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Shapeshifting
The fourteen spellbinding stories in Michelle Ross's second collection invite readers into the shadows of social-media perfectionism and the relentless cult of motherhood. A recovering alcoholic navigates the social landscape of a toddler playdate; a mother of two camps out in a van to secure her son's spot at a prestigious kindergarten; a young girl forces her friends to play an elaborate, unwinnable game. With unflinching honesty and vivid, lyric prose, Ross explores the familial ties that bind us together-or, sometimes, tear us apart.
232 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 2, 2021
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1347 people want to read
About the author
Michelle Ross
11 books36 followersMichelle Ross is the author of the story collections There's So Much They Haven't Told You, winner of the 2016 Moon City Short Fiction Award, and Shapeshifting, winner of the 2020 Stillhouse Press Short Fiction Award (November 2021). Her third story collection They Kept Running won the 2021 Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction and is forthcoming in Spring 2022. Her fiction has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Colorado Review, Electric Literature, Witness, and many other venues. Her work is included in Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, and the Wigleaf Top 50, among other anthologies. She is fiction editor of Atticus Review. www.michellenross.com
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
November 6, 2021
LOVED it, blurbed it: Leave it to Michelle Ross to encapsulate the erasure of motherhood in a single sentence: "Now that the baby was no longer inside her, Deena felt like discarded wrapping paper at a birthday party." Lucky for us, SHAPESHIFTING is pregnant with lines like this one. With her new collection, Ross once again demonstrates her surgical precision and scientific mastery as she excavates the divide between bullshit expectations and harsh realities of motherhood. Here is a writer who does not gloss. The roles of women are brutal. There is no shortage of blood. But beneath the social dictates pumps a primal current, to which her characters latch, however desperately, as a reminder that we are all, at our core, nothing but messy, instinctual, glorious animals.
January 7, 2022
I had an opportunity to get my hands on this very special collection of short stories from author Michelle N Ross called Shapeshifting. It is a collection of fourteen stories that I intentionally slowly read in the course of a week, ensuring I don’t devour this in one sitting - which I certainly could have had, but this was meant to be savored. It was a book I was tickled to read as I wound down into the evening with a cup of tea, and on some nights indulging with a glass of wine - which was absolutely perfect to match with these ever so feminist stories about motherhood - the trying and failing, and sometimes accidentally succeeding. Within the stories were pieces of me and Ross really understood the human existence. Motherhood and being a woman was front center in these stories.
Ross is incredibly funny and brilliant, and the writing is incredible!
Ross is incredibly funny and brilliant, and the writing is incredible!
November 7, 2021
Motherhood often gets idealized as “transformative”: Michelle Ross’s hilarious and harrowing collection Shapeshifting explores the monstrous nature of that transformation. What happens to one’s self when one “becomes” a mother? In Ross’s stories, being a parent is in turns selfish, cruel, tragic, terrifying, clinical, petty, and soul-sapping. Wives resent their would-be prophet husbands less for believing themselves “chosen” than for shirking all family responsibilities; mothers fret about the size of their toddler’s penises and ruminate, “all children are experiments—messy, uncontrolled, long-term experiments.” Shapeshifting is a wry, fearless, extremely funny, flat-out dazzling book.
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December 18, 2021A fun and downright frightfully honest set of short stories of motherhood. These were funny and heartbreaking at the same time. If you just want a quick little read, pick this one up.
November 11, 2021
Sharp, funny and frightening. An excellent addition to those rare books that tell the truth about motherhood and childhood.
October 28, 2021
These stories are good!
January 19, 2022
Short story collections are not something I normally gravitate towards, but as a new mom, this collection of stories about motherhood intrigued me. In Shapeshifting, Michelle Ross brings readers 14 stories that explore different aspects of motherhood and how it changes women. The stories were all quite different, and I appreciated that. Each focused on a different type of mother or different stage of motherhood. I wasn't expecting the stories to feel so realistic or relatable, but some of them really were. The tone of the stories was a bit more negative and bleak than I was hoping for, but it all did feel very honest. Some of the stories missed the mark for me - either I felt like I wasn't totally "getting" the intention of the story or they ended too abruptly. However, there were a couple standouts:
"After Pangaea" - This is the first story in the collection and was a great way to start off. A woman is compelled to camp out in her car to make sure she's first on the list to get her son into a good kindergarten. This story touched on how competitive parenting can be, but it also explored how as a mother, she is somewhat expected to do such things, however uncomfortable, for her children, while her husband is praised for doing what seems like the bare minimum at times. She seems completely unappreciated, and I really felt for the character.
"Lifecycle of an Ungrateful Daughter" - This story is told in vignettes at different stages of the mother/daughter relationship. The mother has certain hopes of what their relationship will be like, but inevitably she seems to be disappointed. Motherhood is not what she thought it would be (at least in regards to this child), and although she tries her best, the gap between her and her daughter continues to grow over the years.
"Three-Week Checkup" - I related to this story about a new mother, Deena, and her struggles to make it through each day. I could feel her exhaustion and chuckled a bit at how she responded to the pediatrician's questions about the baby's habits. Thankfully, my husband is way more helpful and involved than Deena's husband, but I still sympathized with her desire to test him and try to get him to help more with the baby.
3.5 stars
"After Pangaea" - This is the first story in the collection and was a great way to start off. A woman is compelled to camp out in her car to make sure she's first on the list to get her son into a good kindergarten. This story touched on how competitive parenting can be, but it also explored how as a mother, she is somewhat expected to do such things, however uncomfortable, for her children, while her husband is praised for doing what seems like the bare minimum at times. She seems completely unappreciated, and I really felt for the character.
"Lifecycle of an Ungrateful Daughter" - This story is told in vignettes at different stages of the mother/daughter relationship. The mother has certain hopes of what their relationship will be like, but inevitably she seems to be disappointed. Motherhood is not what she thought it would be (at least in regards to this child), and although she tries her best, the gap between her and her daughter continues to grow over the years.
"Three-Week Checkup" - I related to this story about a new mother, Deena, and her struggles to make it through each day. I could feel her exhaustion and chuckled a bit at how she responded to the pediatrician's questions about the baby's habits. Thankfully, my husband is way more helpful and involved than Deena's husband, but I still sympathized with her desire to test him and try to get him to help more with the baby.
3.5 stars
January 15, 2022
If you need something to pick up for just a few minutes but still feel like you’ve deep dived and thought about something- then this is your book. Fourteen short stories that Michelle has compiled about the struggles of motherhood and the female life. Motherhood isn’t all roses and at times it can be downright frustrating, scary and hard. This novel gives you sanity in that you are not alone and that someone else feels the way you have at times as well.
This is a nice in between novel in that you can pick it up, read a story or two and put it back down until you have another few minutes to yourself or if you want something to ease your night. I enjoyed these stories and did resonate with quite a few of them. I also love how Michelle uses her words and expressions to explain these stories.
Thank you to TLC Book Tours for the invite and the author for sending me a free autographed copy- this one will go on the bookcase with all of my other autographed novels. This is one, I could see myself reading again and finding some tidbit I missed the first time I read through them.
This is a nice in between novel in that you can pick it up, read a story or two and put it back down until you have another few minutes to yourself or if you want something to ease your night. I enjoyed these stories and did resonate with quite a few of them. I also love how Michelle uses her words and expressions to explain these stories.
Thank you to TLC Book Tours for the invite and the author for sending me a free autographed copy- this one will go on the bookcase with all of my other autographed novels. This is one, I could see myself reading again and finding some tidbit I missed the first time I read through them.
December 1, 2021
This collection was one of my best reads this year. Every story is a perfect gem, illuminating motherhood (and womanhood) from a new, rich, and compelling angle. I couldn't put the book down. The stories land at exactly the right place; no word is wasted here, no comma. I'll often find myself thinking of this text's sharp insights as I move through my day-to-day life. These words stuck with me like glue.
I even shared this book with my own mother, who has an EXCRUCIATINGLY high bar for fiction. (As in: She put "Normal People" down after reading two pages, proclaiming the dialogue "boring.") And SHE LOVED IT!! So if that isn't a testament to this work, I don't know what is. Five stars!
I even shared this book with my own mother, who has an EXCRUCIATINGLY high bar for fiction. (As in: She put "Normal People" down after reading two pages, proclaiming the dialogue "boring.") And SHE LOVED IT!! So if that isn't a testament to this work, I don't know what is. Five stars!
November 12, 2021
An incredible collection of short stories on the theme of motherhood. The stories range from dark comedy to realistic to dystopian and they engage with the topic in different ways, but never the easy and expected ones. Characters grapple with impossible expectations, the specter of "bad motherhood," the isolation of early mothering, and absurd competitiveness (in one story, a mother camps out in a van overnight to sign her son up for a spot in a "good" kindergarten).
I was most familiar with Michelle Ross as a flash fiction writer, but these longer stories are complex, beautifully written, sometimes harrowing, and often very funny.
I was most familiar with Michelle Ross as a flash fiction writer, but these longer stories are complex, beautifully written, sometimes harrowing, and often very funny.
November 20, 2021
This short-story collection is so good, it was painful to put down. With sharp turns from hilarious dry humor to gritty reveals of the negotiations and self-shifting of parenting, it doesn't have a single miss. Seriously--not a single miss. The collection is cohesive, with recurring themes of motherhood, mothering, and being mothered (or not), but also gloriously wide-ranging. There are stories that will break your heart and stories that will leave you marveling at Ross's Saunders-esque world creations--subtle shifts in the world that lay bare what's really going on. Don't miss it. Michelle Ross is a writer to watch.
