The Runaway Restaurant

by Tessa Yang

A young woman falls in love with a biohacked model, a woman with gadgets implanted in various parts of her body. A mother searches for her missing daughter by taking on a hitchhiker in the hopes of finding a restaurant rumored to be a destination for runaways. A man suddenly starts dreaming the dreams of his girlfriend, but is she dreaming his? After a pandemic wipes out modern civilization, a group of survivors must decide whether to merge with the Mother Earthlings, a clan determined to repopulate the Earth.

A book for lovers of Doris Lessing and Emily St. John Mandel, Tessa Yang’s The Runaway Restaurant marks the arrival of a wry and haunting new voice in speculative literary fiction.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy

188 pages, Paperback

Published October 10, 2022

About the author

Tessa Yang is a reader, writer, and shark enthusiast from New York State. She received her MFA from Indiana University where she served as the Editor of Indiana Review.

Her debut story collection, The Runaway Restaurant, was published by 7.13 Books in 2022. Her debut novel, The Jellyfish Problem, will be published by Berkley in 2026. Tessa's stories have appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, The Cincinnati Review, Foglifter, and elsewhere, while her flash fiction has been featured in Best Small Fictions, Flash Fiction America, and Wigleaf's Top 50 Very Short Fictions.

For irregular musings on writing or to learn more about Tessa's work:

🦈 sign up for Tessa's newsletter
🌐 Check out her website
🦋 Follow her on Bluesky

Reviews

[Cara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strongly recommend! Tessa Yang’s creativity in each story is unique and enthralling. I know I can read this again and again and discover something new every time. Can’t wait to see what Yang shares with the world next- watch out for this name!

[Chauna Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Distinctive and original in voice, this collection blends the best of speculative, fantastic plot elements (ghosts, kids with superpowers, modern witches, and people who dream other people's dreams) with real emotional pull. And I appreciated the queer storylines too! I loved this book and look forward to more work by this young, talented author.

[Tara Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I often use Yang's "Princess Shipwreck" in my flash fiction classes as an example of playful use of language, showing change through imagery, and creatively reimagining stories we think we know. This whole collection shared those strengths, making it a pleasure to explore. Yang serves up the world we think we know, but with a twist. Her stories are haunting and memorable, with real relationships at the core of the fabulist elements.

[Linda (The Arizona Bookstagrammer) · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The Runaway Restaurant” by Tessa Yang ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre: speculative short stories. Location: Here, there, and everywhere. Time: What is time anyway?

This short story collection takes us from shipwrecked fairytale princesses living their best lives to a dorm room haunted by maple leaves to a dystopian future where people gather together to survive. A number of the stories share the theme of children whose parents do not take care of or protect them. Most stories deal with close relationships and loss. But don’t worry- author Yang tells her stories with a wry sense of humor.

Some of the questions her stories prompt you to consider are:
*If your daughter ran away, could you find the Runaway Restaurant?
*What if you found a rainy beach sanctuary for witches, but once there, you could never leave?
*What if you dreamed your girlfriend’s dreams? Is that theft?
*What if you could make snow with your body?
And the final short story about an elderly woman: What if you died, and found out there were more ghosts than living people?

Yang’s prose is rich and insightful. Her stories are brilliantly ambiguous. Their plots are so tender and delicate that you want them to expand and grow like fantastic plants. (How did the snow girl survive? Did the coma lovers reunite? Did the human cyberparts industry change? Did the tiny dragon come back?) What a glorious debut for Tessa Yang! It’s 5 stars from me🌵📚💁🏼‍♀️

[Willy Palomo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection is sold as speculative fiction about searching for homes or being displaced. That is true and given the range of subject matter--shipwrecked princesses, cosmetic cyborg experimentation, the search for a runaway teen--i didn't expect the stories to cohere so singularly, especially as I read them intermittently on my kindle, on the bus, waiting in a doctor's office. I often found myself with the same wordless feeling that felt so familiar to me. After some living and reading, I realized it was the same feeling I get when I feel painfully in my brown queerness. A parentless pair of siblings who steal to survive; teens with X-men-like powers incarcerated with some of the powers eventually eradicated. It's queer, even when it's not. Tessa perhaps isn't the type to market herself as a primarily queer author, but there's something undeniably queer for me about these stories in their out of placeness. By nailing this feeling, it made me feel less alone and a little shocked that Tessa knew about my little private interior feeling. I truly hope The Runaway Restaurant finds its audience of weirdos and wordies and more.

[Dale Stromberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Each one of these literary speculative short stories is piquant and well crafted, and a surprising majority even impart that rare, complex satisfaction of having encountered literary fineness. I tend to dog-ear standout stories as I read collections; with The Runaway Restaurant I found myself dog-earing story after story (a rather extravagant use of dog-ears). The book is an expert blend of emotional resonance and curio-fiction oddness, a bittersweet intermingling of longing, hope, quiet humour, and adventurousness.

[George Hovis · Rating 5 out of 5]

In stories of contemporary witches and everyday superheroes trying to coexist in societies of heterosexist muggles; dystopian accounts of surgically implanted circuit boards that do nothing more than make a fashion statement; a ghost-victim of the WWII internment of Japanese-Americans, dispossessed yet again in an afterlife crowded with spirits; these tales are speculative fiction at its best: smart, tender, tough, full of verve, line after lyrical line!

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a great collection of short stories, probably the best I’ve ever read. They all kept my attention, and I was never bored. Each one was like a little window into a different world, so fully realized. I cannot wait to read more from the author and look forward to a novel in the future. So wonderful!

[Amelia · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. Some fun and interesting short speculative (and queer-ish) fiction. Some of the stores were stronger than others but overall it was enjoyable :)

[Brianna · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read. Never predictable, each story richly detailed despite the short length. Not usually a short story person, or a re-reader, but this is something I would return to.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

I greatly enjoyed each piece in this short story collection. This was a wonderful display of Yang's style and variety of works.

[Jen Michalski · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a rich, imaginative debut! Parents searching for years-missing children, a group of witches in a sleepy New England town trapped by a spell, survivors of a deadly plague in a post-apocalyptic world, students navigating freshman year amid familial loss--The Runaway Restaurant has something for everyone. Navigating a heavy sense of loss and lost, Yang finds a way to bring people together through the smallest, most surprising gestures. I continued to think about these stories long after I finished them.

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Entertaining, quirky, and unique.

[Yume Kitasei · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to shout about this book, because it was brilliant and deft: a flawless debut.

This short story collection includes the full literary-to-speculative range from a woman searching for a lost daughter at a magical restaurant for runaways, shipwrecked fairy tale princesses living gloriously savage lifestyles on uninhabited islands, girls in institutions coming into magical powers that could reshape the world, cyberpunk implant fashion models, and a woman trying to preserve her body autonomy in a post-apocalyptic world.

There are moments that are deeply affecting, sentences that make you stop and swallow hard, but also an ever-present sly humor that jabs you in the ribs when you least expect it and leaves you cackling on your couch.

I loved this so much!

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC!

[Korra Late · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection was so engaging and thought-provoking. I found myself wanting to sit and digest the stories to give them each the space to breathe in my imagination. As someone who has never (willingly) read a collection of short stories before, I found that this delightful series changed my mind about picking up another. Can't wait to see what else this author cooks up!