What do you think?
Rate this book
Smart Ovens for Lonely People
Conspiracies, memes, and therapies of various efficacy underpin this beguiling short-story collection from Elizabeth Tan.
In the titular story, a cat-shaped oven tells a depressed woman she doesn’t have to be sorry anymore. A Yourtopia Bespoke Terraria employee becomes paranoid about the mounting coincidences in her life. Four girls gather to celebrate their underwear in ‘Happy Smiling Underwear Girls Party’, a hilarious take-down of saccharine advertisements.
With her trademark wit and slicing social commentary, Elizabeth Tan’s short stories are as funny as they are insightful. This collection cements her role as one of Australia’s most inventive writers.
In the titular story, a cat-shaped oven tells a depressed woman she doesn’t have to be sorry anymore. A Yourtopia Bespoke Terraria employee becomes paranoid about the mounting coincidences in her life. Four girls gather to celebrate their underwear in ‘Happy Smiling Underwear Girls Party’, a hilarious take-down of saccharine advertisements.
With her trademark wit and slicing social commentary, Elizabeth Tan’s short stories are as funny as they are insightful. This collection cements her role as one of Australia’s most inventive writers.
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2020
74 people are currently reading
1887 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Tan
15 books47 followersElizabeth Tan is a Perth writer and sessional academic at Curtin University. Her work has appeared in Best Australian Stories 2016, The Lifted Brow, Seizure, Pencilled In, Westerly, Overland, Mascara Literary Review, and other Australian journals and anthologies. Her first book, Rubik, was published in 2017.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 156 reviews
August 27, 2024
*** Longlisted for the 2021 Stella Prize***
"Because I can’t call anybody, even though that’s what people say - you can call me anytime. To say what? I am bored? I am sad? I want to die?"
- Smart Ovens for Lonely People
Twenty short stories. And by short, I mean some are tiny. A mere two pages. Though technically could it be only one page (do you count both sides of the paper?).
See? This collection has left me in a daze. Varying levels of weirdness abound in these stories. Some I didn't understand at all, while others had me in awe. Like being part of a very special club with only a few members. You know, the “secret word” or that “look” that is shared by a select few? That’s this book.
The absolute standout for me was the story sharing the book’s title Smart Ovens for Lonely People. Brilliant, clever, out there. It’s worth getting this book simply to read this gem. I loved it. It spoke to me on so many levels. In a world (in the not too distant future?) “therapy ovens” are available - I can think of no other way to describe them - for people in need of emotional rescue (queue the Rolling Stones song). And not only are they smart ovens, they are Neko Ovens. Neko being the Japanese word for “cat”. So the ovens are cat shaped. As a feline enthusiast, this brought me no end of joy. The ovens provide company and non-discriminatory advice, as well as cooking lessons for those in need of help.
Here are some wise words - with a bit of cutting and dicing - from Neko Oven:
”Conversations do not need to be good or bad. They can just be conversations.”
“If we were to apply your metaphor about messages inside bottles, we could say that you discovered new bottles on the shore of your solitary island, a fresh reminder that there are other islands and other people throwing bottles that while you are alone on your island you are not alone in the ocean.”
“Please dice one onion finely. Please cut the mini Roma tomatoes into quarters.“
I love, love, loved this story. It would be wonderful to see an entire book, or at least a novella expanding on this idea. An anthology of different people and how the Neko Oven helped them overcome - or at least tried to help them - to live with the anxiety that was holding them back. To realise they’re so much more than a bad day, or a bad week. And about strangers reaching out to each other and connecting. Again, loved. I know I’m being boring here, but this story had such an impact.
” ‘ I never said thank you,’ he said. ‘for what you did that day.’
‘I never said thank you either,’ I said.
He smiled a little. ‘What are the odds? Two people choosing the same overpass to jump from. The same time, the same day.’
‘Yeh.’ “
Washing Day is a tale of washing machines going rogue. So many questions. How were they synchronised to dispose of everyone’s wash on the exact same day, as the exact same time? Why did they do it? Where did everyone’s clothes go? This was an interesting take on the emotional attachment we give to material (pardon the pun) items, including clothes. As so often they evoke memories of wearing a favourite dress or a special shirt, and take you back to a certain time. Where you were and who you were with that makes this item of clothing mean so much. Even if it no longer fits. And is kept hanging in the wardrobe without hope of being worn again, it still has value. This also shows how our clothes can define us. How as much as we think they don’t, and maintain it doesn’t matter, our choice of clothing provides others with impressions of us. And how clothing can evoke a memory of a different version of ourselves. It can be an armour or a confidence booster. The link between our outerwear and inner selves is interesting. This story was super quirky and more than a bit unsettling. Be wary of putting on a load of washing at the wrong time…
The désolé of the Unicorn in the middle of a Westfield courtyard A Girl Is Sitting on a Unicorn in the Middle of a Shopping Centre made me feel quite emotional. The overload of everyday life, where everyday is SALE! day, and the noise just gets to overload decibels. There are days I want it to stop too. I hear you, dear Unicorn.
”There is a girl sitting on a unicorn in the middle of a shopping centre, framed in the square of a skylight…”.
”Everything in the girl’s life is small and satisfying, but she listens to the unicorn and hugs its neck and says that it’s ok to be sad and it’s ok to feel like you would like it to stop.”
I found the stories were a bit uneven, and several missed the mark for me. But that’s probably because the ones I enjoyed, I also loved. They really were on point for me. With others, I had absolutely no clue what they were about. Or even alluded to. But that’s ok.
Quirky and quaint, with a huge dollop of whimsy.
An extra ½ star for Shaun Tan's Lost Thing being mentioned in one of the stories. His work flies under the radar too much.
Overall a satisfying read, which will have you opening your inner goofball if you allow it to. I love short stories. They’re like a box of Cadbury’s favourites. You might not get to pick your favourite each time, but you might find another one which surprises you. 3.5 pondering ☆ stars.
As always, a big shout out to Randwick City Library for such an amazing selection of books. It keeps the readers returning, and reading is oh-so-important.
" 'Plant a seed. Maybe it is a flower. Maybe it is a rose,' the pigeon says. 'It will surely become one of those. You must plant it in order to discover which one will grow. That's the secret nobody knows.'"
-Shirt Dresses That Look A Little Too much Like Shirts…
"Because I can’t call anybody, even though that’s what people say - you can call me anytime. To say what? I am bored? I am sad? I want to die?"
- Smart Ovens for Lonely People
Twenty short stories. And by short, I mean some are tiny. A mere two pages. Though technically could it be only one page (do you count both sides of the paper?).
See? This collection has left me in a daze. Varying levels of weirdness abound in these stories. Some I didn't understand at all, while others had me in awe. Like being part of a very special club with only a few members. You know, the “secret word” or that “look” that is shared by a select few? That’s this book.
The absolute standout for me was the story sharing the book’s title Smart Ovens for Lonely People. Brilliant, clever, out there. It’s worth getting this book simply to read this gem. I loved it. It spoke to me on so many levels. In a world (in the not too distant future?) “therapy ovens” are available - I can think of no other way to describe them - for people in need of emotional rescue (queue the Rolling Stones song). And not only are they smart ovens, they are Neko Ovens. Neko being the Japanese word for “cat”. So the ovens are cat shaped. As a feline enthusiast, this brought me no end of joy. The ovens provide company and non-discriminatory advice, as well as cooking lessons for those in need of help.
Here are some wise words - with a bit of cutting and dicing - from Neko Oven:
”Conversations do not need to be good or bad. They can just be conversations.”
“If we were to apply your metaphor about messages inside bottles, we could say that you discovered new bottles on the shore of your solitary island, a fresh reminder that there are other islands and other people throwing bottles that while you are alone on your island you are not alone in the ocean.”
“Please dice one onion finely. Please cut the mini Roma tomatoes into quarters.“
I love, love, loved this story. It would be wonderful to see an entire book, or at least a novella expanding on this idea. An anthology of different people and how the Neko Oven helped them overcome - or at least tried to help them - to live with the anxiety that was holding them back. To realise they’re so much more than a bad day, or a bad week. And about strangers reaching out to each other and connecting. Again, loved. I know I’m being boring here, but this story had such an impact.
” ‘ I never said thank you,’ he said. ‘for what you did that day.’
‘I never said thank you either,’ I said.
He smiled a little. ‘What are the odds? Two people choosing the same overpass to jump from. The same time, the same day.’
‘Yeh.’ “
Washing Day is a tale of washing machines going rogue. So many questions. How were they synchronised to dispose of everyone’s wash on the exact same day, as the exact same time? Why did they do it? Where did everyone’s clothes go? This was an interesting take on the emotional attachment we give to material (pardon the pun) items, including clothes. As so often they evoke memories of wearing a favourite dress or a special shirt, and take you back to a certain time. Where you were and who you were with that makes this item of clothing mean so much. Even if it no longer fits. And is kept hanging in the wardrobe without hope of being worn again, it still has value. This also shows how our clothes can define us. How as much as we think they don’t, and maintain it doesn’t matter, our choice of clothing provides others with impressions of us. And how clothing can evoke a memory of a different version of ourselves. It can be an armour or a confidence booster. The link between our outerwear and inner selves is interesting. This story was super quirky and more than a bit unsettling. Be wary of putting on a load of washing at the wrong time…
The désolé of the Unicorn in the middle of a Westfield courtyard A Girl Is Sitting on a Unicorn in the Middle of a Shopping Centre made me feel quite emotional. The overload of everyday life, where everyday is SALE! day, and the noise just gets to overload decibels. There are days I want it to stop too. I hear you, dear Unicorn.
”There is a girl sitting on a unicorn in the middle of a shopping centre, framed in the square of a skylight…”.
”Everything in the girl’s life is small and satisfying, but she listens to the unicorn and hugs its neck and says that it’s ok to be sad and it’s ok to feel like you would like it to stop.”
I found the stories were a bit uneven, and several missed the mark for me. But that’s probably because the ones I enjoyed, I also loved. They really were on point for me. With others, I had absolutely no clue what they were about. Or even alluded to. But that’s ok.
Quirky and quaint, with a huge dollop of whimsy.
An extra ½ star for Shaun Tan's Lost Thing being mentioned in one of the stories. His work flies under the radar too much.
Overall a satisfying read, which will have you opening your inner goofball if you allow it to. I love short stories. They’re like a box of Cadbury’s favourites. You might not get to pick your favourite each time, but you might find another one which surprises you. 3.5 pondering ☆ stars.
As always, a big shout out to Randwick City Library for such an amazing selection of books. It keeps the readers returning, and reading is oh-so-important.
" 'Plant a seed. Maybe it is a flower. Maybe it is a rose,' the pigeon says. 'It will surely become one of those. You must plant it in order to discover which one will grow. That's the secret nobody knows.'"
-Shirt Dresses That Look A Little Too much Like Shirts…
December 19, 2020
Brilliant stories. A little bit Ted Chiang, a little bit George Saunders. A weighted blanket's worth of empathy.
And cats (mostly digital ones.)
And cats (mostly digital ones.)
August 30, 2020
(4.5) If you follow me on any form of social media you’ve probably, at some point, seen me going on about Elizabeth Tan’s novel-in-stories Rubik. I’m perpetually amazed and frustrated that it isn’t widely adored – or at the very least a cult classic. When people ask me to recommend underrated or lesser-known books, Rubik is always part of my answer. The publication of this new collection had somehow passed me by until a few days ago; within minutes of reading about its existence (it’s just been nominated for the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction), I’d snapped it up. It is published by an Australian indie, Brio, but – thank god – the ebook is available in the UK.
Smart Ovens for Lonely People did not let me down. There are 20 stories packed into this book, and they act as a wonderful showcase for the author’s boundless imagination. Her willingness to incorporate esoteric pop culture references makes the stories feel fresh and surprising, as well as very funny. Yet for every piece of surreal hilarity there is a corresponding note of poignancy. The title story in particular is heartrending... even though it centres on the protagonist being given a cat-shaped oven that talks to her. I don’t always know where Elizabeth Tan’s writing is taking me; just that I definitely want to go there.
---
I’m not a big fan of flash fiction – I often don’t feel like I’m really ‘getting’ it – but the two-page-long ‘Night of the Fish’ is one of the best very-short-stories I’ve read. Funny and chilling all at once.
In ‘Our Sleeping Lungs Opened to the Cold’ a group of mermaids, kept in a restaurant tank as ‘floating spectacles’, begin to embrace their aquatic nature and become more fishlike. Told in a poetic yet knowing tone, this story reminded me a lot of Kirsty Logan’s short fiction.
‘Pang & Co. Genuine Scribe Era Stationery Pty Ltd’ belongs to a growing category of stories that (in my head) would fit into the world of Sam Thompson’s Communion Town. When Ira Pang gives a biro to a homeless man, it sets off an unexpected chain of events. The story is laced with intriguing, yet not overt, hints that it’s taking place in the future. I found myself wishing I could stay with it for much longer.
Meanwhile, ‘Eighteen Bells Karaoke Castle (Sing Your Heart Out)’ is set explicitly in the future, some time after the Year of Unprecedented Ecological Terror and the third collapse of the Sydney Opera House. People come to the karaoke venue of the title for an authentic turn-of-the-millennium experience; the songs are accompanied by stock footage called things like ‘Attractive Caucasian Woman Laughing in Kings Park’. Oh, and the narrator is a human-sized anthropomorphic rabbit who works there. It’s a bit like an Alexander Weinstein story combined with the anime Aggretsuko. Delightfully brilliant, absurd and hilarious – one of those stories I instantly wanted to tell people about, even as I was reading it.
In ‘Smart Ovens for Lonely People’, Shu receives a smart oven after an (initially) mysterious accident. (In the world of the story, the assignation of such an oven is apparently a standard response to trauma.) I expected this to be one of the collection’s quirkier entries. It unfolds into something unexpectedly beautiful and touching, with some of the best observations on depression I’ve read anywhere.
‘Ron Swanson’s Stencilled ’Stache’ opens at an ASMR tournament. Yrma, whose particular niche is reciting whispered mantras, wins her category by repeating the title phrase, which she devises after seeing a mural of the Parks and Recreation character outside the venue. The mantra makes her world-famous, but also plunges her into a bizarre conspiracy. This is an outlandish and very funny espionage adventure that reminded me a lot of the (fantastic) final story/chapter in Rubik, ‘Kuan x 05’.
The narrator of ‘Yes! Yes! Yes You Are! Yes You Are!’ is a cat named O Fortuna. Her tale depicts the activities of a deliciously melodramatic and intellectual band of cats who keep the peace in their neighbourhood, and the conflict that arises when two newcomers (named Her Majesty the Queen and Mr Fluffy Man) turn up. I’d love a crossover between these cats and the ones in Lynne Truss’s Cat out of Hell.
‘Disobeying’ has a KILLER premise: at a literary festival, a writer is approached by a stranger who’d like her to sign his copy of her book. But the book is one she has not written... yet. If you don’t want to read the story on the basis of that alone, I don’t know what to say to you. This is probably the most conventional story in the collection, and it says something about Tan’s skill that it works just as well as the totally off-the-wall ones.
‘This is Not a Treehouse’ is ostensibly about a woman’s ire towards her boyfriend over the fact that he’s building a treehouse. It spins in loads of different directions, all of which fit wonderfully together, and includes a great group therapy anecdote. It’s an incredibly good dissection of the dynamics of a failing relationship.
‘Shirt Dresses That Look a Little Too Much Like Shirts So That It Looks Like You Forgot to Put On Pants (Love Will Save the Day)’ features a company that engineers meet-cutes between incorporeal entities and a robotic pigeon programmed to speak in lyrics from 90s pop songs. It’s pretty short but nevertheless made me snort with laughter several times.
My final favourite is the last and possibly best story, ‘You Put the U in Utopia (or, The Last Neko Atsume Player in the World)’. Mika works for a company that produces bespoke terraria, though she’s pretty unhappy with her job, and in her spare time she’s a devoted player of Neko Atsume, the mobile game where you collect cats. This is a story about starting to date someone you really like, then suspecting they are a spy; speculating on the sentience of digital cats; and solemnly concluding that ‘we are all hollaback girls’. Considering that I used to regularly play Neko Atsume and, like Mika, have repeatedly had a minor crisis about the respective size of my eyes, I feel like it may very well have been written specifically for me. Which, given the eventual implication that everything is connected, feels very apt.
TinyLetter | Linktree
Smart Ovens for Lonely People did not let me down. There are 20 stories packed into this book, and they act as a wonderful showcase for the author’s boundless imagination. Her willingness to incorporate esoteric pop culture references makes the stories feel fresh and surprising, as well as very funny. Yet for every piece of surreal hilarity there is a corresponding note of poignancy. The title story in particular is heartrending... even though it centres on the protagonist being given a cat-shaped oven that talks to her. I don’t always know where Elizabeth Tan’s writing is taking me; just that I definitely want to go there.
---
I’m not a big fan of flash fiction – I often don’t feel like I’m really ‘getting’ it – but the two-page-long ‘Night of the Fish’ is one of the best very-short-stories I’ve read. Funny and chilling all at once.