December 30, 2021
I cannot recommend this stunning short story collection by Michelle Ross more highly. It made me think, feel, laugh, seethe, and wish for a long lost mother figure to exchange gory postcards with. Michelle writes about motherhood, feminism, relationships, and trauma in a way I've never read before. Her stories aren't afraid of showing the reality of girlhood and womanhood for what it is, and how it differs from what society perceives it to be. "The Pregnancy Game" alone was a gut punch. These stories are impressive, fresh, and frankly, crucial.
January 10, 2022
Short story collections are always really hit or miss for me but this one is amazing. I flew through this in one sitting, and I finished it wanting more. I want all of the short stories Michelle Ross can give me. A startlingly honest look into motherhood and the many challenges of it, what should be almost depressing is actually funny, and maybe it's only funny if you're in it, but man... this was exactly what I needed coming out of the holidays.
Stranded in Chaos
Stranded in Chaos
January 19, 2022
This collection of stories is superb. Every single story alone is a wonderful read, yet read together the thematic resonances among the stories enhance the reading experience. This collection captures the extreme ambivalence (oxymoronic, no?) of motherhood et al. with searing honesty. I found the depictions of motherhood/womanhood/marriage to range from darkly hilarious to gutting, uncanny, and at times, downright creepy. In other words, perfection.
January 21, 2022
I’m all about books that have anything to do with parenting, motherhood, or children, because it’s all new to me. Shapeshifting is fourteen different stories about motherhood and I’m here for it! And short stories are the best right now, because my time is very limited! If you are looking for something this is real, different, fiction, a quick read and also shares some dark humor check this one out!
November 10, 2021
Shapeshifting is such an incredible collection. Ross’s writing is sharp, funny, complex and absolutely engaging. One of the best short story writers out there. Do not miss this book!
December 30, 2021
A magnificent story collection that explores the many shapes of motherhood. I read it in one sitting, entranced.
January 26, 2022
Phenomenal book. Read it, you won’t regret it!
December 19, 2021
A stunning collection that beautifully combines heart, skillful writing, and great storytelling. Each story a pageturner. Not to be missed!
January 22, 2022
Michelle Ross's collection of short stories, Shapeshifting, is a haunting, provocative anthology focusing on motherhood and womanhood, and how the two are intertwined.
These fourteen stories are not shiny, fluffy, stories about how becoming a mother is the be-all and end-all of life. Rather they are often hilarious, sometimes dark glimpses at the struggle to retain oneself within the context of being responsible for another human being.
Rather than the retouched moms and tots we see on Instagram, these stories show a mother sleeping in a van with her still-nursing baby to get her other child into the right school, while her husband can't even feed said child dinner because he's busy running parenting support groups and offering advice. Ross also shows us a mother separated from her adult daughter and the bitter, skewed images each has of the other, and the collection goes on - different mothers, different stages of motherhood, all flawed and dimensional and real. All individual women.
What I loved about Ross's writing, in addition to her brutal clarity, was the detail she put in each story - the way mothers will extend their arms to keep their children safe in their plane or car seats, even though they have seat belts - something my own mother still does when we're in a car together even though I'm now fifty-one.
Motherhood is often called a transformative experience. Ross's stories look at the truth of those transformations, these shifting shapes of our bodies, our minds, and our souls and reveal the parts we think, but don't share. They are compelling mirrors of the lives of women.
Goes well with: hot coffee, a cinnamon pastry, and twenty minutes of solitude.
These fourteen stories are not shiny, fluffy, stories about how becoming a mother is the be-all and end-all of life. Rather they are often hilarious, sometimes dark glimpses at the struggle to retain oneself within the context of being responsible for another human being.
Rather than the retouched moms and tots we see on Instagram, these stories show a mother sleeping in a van with her still-nursing baby to get her other child into the right school, while her husband can't even feed said child dinner because he's busy running parenting support groups and offering advice. Ross also shows us a mother separated from her adult daughter and the bitter, skewed images each has of the other, and the collection goes on - different mothers, different stages of motherhood, all flawed and dimensional and real. All individual women.
What I loved about Ross's writing, in addition to her brutal clarity, was the detail she put in each story - the way mothers will extend their arms to keep their children safe in their plane or car seats, even though they have seat belts - something my own mother still does when we're in a car together even though I'm now fifty-one.
Motherhood is often called a transformative experience. Ross's stories look at the truth of those transformations, these shifting shapes of our bodies, our minds, and our souls and reveal the parts we think, but don't share. They are compelling mirrors of the lives of women.
Goes well with: hot coffee, a cinnamon pastry, and twenty minutes of solitude.
May 13, 2022
One of my favorites of the last year. The stories are fearless in content and their ability to honestly channel the minds, anxieties, and idiosyncrasies of the narrators. The prose is precise, controlled, and well-paced, and the characters and the dynamics between mother, spouse, and children are so interesting and nuanced.
November 7, 2022
This collection does not disappoint! The stories are varied and engaging. I will go back to read several that I've earmarked!
July 14, 2023
A fantastic collection. Each story in this is expertly crafted.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews