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I Wanted to be Close to You
"I wanted to be close to you. So I went to the forest..."
Gardens, relationships and imaginations run wild in Katie Oliver's debut short fiction collection. The world is unpredictable and no woman is safe. Boundaries are blurred: between fantasy and reality, technology and nature, autonomy and oppression. The threat of violence simmers throughout as women transform into birds, converse with plants and plot their revenge.
These dark, surreal tales will put down roots and stay with you long after reading: how close... is too close?
Gardens, relationships and imaginations run wild in Katie Oliver's debut short fiction collection. The world is unpredictable and no woman is safe. Boundaries are blurred: between fantasy and reality, technology and nature, autonomy and oppression. The threat of violence simmers throughout as women transform into birds, converse with plants and plot their revenge.
These dark, surreal tales will put down roots and stay with you long after reading: how close... is too close?
- GenresFictionShort Stories
150 pages, Paperback
Published December 2, 2022
3 people are currently reading
72 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 10, 2023
This is a marvelous short story collection from Katie Oliver showcasing her talent for exploring all things weird and wonderful. These stories are surprising, incredibly imaginative and often very moving. I cheered on the woman who listens to plants, and took a closer look at my own office plants after reading. Magical realism sits alongside speculative fiction, and at times I it felt like I was looking inside my own head (I think this is a good thing!). If you like your short fiction surreal yet still rooted in our challenged reality then I highly recommend ‘I wanted to be close to you’.
December 13, 2022
An imaginative collection covering subjects from sentient plants to robotic sleep aids to human metamorphosis to the Northern Lights, many stories (as might be expected) with a surreal bent but always relatable to the contemporary world. Katie Oliver's prose - with its surprising but accessible imagery and flecks of humour -- is hugely enjoyable. A great volume to dip in and out of, or read in one stretch.
January 5, 2023
This little book was filled with a collection of 20 short fiction stories about women. Each woman has a fear, a feeling, a memory and a desire that are carefully explored and so poetically drawn from them that each piece feels intimate and confidential, somewhat like talking to your best friend about her wild, wicked, and weird dreams.
I would recommend this short queen to any reader. 5 stars!
I would recommend this short queen to any reader. 5 stars!
January 9, 2023
It’s so beautifully written, it’s nearly poetic. Each short story is brilliant and I didn’t want them to end. The character development, storyline and intrigue that can be developed in one page is truly inspiring! A great book!
August 23, 2025
Short story collections are often uneven, with a couple of stand-out pieces surrounded by a sea of forgettable ones. Katie Oliver's work avoids that pitfall altogether, reading 'I Wanted to be Close to You' is akin to a smooth railway ride with endlessly interesting, ever-changing scenery - there is no weak link on this journey.
Oliver genre bends, often mid-story so that pieces take sudden side turns and end up in thoroughly unexpected places. There are plants a plenty and transformations both emotional and literal, but nothing feels overwrought or cloyingly sentimental. I found 'Underbelly' to be more affecting than Atwood’s 'The Handmaid's Tale', partly because it was so visceral, but also because it presented such an interesting take on the 'nice guy' motif in a novel scenario.
My absolute favourite was 'Grave Goods', which I found achingly poignant. Capturing grief is an incredible tightrope, but Oliver walked it masterfully. I felt every word of this story, it was the full gamut of that most immediate emotional torrent that comes with loss, and compressing that into the short story format deserves serious plaudits.
On StoryGraph, readers have rated the characters as ‘Not Lovable', I vehemently disagree. With a few notable exceptions, who were clearly meant to be morally-ambiguous figures, I found all of Oliver's protagonists to be immediately likeable. For me, this collection would make a wonderful set text for a university-level course on feminist writing - the pressing issues are all here, but they're handled so delicately and with such depth and grace that you could read, re-read, and find almost limitless things to say about each story.
The metaphors are sharp and original, the similes moving and lyrical - I found the whole collection echoes Ireland's bardic storytelling tradition wonderfully, in that the characters and stories themselves were front and centre, but they were presented with such poetic prose that it could easily be performed as well as read (and a healthy dose of natural-world imagery certainly helped!)
I just loved it and would thoroughly recommend it to anyone. It feels urgent and important, yet the stories themselves were given such room to breathe and flourish - they grow on you with each turn of the page, which is thematically very appropriate! There's real talent here and Katie Oliver is one to watch!
N.B. I personally did not resonate with ‘You Can’t Kill It Because It’s Already Dead’, but I am a fan of neither stream of consciousness nor second person, having only seen the latter used to great effect in Erin Morgenstern's 'The Night Circus', so I feel mileage may vary with this one for others. This was the sole exception, however, and even then I felt this was an issue of personal taste rather than one of quality.
Oliver genre bends, often mid-story so that pieces take sudden side turns and end up in thoroughly unexpected places. There are plants a plenty and transformations both emotional and literal, but nothing feels overwrought or cloyingly sentimental. I found 'Underbelly' to be more affecting than Atwood’s 'The Handmaid's Tale', partly because it was so visceral, but also because it presented such an interesting take on the 'nice guy' motif in a novel scenario.
My absolute favourite was 'Grave Goods', which I found achingly poignant. Capturing grief is an incredible tightrope, but Oliver walked it masterfully. I felt every word of this story, it was the full gamut of that most immediate emotional torrent that comes with loss, and compressing that into the short story format deserves serious plaudits.
On StoryGraph, readers have rated the characters as ‘Not Lovable', I vehemently disagree. With a few notable exceptions, who were clearly meant to be morally-ambiguous figures, I found all of Oliver's protagonists to be immediately likeable. For me, this collection would make a wonderful set text for a university-level course on feminist writing - the pressing issues are all here, but they're handled so delicately and with such depth and grace that you could read, re-read, and find almost limitless things to say about each story.
The metaphors are sharp and original, the similes moving and lyrical - I found the whole collection echoes Ireland's bardic storytelling tradition wonderfully, in that the characters and stories themselves were front and centre, but they were presented with such poetic prose that it could easily be performed as well as read (and a healthy dose of natural-world imagery certainly helped!)
I just loved it and would thoroughly recommend it to anyone. It feels urgent and important, yet the stories themselves were given such room to breathe and flourish - they grow on you with each turn of the page, which is thematically very appropriate! There's real talent here and Katie Oliver is one to watch!
N.B. I personally did not resonate with ‘You Can’t Kill It Because It’s Already Dead’, but I am a fan of neither stream of consciousness nor second person, having only seen the latter used to great effect in Erin Morgenstern's 'The Night Circus', so I feel mileage may vary with this one for others. This was the sole exception, however, and even then I felt this was an issue of personal taste rather than one of quality.
January 24, 2023
➡️ Introduction
I Wanted To Be Close To You is a varied debut collection that shares some powerful experiences many readers will enjoy. Though it has some problems with character when looked at as a whole, this collection is filled with a spectrum of stories all of which enjoy a lush, visceral style that is entertaining and enjoyable to read.
✅ Positives
Slow reveals
The openings and middles of the majority of stories are very good at playing with reader expectations. These stories lure readers in and then delight by stepping off in unexpected directions or subtly shifting the reality that the reader thinks they’re standing on. In the opening story ‘Tending the Garden’, there is a gradual shift from seeing the protagonist as a cruel woman, to a victim, to a more complex combination of the two. That this is achieved in less than a whole page is an impressive start to the book.
Visit that short fiction site to continue reading the full review.
I Wanted To Be Close To You is a varied debut collection that shares some powerful experiences many readers will enjoy. Though it has some problems with character when looked at as a whole, this collection is filled with a spectrum of stories all of which enjoy a lush, visceral style that is entertaining and enjoyable to read.
✅ Positives
Slow reveals
The openings and middles of the majority of stories are very good at playing with reader expectations. These stories lure readers in and then delight by stepping off in unexpected directions or subtly shifting the reality that the reader thinks they’re standing on. In the opening story ‘Tending the Garden’, there is a gradual shift from seeing the protagonist as a cruel woman, to a victim, to a more complex combination of the two. That this is achieved in less than a whole page is an impressive start to the book.
Visit that short fiction site to continue reading the full review.
June 9, 2023
This was a joy. Short stories touching on the surreal and the dystopian; excellent.
September 28, 2024
(TWs for each story, may contain spoilers)
I could have finished this in a day or two but didn't because I wanted to savour it. It was next to my bed for months and every once in a while, on a special occasion, I read one or maybe two short stories, then spend the next few days thinking about them.