In ‘Our Sleeping Lungs Opened to the Cold’ a group of mermaids, kept in a restaurant tank as ‘floating spectacles’, begin to embrace their aquatic nature and become more fishlike. Told in a poetic yet knowing tone, this story reminded me a lot of Kirsty Logan’s short fiction.
‘Pang & Co. Genuine Scribe Era Stationery Pty Ltd’ belongs to a growing category of stories that (in my head) would fit into the world of Sam Thompson’s Communion Town. When Ira Pang gives a biro to a homeless man, it sets off an unexpected chain of events. The story is laced with intriguing, yet not overt, hints that it’s taking place in the future. I found myself wishing I could stay with it for much longer.
Meanwhile, ‘Eighteen Bells Karaoke Castle (Sing Your Heart Out)’ is set explicitly in the future, some time after the Year of Unprecedented Ecological Terror and the third collapse of the Sydney Opera House. People come to the karaoke venue of the title for an authentic turn-of-the-millennium experience; the songs are accompanied by stock footage called things like ‘Attractive Caucasian Woman Laughing in Kings Park’. Oh, and the narrator is a human-sized anthropomorphic rabbit who works there. It’s a bit like an Alexander Weinstein story combined with the anime Aggretsuko. Delightfully brilliant, absurd and hilarious – one of those stories I instantly wanted to tell people about, even as I was reading it.
In ‘Smart Ovens for Lonely People’, Shu receives a smart oven after an (initially) mysterious accident. (In the world of the story, the assignation of such an oven is apparently a standard response to trauma.) I expected this to be one of the collection’s quirkier entries. It unfolds into something unexpectedly beautiful and touching, with some of the best observations on depression I’ve read anywhere.
‘Ron Swanson’s Stencilled ’Stache’ opens at an ASMR tournament. Yrma, whose particular niche is reciting whispered mantras, wins her category by repeating the title phrase, which she devises after seeing a mural of the Parks and Recreation character outside the venue. The mantra makes her world-famous, but also plunges her into a bizarre conspiracy. This is an outlandish and very funny espionage adventure that reminded me a lot of the (fantastic) final story/chapter in Rubik, ‘Kuan x 05’.
The narrator of ‘Yes! Yes! Yes You Are! Yes You Are!’ is a cat named O Fortuna. Her tale depicts the activities of a deliciously melodramatic and intellectual band of cats who keep the peace in their neighbourhood, and the conflict that arises when two newcomers (named Her Majesty the Queen and Mr Fluffy Man) turn up. I’d love a crossover between these cats and the ones in Lynne Truss’s Cat out of Hell.
‘Disobeying’ has a KILLER premise: at a literary festival, a writer is approached by a stranger who’d like her to sign his copy of her book. But the book is one she has not written... yet. If you don’t want to read the story on the basis of that alone, I don’t know what to say to you. This is probably the most conventional story in the collection, and it says something about Tan’s skill that it works just as well as the totally off-the-wall ones.
‘This is Not a Treehouse’ is ostensibly about a woman’s ire towards her boyfriend over the fact that he’s building a treehouse. It spins in loads of different directions, all of which fit wonderfully together, and includes a great group therapy anecdote. It’s an incredibly good dissection of the dynamics of a failing relationship.
‘Shirt Dresses That Look a Little Too Much Like Shirts So That It Looks Like You Forgot to Put On Pants (Love Will Save the Day)’ features a company that engineers meet-cutes between incorporeal entities and a robotic pigeon programmed to speak in lyrics from 90s pop songs. It’s pretty short but nevertheless made me snort with laughter several times.
My final favourite is the last and possibly best story, ‘You Put the U in Utopia (or, The Last Neko Atsume Player in the World)’. Mika works for a company that produces bespoke terraria, though she’s pretty unhappy with her job, and in her spare time she’s a devoted player of Neko Atsume, the mobile game where you collect cats. This is a story about starting to date someone you really like, then suspecting they are a spy; speculating on the sentience of digital cats; and solemnly concluding that ‘we are all hollaback girls’. Considering that I used to regularly play Neko Atsume and, like Mika, have repeatedly had a minor crisis about the respective size of my eyes, I feel like it may very well have been written specifically for me. Which, given the eventual implication that everything is connected, feels very apt.
TinyLetter | Linktree
February 12, 2021
4.5
Emerging, from 900 pages of the French Revolution into the arms of these pop-coloured Australian short-stories was a discombobulating thrill. I devoured this collection like exquisite, yet oddly flavoured chocolate bonbons after a diet of mouldy bread.
I will say, straight up - I don't think this all works. The weird was occasionally over-egged.
However, the stories that do work are perfect little delights, and they should immediately form the basis of some near-future, surrealist novel, illustrated by Shaun Tan.
I am not going to define which stories fall where because part of the fun is discovering your own perfect bonbons. However, (like others have mentioned) the titular story is the masterpiece to watch for, tonally poised, ticklishly enjoyable.
Elizabeth Tan's imagination, is astonishingly eclectic and, (I will use a word I haven't used since 1993 )-zany. But unlike that word, this writing has a Gen-Z sensibility, smart, dialled into the cultural zeitgeist, LOL funny yet tinged with sadness.
Stella Prize nominee anyone ?
Emerging, from 900 pages of the French Revolution into the arms of these pop-coloured Australian short-stories was a discombobulating thrill. I devoured this collection like exquisite, yet oddly flavoured chocolate bonbons after a diet of mouldy bread.
I will say, straight up - I don't think this all works. The weird was occasionally over-egged.
However, the stories that do work are perfect little delights, and they should immediately form the basis of some near-future, surrealist novel, illustrated by Shaun Tan.
I am not going to define which stories fall where because part of the fun is discovering your own perfect bonbons. However, (like others have mentioned) the titular story is the masterpiece to watch for, tonally poised, ticklishly enjoyable.
