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Love and Other Rituals: Selected Stories
A man imprisoned by taboo learns the price of love. A child visits the grave of a cousin she's never met; another absorbs the fallout of her parents' divorce. Friendships rupture beyond repair, and family members collide when it comes to caring for their ageing father. These vivid stories of yearning, loneliness and resilience navigate the naivety of childhood, the complications of young adulthood and the politics of marriage. Monica Macansantos is a powerful new voice bringing us the raw and darkly beautiful perspectives of characters lost both in and out of their homeland, the Philippines.
"I loved these beautiful stories by Monica Macansantos, who writes with such beauty and delicacy about desire, home, longing, loneliness, duty, and hope - that is, what it means to be human. Every story is terrific, different, surprising. I can't wait to see what she does next." - Elizabeth McCracken, author of The Souvenir Museum , Bowlaway , The Giant's House and Thunderstruck & Other Stories ; winner of the 2015 Story Prize
"Set in the Philippines, the US and New Zealand, these are tender and well-crafted stories of heartache and yearning unmet. Macansantos's Love and Other Selected Stories deftly moves us beyond what some might consider foreign or exotic and instead brings us closer to understanding our own tiny corners of the world." - Oscar Cásares, author of Where We Come From
"Monica Macansantos draws you into the worlds of her characters and slowly reveals their secrets. I read with curiosity and quickness, intent upon discovery, but she isn't going to give it all day and you wouldn't want her to. Macansantos is a promising young writer who is wise beyond her years." - Mary Miller, author of A Novel, The Last Days of A Novel, Always Happy Stories and Big World
"The desire to connect, and the inability to do so, is at the heart of Monica's stirring debut collection, Love and Other Rituals. Friendship, family, romance, sibling rivalry—it's all on the table in these eight excellent stories, rendered with a mix of startling newness and good old-fashioned storytelling." — Greg Marshall, The Hopkins Review
"In this collection of eight stories, there is dormant hope and irresolution to last a lifetime as Macansantos's stories remove the veil of false contentment from the reader's eyes." - Tinashe Jakwa, Meanjin Quarterly (Australia)
"Macansantos' stories are striking, vivid and homesick inducing, especially for those of us in the diaspora." - Frances Revita, the Pantograph Punch (New Zealand)
"Macansantos ensnares the reader into a world full of realistic and felt love (and other rituals). From child to adult growing pains, love turned to hate, ambivalence to love, and so forth, Love and Other Rituals does an amazing job at reaching through the feeling of love to show you the wondrous emotions and struggles of characters you'll feel for." - Alex Park, International Examiner
"The prose is detailed in its dovetailing of the characters' actions—from changes in facial expression to slight gestures—described to complement their lines of dialogue. The way they're attired and, in the case of the ladies made up, are all cross-hatched on an expanding map of familial or social relations, through all the ups and downs of recognition." -- Alfred A. Yuson, Philippine Star
"I loved these beautiful stories by Monica Macansantos, who writes with such beauty and delicacy about desire, home, longing, loneliness, duty, and hope - that is, what it means to be human. Every story is terrific, different, surprising. I can't wait to see what she does next." - Elizabeth McCracken, author of The Souvenir Museum , Bowlaway , The Giant's House and Thunderstruck & Other Stories ; winner of the 2015 Story Prize
"Set in the Philippines, the US and New Zealand, these are tender and well-crafted stories of heartache and yearning unmet. Macansantos's Love and Other Selected Stories deftly moves us beyond what some might consider foreign or exotic and instead brings us closer to understanding our own tiny corners of the world." - Oscar Cásares, author of Where We Come From
"Monica Macansantos draws you into the worlds of her characters and slowly reveals their secrets. I read with curiosity and quickness, intent upon discovery, but she isn't going to give it all day and you wouldn't want her to. Macansantos is a promising young writer who is wise beyond her years." - Mary Miller, author of A Novel, The Last Days of A Novel, Always Happy Stories and Big World
"The desire to connect, and the inability to do so, is at the heart of Monica's stirring debut collection, Love and Other Rituals. Friendship, family, romance, sibling rivalry—it's all on the table in these eight excellent stories, rendered with a mix of startling newness and good old-fashioned storytelling." — Greg Marshall, The Hopkins Review
"In this collection of eight stories, there is dormant hope and irresolution to last a lifetime as Macansantos's stories remove the veil of false contentment from the reader's eyes." - Tinashe Jakwa, Meanjin Quarterly (Australia)
"Macansantos' stories are striking, vivid and homesick inducing, especially for those of us in the diaspora." - Frances Revita, the Pantograph Punch (New Zealand)
"Macansantos ensnares the reader into a world full of realistic and felt love (and other rituals). From child to adult growing pains, love turned to hate, ambivalence to love, and so forth, Love and Other Rituals does an amazing job at reaching through the feeling of love to show you the wondrous emotions and struggles of characters you'll feel for." - Alex Park, International Examiner
"The prose is detailed in its dovetailing of the characters' actions—from changes in facial expression to slight gestures—described to complement their lines of dialogue. The way they're attired and, in the case of the ladies made up, are all cross-hatched on an expanding map of familial or social relations, through all the ups and downs of recognition." -- Alfred A. Yuson, Philippine Star
- GenresFictionShort Stories
220 pages, Paperback
Published October 21, 2022
5 people are currently reading
72 people want to read
About the author
Monica Macansantos
6 books4 followersMonica Macansantos is a 2025 Marguerite and Lamar Smith Fellow with the Carson McCullers Center in Columbus, Georgia, and was a 2024-25 Shearing Fellow with the Black Mountain Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Born and (mostly) raised in the Philippines, she is the author of the essay collection, Returning to My Father's Kitchen (Northwestern University Press/Curbstone Books, 2025), and the story collection, Love and Other Rituals (Grattan Street Press, 2022). She was a James A. Michener Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin, where she earned her MFA in Writing, and also holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the Victoria University of Wellington. She is a recipient of fellowships and awards from Hedgebrook, Storyknife Writers Retreat, the I-Park Foundation, Monson Arts, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi. More at monicamacansantos.com.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
Want to read
March 2, 2023I've read about half of these stories, but I just can't get into them enough to want to continue at the moment. I know other readers will really enjoy them.
The ones I've read take place in different parts of the world and are told by Filipino characters, which is a very different viewpoint for someone like me. I like that. I may pick it up again later and read the rest, but I know myself well enough that I won't do them justice if I continue right now.
The ones I've read take place in different parts of the world and are told by Filipino characters, which is a very different viewpoint for someone like me. I like that. I may pick it up again later and read the rest, but I know myself well enough that I won't do them justice if I continue right now.
November 16, 2022
Evocative, rich, deeply human characters and stories.
November 29, 2022
I don't always read short story collections, but I've come across a few recently. This is definitely one of my favourites, and not just because I can relate to parts of it. Macansantos shares a real depth of perspective into the inner worlds of the main characters in each story, in a way that makes us aware of their flaws as well as sympathetic to their decisions. It also emulates how we see, understand and don't understand the other people in our lives. It left me with a lot of questions about the complicated things that happen over time, and how we deal with them.
Personally, my favourite stories were Playing with Dolls, Stopover and Inheritances.
Personally, my favourite stories were Playing with Dolls, Stopover and Inheritances.
December 20, 2022
Reading Macansantos’ collection of stories was like reading the stories from my own titas, titos and pinsans. Each equally devastating but revealing a truth in the Filipino experience. As with other cultures, there are experiences that are distinctively Filipino and Macansantos so skilfully manages to capture the most poignant.
Macansantos manages to turn the peeling of a mango to a child trying to resolve their differences with their father, but mostly a child mourning a parent they once knew.
This is a book for the Filipino or child of an immigrant trying to understand the sharpness and softness of family and home.
Macansantos manages to turn the peeling of a mango to a child trying to resolve their differences with their father, but mostly a child mourning a parent they once knew.
This is a book for the Filipino or child of an immigrant trying to understand the sharpness and softness of family and home.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 17, 2023
Monica Macansantos captures the quiet longing of her characters in her short stories. I was particularly drawn to The Feast of All Souls, Love and Other Rituals and Leaving Aukland. She has a way of getting readers to the heart of her protagonists, sometimes with their growing self-awareness of their situation and what they need to do and other times in complete blindness, which leads to inevitable tragedy. There's a quiet desperation to belong, especially for the characters who are far from home, and oftentimes, having to reconcile their lives with this unrequitted belonging is both unsettling and bittersweet. I was rooting for Paolo in Leaving Aukland to make that leap, but the ending was just the right ending. I really enjoyed reading these stories, and I look forward to her next work.
December 9, 2024
Monica Macansantos deploys rich detail and measured pacing to bring her characters to life. Each story is almost a novel as it paints a world and delivers interactions so that we feel we know these people. We root for them to be successful and we mourn with them when life disappoints. Highly recommended.
April 15, 2025
I liked some stories better than others, but throughout the collection the author’s writing illustrates characters’ lives and thoughts very effectively. The numerous settings and viewpoints make this collection interesting as no two stories are alike, yet they all feature Filipino characters, which is a nice connecting thread.
October 23, 2022
STRONGLY recommend this book of spell-binding prose!!!!!!
September 7, 2023
For professional reviews of this book, check out this review in Colorado Review by Bianca Melendrez Valenzuela (https://coloradoreview.colostate.edu/...) and this review in Meanjin Quarterly by Dr. Tinashe Jakwa (https://meanjin.com.au/review/a-life-...).
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews