never defined by the men in their life and indeed, they’re mostly portrayed pushing against them in some way or simply refusing to engage in the roles they’re expected to.
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I devoured this collection in 48 hours and I am looking forward to seeing what else Flattery comes out with! Although I do hope the ten or so grammatical and spelling errors I spotted are ironed out in the final version!

[Theresa · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't think I've ever been this confused by a short story collection. Usually I love reading this genre, but there was not one story that resonated with me. The writing was bizarre, clunky, and pretentious. I felt like the structure, characters, and tone of this book were trying too hard to be cool, hip, and clever. The emotion was lacking. Almost every character felt stiff and creepy. I wish I could think of something positive to say, but unfortunately I can't think of one story that made an impact.

Thank you, Netgalley and Bloomsbury for sending me a digital copy.

[Hugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another book picked up in the library because I had heard good things a couple of years ago. I always find short story collections difficult to review, as I don't like story by story dissections, which is why I have been putting this one off for a few days, but it is undoubtedly an impressive debut collection, which is often funny, surprising and perceptive.

The collection consists of 7 short stories and one longer novella length piece (Abortion: A Love Story), which inevitably dominates in retrospect. Most of the protagonists are struggling in various ways, and none of them follow conventional career trajectories.

[fatma · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

"I said that I had to leave to discover things about myself. I withheld the fact that there wasn't much to discover. Just ordinary surface and, beneath that, more desperate surface."

Wry, absurd, and almost casually poignant—Nicole Flattery's writing feels like a genre of its own.

Almost as soon as you start this book, you can tell that you're reading something different; it's the kind of book that makes you tilt your head to the side. Whatever direction you expect these stories to go in, they go in the opposite direction. Flattery approaches her subject matter—women experiencing turmoil of some kind, whether it be physical abuse, emotional abuse, bereavement, abortion—obliquely, giving you just enough to understand that her characters have all of this lurking in their inner lives, but not enough for you to fully understand the extent of its impact on them. There is so much implied meaning in these stories; you're given the tip of the iceberg and expected to infer the size of the structure that lies beneath it. And this style of writing is really the perfect strategy for a short story: it gives you enough information to feel like you know something substantial about these characters, but not so much that they're rendered transparent or caricatured.

"In that brief moment everyone saw my mind and my mind was absent of all ideas. I thought I would be a different person by this time in my life, but I was actually becoming less like someone else and more like myself. It was troubling."

Though these stories deal with serious subject matter, they also don't take themselves too seriously. Flattery doesn't strictly rely on a sense of realism in her narratives, but instead goes in slightly absurd, off-kilter directions. The stories in this collection are told with a wry, deadpan sense of humour, one that buoys them and prevents them from getting bogged down in melodramatic territory. Though Show Them a Good Time is sometimes facetious in dealing with subject matter you would maybe expect it to take seriously, it's also not flippant and invests in moments that matter to its characters.

Show Them a Good Time is a collection that is exactly as its title promises. It gets at both the weird, funny spectacle of performance, but also the pressure to perform, to show them a good time when you are decidedly not having a good time. It's about how performance in the everyday can at times be artistic expression and at others voyeuristic and exploitative.

Thank you so much to Bloomsbury for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

PS: I highly recommend checking out the Stinging Fly Podcast's episode on Nicole Flattery where they read and discuss the first and titular short story of this collection, "Show Them a Good Time."

PPS: my favourite short stories were "Show Them a Good Time," "Abortion, a Love Story," and "Not the End Yet."

[em · Rating 3 out of 5]

“There were things happening out there in the world - history, events. But history was not happening in my town, not to me. I was just standing outside bars, without my coat, shoes and underwear wondering where exactly they were because - sadly - I was not wearing them. My thoughts had reached a manic, fever pitch.”

Show them a Good Time is a collection of short stories that presents an exploration of modern society. I only left one unread - as the title scared me away a little bit - but all the rest rang current and had a powerful rawness to them.

But like the real life topics they aim depict and dissect, they were also sour. And distressing. And poignant.

Some of these stories felt like those movies that cast your living room walls in shades of grey and dull colours and that leave you with the taste of real life in your tongue. Some were harder to read than others, in my opinion the ones that were written in first person because they felt like I was reading Flattery’s confessions. And quite honestly, I am not sure how much of fiction and reality those had, which leaves my heart a little bit broken and my head filled with a little too much bitterness.

But if there’s something I must praise above all, is how peculiar and different Flattery’s writing is. Her voice is one that unknowingly pulls you in and holds you right there. Surprising and oddly fast paced. Singular and at the same time hypnotising.

Her stories are a current portrait of how one navigates life through all its ups and downs, joys and dreads. It’s a look on a society that I usually try to avoid and escape from, as it’s bitter and dark rather than hopeful, and yet, some of the stories had me turning the pages to keep reading.

Rating: 3.5/5

**I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

[SueLucie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was given the opportunity to read two of the short stories in this collection and, on the strength of these, am keen to lay my hands on the full set. They are disconcerting, slightly off-centre versions of reality. Multi-dimensional characters and dialogue were their major strengths for me.

‘Not the End Yet’ appears at first to be set in the world as we know it but, as the action progresses, we realise it’s not quite. A young woman goes on a series of dates, always to the same restaurant and the conversations start out in the same way. But as the dates go on, we notice incremental changes in the state of the restaurant, the food on offer, in the surly teenage waiting staff and, most tellingly, in Angela’s circumstances. Something ominous is in the air and I was tantalised to find out what would happen. No closure here, though, and for me that is the haunting beauty of short stories at their best.

‘Track’ is the dissection of a relationship from the point of view of a young Irish woman in New York, girlfriend of a famous comedian. She shelters behind his apparent strength and the reason for her fragility is hinted at as we go along. But as his star wanes, so she gains in confidence and disdain for him. Again, this story stops short of a neat ending and I was left wanting to know how things would turn out for a character I’d become invested in.

Right up my street and highly recommended.

I have now been able to read the complete collection and was not disappointed. I was particularly taken with ‘Parrot’ about a young woman trying to take responsibility for a troubled stepson, connecting more with him than his schoolteachers. I consider the two stories chosen for the sampler, however, are by far the best.

With many thanks to Bloomsbury via NetGalley for the opportunity to read an ARC.

[Sarah]

DNF @ 30%

[8stitches 9lives · Rating 5 out of 5]

Show Them a Good Time was one of my most anticipated books of 2019, and after nabbing a sample that blew me away I was eager to read the full spectrum of stories; Ms Flattery certainly didn't disappoint, in that respect, as it turned out to exceed my expectations. I usually read a few anthologies, but this is a selection of short stories with one significant difference: they are all written by the same writer. These are most appropriately described as beautifully written, original and quite offbeat, and being a fan of allegory and surrealist fiction, these indeed appealed to me.

Many of them are subversive and come at the perfect time when stereotypical male/female roles are being questioned and the gender identity barrier being broken down. I loved that each story inspires you to think for yourself, and instead of explaining everything allowed it to be a reader tailored experience sending each intrepid adventurer down a wholly different path. Ms Flattery is a bold writer, unapologetically penning the stories she sees fit rather than writing for the mass market; that has put her firmly in my favourite authors camp. She knows how to upset the apple cart and do it well. A must-read for aficionados of the absurd, and my favourite ever short story collection.

Many thanks to Ros at Bloomsbury & Bloomsbury Circus for an ARC.

[Marcia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Het is moeilijk om iets de schrijven over Maak er een feest van. Nicole Flattery schrijft over zonderlinge vrouwen, zijn ze gek of spiritueel of zitten ze vast in de rol die de maatschappij hen toebedeeld? Zijn de verhalen geniaal of simpelweg vreemd?

Zowel de verhalen als de schrijfstijl hebben iets weg van Kristen Roupenians Je weet dat je dit wil – een boek dat mij persoonlijk ook niet helemaal lag. Soms deden de onsympathieke personages me dan weer denken aan die van Ottessa Moshfegh in verhalenbundel Heimwee naar een andere wereld. De vliegen in de mond in ‘Flirten’ lijken iets bovennatuurlijks of paranormaal (of ingebeeld, dat kan natuurlijk ook). Net als Daisy Johnson in Veenland durft Flattery de grenzen van de realiteit op te rekken. Maar het niveau van Johnson en Moshfegh weet ze bij lange na niet te halen.

Maak er een feest van is een bevreemdende verhalenbundel op de grens van realiteit en het paranormale. Met het einde van de wereld in zicht proberen verschillende vrouwen het beste van hun leven te maken. Nicole Flattery schrijft over eenzame, imperfecte vrouwen. Op een tweetal steengoede verhalen na, ben ik niet laaiend enthousiast over deze bundel. Misschien heb ik iets gemist, maar ‘vreemd’ is het woord dat mij bijblijft na het lezen.

‘Ik heb m’n twijfels,’ zegt Lucy. ‘Ik heb m’n twijfels. Ik weet niet of ik het snap.’
Het licht op beide meisjes neemt uiteindelijk af.
Stilte.
Verduistering.
Doek valt.

Mijn complete recensie lees je op Boekvinder.be.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nicole Flattery is a young (in her early 30’s) Irish writer from Galway. This is a collection of short stories, which is her primary genre. She has a graduate degree in Creative Writing from Trinity College Dublin, joining other Irish women writers who have degrees from Trinity, including Sally Rooney, and Anne Enright.

This book has gained rave reviews, but I am not persuaded by them enough to like this book. The stories were often absurdist, dark, and relentless. They have been described as “extremely funny” (cover blurb from The Observer), but I didn’t laugh at all. It seemed that the protagonist of each story was the same person because there was no difference in thinking, attitude or actions that distinguished one from another from story to story. Sometimes the protagonist was a sex worker, or an abused employee, or unappreciated girlfriend. These were women with no agency. The collection felt like an anti-feminist or at best non-feminist. Maybe they are supposed to be post-feminist, whatever that is.

Flattery’s study of playwriting is evident in Abortion: A Love Story an almost 80-page story about two dysfunctional female college students who write an absurdist play. I was ready to abandon the book at this point. Fortunately, the stories that follow improved. At a book club discussion of the book, there was a clear division of opinion along age lines with readers under 40 more positive. 2.5 stars rounded up to 3.

[Rozanne Visagie · Rating 3 out of 5]

*Disclaimer: I was kindly gifted a copy of this book by Jonathan Ball Publishers in exchange for an honest review.



"I thought I would be a different person by this time in my life, but I was actually becoming less like someone else and more like myself."

Show Them A Good Time by Nicole Flattery is a collection of eight short stories touching different topics such as modern life, women and dating as well as the different roles women have in life.
I find it difficult to review an anthology since it consists of more than one story and the themes are so diverse. All of the stories contribute to the overall likeability of a book and some stories are liked or enjoyed more than others.

The titles of the short stories are:
Show Them A Good Time
Sweet Talk
Hump
Abortion, a Love Story
Track
Parrot
You're Going to Forget Me Before I Forget You
Not the End Yet

For me, this was a peculiar read; I found the narrative a bit different to what I'm used to but the stories are easy to follow. You will find that this book is different the moment you start reading it, but that is what makes this book unique. At times I wasn't completely sure what I read, but this feeling of uncertainty helps the reader to get accustomed to the unfamiliarity with the characters and the change of themes in each story.

The author's writing style is unique and captures the reader's attention in a different way. You need to approach this book with an open mind and allow the author to twist and turn your attention in different ways. The genre of short stories are like uncharted territory; you feel uncomfortable at first but as soon as you start exploring, curiosity takes over.

This review is posted on my blog:
https://willowscornerbook.wordpress.c...

[Mark Bailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

'I told myself I was okay, the best okay I'd ever been, but it was hard to believe it anymore'

Brilliant debut collection of eight short stories from Irish writer Nicole Flattery.

A nice mix of transgressive, sardonic, unnerving feminist tales featuring women at the cusp of madness, largely at the behest of men.

At times very abstract, but there's a level of accessibility to them due to Flattery's unique and eloquent style:

'She knew if someone glanced inside her car, they would think: That woman's life has gone to shit, and she has been living, like a pig, in her car'.

A few of these tales appeared in prolific literary magazines The Stinging Fly and White Review and based on the quality of some of the writers picked up from those publications there was an expectation for this collection to deliver - and it did.

Standouts: Show Them a Good Time (title story), Sweet Talk, Not The End Yet, Parrot.

[Nicole (Nerdish.Maddog) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories that all use dark humor to tell strange feminist tales. I am a huge fan of transgressive fiction and each of the tales seem to bend more in that direction while still offering relevant commentary on society. Like most collections of stories, some of them hit with me and some were a miss. Not the End Yet was my favorite of the stories and made the whole book worth it.

[Marissa Tremblay · Rating 1 out of 5]

ce livre aura prit tout mon petit jus, plate à morte j’ai pas fini toutes les histoires oupsiiii

[Cathérine · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5 *

[Jaclyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really disliked many stories in this collection (the title story most of all). I even feel generous calling it a collection. But there were three wonderful stories and I wish I had read them in the literary journals where I’m sure they were originally published rather than this ill-conceived book.

[Caoimhe White · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really didn't enjoy this. Each short story shared the same theme and seemingly the same main character: a woman disenfranchised with the world. I didn't like the weird abstraction which meant you couldn't even understand what little plot there was, and the cynicism went way overboard. Do not recommend to a friend.

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short story collection reminiscent of Her Body and Other Parties - just as feminist, though in a rather different way. Whereas there was an underlying love for women's bodies - a certain tenderness even when Machado's stories depicted the stories of violence laced with magical realism - Flattery tries for a more cut and dry approach.

These are stories of women you don't hear much about - women that, even as a professed feminist, one may harbor conflicting feelings about; call girls, a famous comedian's trophy girlfriend, the other woman. It feels like a viscious form of theraphy - chuckling at a dark quip about the 101 ways men condescend, before questioning whether you should be laughing at all.

My personal favorite from this collection is Parrot - which happens to end relatively more hopefully than most of the stories. The other stories I found obscure at best and absurd at worst. But easy enough to get through, thanks to Flattery's wry humor and slicing prose.

3.5/5

[Lexi · Rating 3 out of 5]

a truly baffling collection of short stories. purposefully inscrutable, i think i respect the risks this took rather than actually enjoyed it? oftentimes these characters felt like actors playing actors in a play, as the roles they inhabit become compounded and reality begins to blur, ie characters existing as false archetypes of what they “should” be in the role of office worker, second wife, lover, etc and how this causes them to break down (mentally, physically, metaphorically). this is most evident in “abortion, a love story,” which imo i didn’t “like” as a story but def fascinated me in terms of reimagining what a short story can be. didn’t warm to the characters but was interested in how it engages with the absurd/feels almost like performance art? this collection felt repetitive and surface level in its commentary. liked the writing but overall kinda a slog to get through.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is like if you want to read eight mini versions of Beautiful World, Where Are You. I enjoyed each one, but having them all wrapped together made them feel a bit redundant and I probably lost the individual effect. I did love a little bit of the absurdity in some of them, and the characters were certainly entertaining. Looking forward to reading Flattery's novel now, the main reason I read this.

[Marjolein (UrlPhantomhive) · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 Stars

Review will follow

[Jo Randall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me when a story is surreal 🤩

Me when women say reprehensible things 🥰

[Elise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Show Them A Good Time features incisively self-aware (mostly) younger women navigating their dissatisfaction with their relationships. The precision of Flattery's sentences and social commentary often made me laugh out loud!

[Bookthesp1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another wunderkind from Ireland after Sally Rooney, Anna Burns and others. Nicole Flattery has had much flattery (as it were) about this book, snapped up by publishers along with a forthcoming novel, all looking for the next big thing. Short stories are also very much in vogue, supposedly being the harder write than a novel because so much has to be crammed in quickly- and the stories have to be quick to impress. The downside is a sort of deliberate post modern retrained and artfully deployed steam of self consciousness and in this volume Flattery seems to go out of her way to not explain; to be obtuse; to tease and annoy and dare the reader to stay with it. Some stories seem decidedly flat-(Flattery put the Flat in Flattery as it were); creative writing exercises masquerading as stories with something to say- the title story is a little of that as was Abortion; a love story. My "favourites" (ie-ones I am more certain I have made my mind up about) were Sweet Talk, Not the end yet and Track.
When I flicked to the photo on the end covers I see a confident, intelligent and kick ass sort of woman seemingly demanding a good review.Most of her lead characters are female and the men (such as they are) are not much to speak of. The title of the collection is also partly a provocation. My initial gut feeling was 3 stars for this but Flattery's intense stare in the photo and some nuggets of fine writing in the stories forces my hand..so 4 it is. Hoping Flattery will get me everywhere.

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nicole Flattery's short story collection Show Them a Good Time is dementedly funny, a sendup of the hellish absurdity of modern life. The stories follow aimless, disaffected, and rebelling women and the strictures of imposed gender roles on said women.

Some of the stories are realist, some are surreal, and some are a combination of both. What's remarkable and rare is that Flattery excels at all these styles equally. Her stories remind me of Yorgos Lanthimos's films, in that everything is slightly skewed. The characters are trapped in a system with arbitrary rules everyone else seems to blindly follow.

The standout story for me was "Abortion, A Love Story." It's a diptych of two women's lives which are in some ways a reflection of each other and in some ways the inverse. It's one of the most wildly original things I've ever read. The experimental nature of this piece is truly exciting.

Flattery has a knack for illuminating truths through a surrealist lens. Reading Show Them a Good Time is like looking at society through a microscope on acid. I'd recommend this book to fans of Alexandra Kleeman, Ottessa Moshfegh, Kristen Roupenian, Helen Oyeyemi, and Carmen Maria Machado. I'll read anything else that Flattery writes.