Elizabeth Tan's imagination, is astonishingly eclectic and, (I will use a word I haven't used since 1993 )-zany. But unlike that word, this writing has a Gen-Z sensibility, smart, dialled into the cultural zeitgeist, LOL funny yet tinged with sadness.
Stella Prize nominee anyone ?
July 30, 2020
Something inherently Aussie about these stories and I absolutely loved it. These were the perfect mix of humour and insanity.
December 19, 2020
Never. That's how often I've found a book I've adored so immensely.
Dear Elizabeth Tan,
Can you publish another one soon? If not, can you email it to me? I'll buy it now.
Thanks,
Yrs Trly,
A stalkerish fan.
Needless to say, I'm seething over this one. I've already run out of E. Tan. Rubik and Smart Ovens took me only three-four days each to devour. How to cope with withdrawal? I'm gnawing on my Kindle at the moment. Ravenous.
SOfLP could be my favorite read of the year. Fitting into the category of contemporary fiction known as Magically Real, Tan operates through a combination of 'surprise and delight' and cognitive dissonance. She is funnier, and more up-to-date than Haruki Murakami. She is not repetitive. The inventiveness of her concepts goes beyond charming into the territory of those haunting sidereal waking dreams, those rabbit holes of introspection sequestered by the unconscious, those nagging foreboding intuitions about the world beyond the curtain of our senses.
An effortless read. A generous collection of startlingly brilliant stories molded around wacky ideas and liminal characters, where mermaids, anthro rabbits, sentient video game avatars, ASMR professionals, talking ovens, treehouse enthusiasts, terraria saleswomen, and many more unconventional strangers converge in a heart-stopping display of immersive storytelling.
I don't care if you 'get' her style or not. I'll take her writing over anyone else's at the moment. I've come across a few hundred masters of the English language, but we live in a time when the only thing many publishers will look at is polished MFA prose, scrubbed lit mag, Italicized, experimental whirlpools of angst. E. T. may not be the most lyrical or learned purveyor of the written word, she may not be the 'safest' pen-wielder, but in my jaded opinion she is the best, category of most favorite flavor of author ice cream. Hints of Aimee Bender, notes of Bae Suah. Comparisons won't do much good for this one.
Please read it.
Dear Elizabeth Tan,
Can you publish another one soon? If not, can you email it to me? I'll buy it now.
Thanks,
Yrs Trly,
A stalkerish fan.
Needless to say, I'm seething over this one. I've already run out of E. Tan. Rubik and Smart Ovens took me only three-four days each to devour. How to cope with withdrawal? I'm gnawing on my Kindle at the moment. Ravenous.
SOfLP could be my favorite read of the year. Fitting into the category of contemporary fiction known as Magically Real, Tan operates through a combination of 'surprise and delight' and cognitive dissonance. She is funnier, and more up-to-date than Haruki Murakami. She is not repetitive. The inventiveness of her concepts goes beyond charming into the territory of those haunting sidereal waking dreams, those rabbit holes of introspection sequestered by the unconscious, those nagging foreboding intuitions about the world beyond the curtain of our senses.
An effortless read. A generous collection of startlingly brilliant stories molded around wacky ideas and liminal characters, where mermaids, anthro rabbits, sentient video game avatars, ASMR professionals, talking ovens, treehouse enthusiasts, terraria saleswomen, and many more unconventional strangers converge in a heart-stopping display of immersive storytelling.
I don't care if you 'get' her style or not. I'll take her writing over anyone else's at the moment. I've come across a few hundred masters of the English language, but we live in a time when the only thing many publishers will look at is polished MFA prose, scrubbed lit mag, Italicized, experimental whirlpools of angst. E. T. may not be the most lyrical or learned purveyor of the written word, she may not be the 'safest' pen-wielder, but in my jaded opinion she is the best, category of most favorite flavor of author ice cream. Hints of Aimee Bender, notes of Bae Suah. Comparisons won't do much good for this one.
Please read it.
February 21, 2020
An incredibly clever, weird and wonderful collection from Elizabeth Tan who is fast becoming one of my favourite young Australian writers. She tackles the absurdities of late capitalism with razor sharp insights and truly inventive writing – the kind of writing that gets you excited about the possibilities of writing. If you missed her debut novel-in-stories Rubik, this collection would be an excellent way to see Tan’s experimental and piercing talent. I loved all of these stories but the titular story is one of my absolute favourites.
June 7, 2020
Brilliant, weird, vivid, funny and sometimes bleak - these stories are hard to categorise. They're about the near future or the present; the triumph or breakdown of tech-capitalism; cats; inanimate objects and more. They're seething with ideas and wit and strangeness - I adored Tan's first novel Rubik, and this is an excellent follow-up.
October 31, 2020
These stories are what happens when a fantastic writer goes down the rabbithole of "What If?" about clothing, terraria, balloons, and the fish in tanks at a Chinese Restaurant. So completely original and brilliantly structured, each is a like the terraria of the final story -- but are they true utopias offering a critical look at our values and stories and beliefs, or degenerate utopias, reflecting back but ultimately reinforcing this strange constructed nature of our lives?
January 2, 2024
Who could’ve guessed I would be giving 5 stars to a short story collection? Not me. Anyways, I will be reading more Elizabeth Tan if I can because this was so quirky, so fun, and creative. I had a blast. All the stories are either wacky-normal or ‘Black Mirror’ but make it quirky instead of dark. It was a pleasure to read.
I had quite a few 5-star stories. 'Pang & Co. Genuine Scribe Era Stationary Pty Ltd’ was strangely sad but the last couple pages made me feel warm inside. The story follows a couple that are approached by a homeless person and the woman gives him a pen (something rare in the future) because that’s what she has. The homeless man kills himself and the couple goes through the aftermath of it all. 'Eighteen Bells Karaoke Castle (Sing Your Heart Out)’ was just really cute, I love karaokes in Korea and I love how the theme here was that people preferred random nonsensical videos instead of the actual music video when they sang.
When I read 'Smart Ovens For Lonely People’ I thought this one would be my favorite. It’s about mental health and getting stuck in mental loops, but also recovering. In the story, the main character gets a Neko Oven, which is a cat-shaped microwave oven that helps you cook and listens to you recover from things, in her case a failed suicide attempt. It does a lot in like 24 pages. But then this story was followed by 'Mounting Sexual Tension Between Two Long-Time Friends; Tom Knows That Ant Is A Spy But Ant Doesn’t’ and you’d think my asexual ass would hate it, but this was my absolute favorite. It was so much fun. Ant and Tom are so cool. Ant is basically being an annoying little bitch with Tom because he’s found guns hidden somewhere and he thinks Tom is a spy. Turns out Ant is the spy and it’s just fun to see how the ‘operation’ works. “We do have a rich and complicated history, don’t we, Tom? Rich, chocolatey, complicated history, with notes of deceit.”
'Washing Day' and 'Would You Rather’ were incredible. One is about washing machines actually making your clothes disappear (they do! Where are my socks??). And Would You Rather is about making the game a reality - if you choose cheese over meat, cheese disappears. 'Happy Smiling Underwear Girls Party’ was also very fun, it touches on being the only Asian person in your group and girl dynamics, but it also has a lot of funny quizzes like what type of men would like you and young girls being influenced by that.
And finally, my last 5-stars are 'This Is Not A Treehouse’ because this was so much fun, it had so much depth. The person building the treehouse had had a vuvuzelafest which killed me. And then this line made me cackle: “I thought the moment that I chose to sneak up on you last night would be funny, but it wasn’t. I didn’t know you were in the middle of shaving your tricky spot.” I liked how the story managed to be funny but also included how mistrust and not wanting to be vulnerable shapes people. And lastly, 'Lola Metronomee And Calliope St Laurent Having A Picnic At The End Of Civilisation As We Know It’. This one was short and sweet, two friends seeing the world end together, telling each other what cheese they would be, reminiscing, thinking of all the things they haven’t done. It was beautiful. I’d be blue cheese.
The few that missed the mark for me were 'Ron Swanson’s Stencilled ‘Stache’, 'Disobeying’, and 'The Meal Channel’. The rest were good and fun. Just overall, very quirky, creative, well written. I want to read more by Tan.
"Those same damn bottles going out and those same damn bottles coming back."
I had quite a few 5-star stories. 'Pang & Co. Genuine Scribe Era Stationary Pty Ltd’ was strangely sad but the last couple pages made me feel warm inside. The story follows a couple that are approached by a homeless person and the woman gives him a pen (something rare in the future) because that’s what she has. The homeless man kills himself and the couple goes through the aftermath of it all. 'Eighteen Bells Karaoke Castle (Sing Your Heart Out)’ was just really cute, I love karaokes in Korea and I love how the theme here was that people preferred random nonsensical videos instead of the actual music video when they sang.
When I read 'Smart Ovens For Lonely People’ I thought this one would be my favorite. It’s about mental health and getting stuck in mental loops, but also recovering. In the story, the main character gets a Neko Oven, which is a cat-shaped microwave oven that helps you cook and listens to you recover from things, in her case a failed suicide attempt. It does a lot in like 24 pages. But then this story was followed by 'Mounting Sexual Tension Between Two Long-Time Friends; Tom Knows That Ant Is A Spy But Ant Doesn’t’ and you’d think my asexual ass would hate it, but this was my absolute favorite. It was so much fun. Ant and Tom are so cool. Ant is basically being an annoying little bitch with Tom because he’s found guns hidden somewhere and he thinks Tom is a spy. Turns out Ant is the spy and it’s just fun to see how the ‘operation’ works. “We do have a rich and complicated history, don’t we, Tom? Rich, chocolatey, complicated history, with notes of deceit.”
'Washing Day' and 'Would You Rather’ were incredible. One is about washing machines actually making your clothes disappear (they do! Where are my socks??). And Would You Rather is about making the game a reality - if you choose cheese over meat, cheese disappears. 'Happy Smiling Underwear Girls Party’ was also very fun, it touches on being the only Asian person in your group and girl dynamics, but it also has a lot of funny quizzes like what type of men would like you and young girls being influenced by that.
And finally, my last 5-stars are 'This Is Not A Treehouse’ because this was so much fun, it had so much depth. The person building the treehouse had had a vuvuzelafest which killed me. And then this line made me cackle: “I thought the moment that I chose to sneak up on you last night would be funny, but it wasn’t. I didn’t know you were in the middle of shaving your tricky spot.” I liked how the story managed to be funny but also included how mistrust and not wanting to be vulnerable shapes people. And lastly, 'Lola Metronomee And Calliope St Laurent Having A Picnic At The End Of Civilisation As We Know It’. This one was short and sweet, two friends seeing the world end together, telling each other what cheese they would be, reminiscing, thinking of all the things they haven’t done. It was beautiful. I’d be blue cheese.
The few that missed the mark for me were 'Ron Swanson’s Stencilled ‘Stache’, 'Disobeying’, and 'The Meal Channel’. The rest were good and fun. Just overall, very quirky, creative, well written. I want to read more by Tan.
"Those same damn bottles going out and those same damn bottles coming back."
March 28, 2021
I’m so glad I picked up this wild and vibrant collection of short stories. I can see that Tan will quickly become an author that I love. Tan walks the line between weird and wonderful almost pitch perfectly here. She presents us with odd environments that somehow always seem to be able to show or tell us something insightful about our own. These quirky tales have everything you want in a short story collection: lots of cats; unusual technology, introspection, and thoughtful meditation on the state of our world and human nature. A delight.
February 20, 2020
Absolutely loved this second dose of Tan brilliance. Exciting, absurd, and mind-melting. Elizabeth Tan is a damn prophet of our hyper-culture.
April 7, 2021
this was so inventive, fun & beautifully written (+ featuring cute cats) !! black mirror wants what this book has
December 13, 2020
What if …
In these twenty short stories, ranging in length up to thirty-two pages, Ms Tan takes us on journeys where smart ovens can help lonely people (at least for a while) and where a homeless man makes his mark with a ballpoint pen.
These are quirky stories, often darkly disturbing. Clever, compact, and compelling.
My favourite was ‘Pang & Co. Genuine Scribe Era Stationery Pty Ltd.’ I am not sure why, except that I wanted to enter the pages to talk to the homeless man.
I liked the cleverness of ‘Smart Ovens for Lonely People’, and the quirkiness of the worlds Ms Tan
creates (albeit briefly) for her characters to inhabit.
Who would not want a cat shaped smart oven?
If you enjoy unusual short stories, then I can recommend this collection.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
In these twenty short stories, ranging in length up to thirty-two pages, Ms Tan takes us on journeys where smart ovens can help lonely people (at least for a while) and where a homeless man makes his mark with a ballpoint pen.
These are quirky stories, often darkly disturbing. Clever, compact, and compelling.
My favourite was ‘Pang & Co. Genuine Scribe Era Stationery Pty Ltd.’ I am not sure why, except that I wanted to enter the pages to talk to the homeless man.
I liked the cleverness of ‘Smart Ovens for Lonely People’, and the quirkiness of the worlds Ms Tan
creates (albeit briefly) for her characters to inhabit.
Who would not want a cat shaped smart oven?
If you enjoy unusual short stories, then I can recommend this collection.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
July 6, 2021
just fantastic. every single story is inventive and well-crafted and thoughtful — personal favourites: A Girl is Sitting on a Unicorn in the Middle of a Shopping Centre and Smart Ovens for Lonely People and This is Not a Treehouse and Lola Metronome and Calliope St Laurent Having a Picnic at the End of Civilisation as We Know It. i just love stories about people!! delightful!!
January 2, 2021
Faith in Australian contemporary lit restored
July 4, 2025
2nd read review:
3.5 stars
okay so this book definitely just required another reading. i kinda get it more now. some stories still make absolutely zero sense to me, but this time around i was able to better appreciate the more straightforward ones and the humourous elements across the book.
something i really liked was the way that tan included queer identity in this collection in a matter-of-fact way. many of the stories included a gay or bisexual character, not for the purpose of adding to the plot, but just because. it may seem like a small detail, but it really means a lot, especially coming from an author who doesn't openly identify as queer themselves.
there were little things, like the backwards structure of excision in f sharp minor or the implications of the absent mother in would you rather, that didn't click until this second read. i think this is definitely one of the most unique books i've ever read, and i'm growing to enjoy it more.
1st read review:
3 stars
i hate that i have to say this but maybe this book was too weird?? even for me?? i just lowkey didn't get it... hopefully studying it in lit will enable me to get it more. i really liked a couple of stories, but there were others that i just TOTALLY didn't get.
my favourites from this (very rushed) first read were pang & co. genuine scribe era stationery pty ltd, smart ovens for lonely people, mounting sexual tension between two long-time friends; tom knows that ant is a spy but ant doesn't, .pptx, washing day, this is not a treehouse, and lola metronome and calliope st laurent having a picnic at the end of civilisation as we know it.
3.5 stars
okay so this book definitely just required another reading. i kinda get it more now. some stories still make absolutely zero sense to me, but this time around i was able to better appreciate the more straightforward ones and the humourous elements across the book.
something i really liked was the way that tan included queer identity in this collection in a matter-of-fact way. many of the stories included a gay or bisexual character, not for the purpose of adding to the plot, but just because. it may seem like a small detail, but it really means a lot, especially coming from an author who doesn't openly identify as queer themselves.
there were little things, like the backwards structure of excision in f sharp minor or the implications of the absent mother in would you rather, that didn't click until this second read. i think this is definitely one of the most unique books i've ever read, and i'm growing to enjoy it more.
1st read review:
3 stars
i hate that i have to say this but maybe this book was too weird?? even for me?? i just lowkey didn't get it... hopefully studying it in lit will enable me to get it more. i really liked a couple of stories, but there were others that i just TOTALLY didn't get.
my favourites from this (very rushed) first read were pang & co. genuine scribe era stationery pty ltd, smart ovens for lonely people, mounting sexual tension between two long-time friends; tom knows that ant is a spy but ant doesn't, .pptx, washing day, this is not a treehouse, and lola metronome and calliope st laurent having a picnic at the end of civilisation as we know it.
October 2, 2024
One of the best books I’ve ever read and instantly my favourite short story collection. This was EVERYTHING I want in a book. It was ENDLESSLY surprising and wonderful and weird and then would sucker punch you with the most gut wrenching lines you’ve ever read. Let this be proof that weird silly short stories can be masterfully well written and moving pieces of art.
I want to tear out every page of this book and swallow it, it’s incredible.
I want to tear out every page of this book and swallow it, it’s incredible.
April 22, 2021
*3.5
Read for uni. I didn't realise this was a short story collection but it was pretty good. I'm not a huge fan of short stories but this had some black mirror elements in it which I really enjoyed.
Read for uni. I didn't realise this was a short story collection but it was pretty good. I'm not a huge fan of short stories but this had some black mirror elements in it which I really enjoyed.
January 22, 2024
i liked this. the stories are insane and most of the time i have no idea what the deeper meaning is, but i liked it. there are some stand outs, like Smart Ovens for Lonely People, the gay spies one, This Is Not a Treehouse etc. But yeah, it was good. Weird, but good.
January 30, 2024
some great individual lines and some stories I really enjoyed. A very weird and experimental collection. This book forces you to keep an open mind.
January 7, 2021
There is one rather good story in this collection. It's the title story, set in a future where smart ovens transform the act of cooking into a kind of therapy. The story works because of a lack of bombast. There is the protagonist, and the cool, considered voice of the oven. It works.
The rest of the stories in this collection though? Not so much. It's not that Elizabeth Tan can't write, that she doesn't have talent. Obviously, she can, and does. But to me, these stories are far too much like those ideas that come to people when they are high: they seem great at the time, but when examined in the cold light of day they are just banal and nonsensical.
Take the ridiculously titled "Lola Metronome and Calliope St Laurent Having a Picnic at the End of Civilisation as We Know It", one of a number of stories that has a ridiculously long name for no apparent reason. In this story, our aforementioned heroines sit and chat, calming sipping champagne while the world ends because... an army of rogue balloons has taken over and is destroying everything. Yeah.
Or "Ron Swanson's Stencilled 'Stache", about an ASMR practitioner (you know, those people who produce YouTube videos of themselves whispering soothing phrases) who enters an ASMR tournament that is being filmed for a documentary. The protagonist's sudden adoption of the story's eponymous phrase as her mantra sweeps her to worldwide fame, only to find that she is caught up in an Illuminati-style conspiracy in which this phrase is banned because it sounds too much like their secret code.
Now look, I don't mind authors exploring the edges of meaning, challenging the limits of logic and understanding. It's what Lewis Carroll does so beautifully in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, for instance. But this kind of randomness is not clever or thought-provoking, for me, it's just random nonsense. Drivel.
I had high expectations of Smart Ovens for Lonely People based on recommendations from people whose tastes I admire. Alas, I can only give it one star, for its promising title story, but as for the rest of the collection, well, it can go endlessly debate with itself whether or not it is a hollaback girl, because: this shit is bananas (readers of the final story will know what I'm talking about).
The rest of the stories in this collection though? Not so much. It's not that Elizabeth Tan can't write, that she doesn't have talent. Obviously, she can, and does. But to me, these stories are far too much like those ideas that come to people when they are high: they seem great at the time, but when examined in the cold light of day they are just banal and nonsensical.
Take the ridiculously titled "Lola Metronome and Calliope St Laurent Having a Picnic at the End of Civilisation as We Know It", one of a number of stories that has a ridiculously long name for no apparent reason. In this story, our aforementioned heroines sit and chat, calming sipping champagne while the world ends because... an army of rogue balloons has taken over and is destroying everything. Yeah.
Or "Ron Swanson's Stencilled 'Stache", about an ASMR practitioner (you know, those people who produce YouTube videos of themselves whispering soothing phrases) who enters an ASMR tournament that is being filmed for a documentary. The protagonist's sudden adoption of the story's eponymous phrase as her mantra sweeps her to worldwide fame, only to find that she is caught up in an Illuminati-style conspiracy in which this phrase is banned because it sounds too much like their secret code.
Now look, I don't mind authors exploring the edges of meaning, challenging the limits of logic and understanding. It's what Lewis Carroll does so beautifully in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, for instance. But this kind of randomness is not clever or thought-provoking, for me, it's just random nonsense. Drivel.
I had high expectations of Smart Ovens for Lonely People based on recommendations from people whose tastes I admire. Alas, I can only give it one star, for its promising title story, but as for the rest of the collection, well, it can go endlessly debate with itself whether or not it is a hollaback girl, because: this shit is bananas (readers of the final story will know what I'm talking about).
January 7, 2021
I liked Elizabeth Tan’s Smart Ovens for Lonely People even more than Robbie liked Cecilia in Atonement. The story .pptx has enough human and romantic engagement to fill two or three Russian novels – and all in just eight paragraphs (take that, Tolstoy!). Ron Swanson’s Stencilled Stache feels like the story Don DeLillo would write if he ever developed an interest in ASMR (Toyota Ceclica-incanting kids, meet the Beyonce-lyric whispering brethren of Gen Y), inhabiting a space somewhere between the terrorist theatrics of Glamorama and the cross-country conspiracy theorising of The Crying of Lot 49.
Continue reading:
https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/...
Continue reading:
https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/...
January 7, 2024
i think i might need a smart oven
January 5, 2025
Did I just read gay porn for high school literature?
July 19, 2025
3.5/5
it was an alright book, and i found certain stories to be more impactful than others. i liked the writing style, with its unique phrasing/analogies, although it did feel a bit simplistic at time. the integration of magical/futuristic/etc. aspects into the worlds was very well done though, and i never found it to be too confusing or anything.
favourite stories were: 'a girl is sitting on a unicorn', 'yes! yes! yes you are!', 'disobeying', and 'this is not a treehouse'.
it was an alright book, and i found certain stories to be more impactful than others. i liked the writing style, with its unique phrasing/analogies, although it did feel a bit simplistic at time. the integration of magical/futuristic/etc. aspects into the worlds was very well done though, and i never found it to be too confusing or anything.
favourite stories were: 'a girl is sitting on a unicorn', 'yes! yes! yes you are!', 'disobeying', and 'this is not a treehouse'.
April 24, 2025
This isn't just a book; it is an experience, for better or worse. I may need some time to recover from the whiplash. Loved how delightfully Australian it was. Some particular short stories glowed (Smart Ovens and Disobeying for instance), and others I was completely baffled by.
Still torn on how to rate and review this book.
Still torn on how to rate and review this book.
January 2, 2021
This bewk was gewd. 20 clever, poignant and punchy short stories. Felt a bit black mirror-ish at times, but funnier. Will read again. 4.5 stars.
January 25, 2025
2.5 ⭐️ I don’t think short stories are for me
January 31, 2024
i had no idea what was going on in half of these stories, i was very lost, very entertained, but very lost. i read all of them because i felt like it but there were a few that i wouldn't want to study
Displaying 1 - 30 of 156 reviews