Since I don't often read short story collections from beginning to end, I don't have much to compare it to, but this was definitely the best one I've ever read.
STYLE
Inspiring short fiction that says a lot in very few words through meaningful, haunting analogies and powerful language. Within the first sentences, I immediately had not just an image but smells and sensations in my head that conveyed the story.
A mix of dystopian sci-fi and magical realism - surreal, slightly unsettling but always profound.
CONTENT
In the short length of the stories, Katie Oliver manages to introduce breathtaking magical concepts, even sketching out dystopian worlds in just a few pages, covering only a snapshot of a moment or skipping large timespans but not omitting any crucial details.
Everything is possible here. A character thinks "what if..." and suddenly the thing they were thinking about is actually happening, like in a lucid dream.
The protagonist and everyone around them usually start out normal, and then there is a moment where you go "wait what?" and have to read it again because in just one sentence, it suddenly took a turn from the mundane into the absurd. It could just be one simple word that casually reveals that actually this is not an everyday story or a regular character at all.
This was done in a similar way in many of the stories: Someone turns out to be slightly insane, driven by a strong emotion, which develops into extremes as the story goes on. I found this kind of storytelling really interesting and it has inspired me to try and write something similar.
As for the tone of the stories, they are usually melancholic and sad, sometimes creepy. Main themes are grief and death, irreversible transformation, whether physical or mental, but also identity and belonging. Many of them are unpredictable with a gut-wrenching ending, delivering a plot twist or revelation that multiplies the level of insanity by 100.
I also loved the feminist undertones in the majority of the stories. The TWs at the top give some idea of what is covered.
Even the few stories without a deep disturbing meaning were vividly written and made me care for the characters right from the start.
FAVOURITES
- Tending the Garden (discussed this for hours with my partner, what could it mean??)
- All that Glitters (I found myself physically nodding at )
- The Sanctuary (a beautiful depiction of empathy with the natural world)
- When She Laid an Egg (powerful but so, so sad)
- Puff (reads like a Black Mirror episode, really drew me in and gave me a lot to think about)
- The Moon Never Really Fades (a tiny moment spun into a story, an epiphany about the meaning of life)
- Becoming (a sad story of )
I could have finished this in a day or two but didn't because I wanted to savour it. It was next to my bed for months and every once in a while, on a special occasion, I read one or maybe two short stories, then spend the next few days thinking about them.
Since I don't often read short story collections from beginning to end, I don't have much to compare it to, but this was definitely the best one I've ever read.
STYLE
Inspiring short fiction that says a lot in very few words through meaningful, haunting analogies and powerful language. Within the first sentences, I immediately had not just an image but smells and sensations in my head that conveyed the story.
A mix of dystopian sci-fi and magical realism - surreal, slightly unsettling but always profound.
CONTENT
In the short length of the stories, Katie Oliver manages to introduce breathtaking magical concepts, even sketching out dystopian worlds in just a few pages, covering only a snapshot of a moment or skipping large timespans but not omitting any crucial details.
Everything is possible here. A character thinks "what if..." and suddenly the thing they were thinking about is actually happening, like in a lucid dream.
The protagonist and everyone around them usually start out normal, and then there is a moment where you go "wait what?" and have to read it again because in just one sentence, it suddenly took a turn from the mundane into the absurd. It could just be one simple word that casually reveals that actually this is not an everyday story or a regular character at all.
This was done in a similar way in many of the stories: Someone turns out to be slightly insane, driven by a strong emotion, which develops into extremes as the story goes on. I found this kind of storytelling really interesting and it has inspired me to try and write something similar.
As for the tone of the stories, they are usually melancholic and sad, sometimes creepy. Main themes are grief and death, irreversible transformation, whether physical or mental, but also identity and belonging. Many of them are unpredictable with a gut-wrenching ending, delivering a plot twist or revelation that multiplies the level of insanity by 100.
I also loved the feminist undertones in the majority of the stories. The TWs at the top give some idea of what is covered.
Even the few stories without a deep disturbing meaning were vividly written and made me care for the characters right from the start.
FAVOURITES
- Tending the Garden (discussed this for hours with my partner, what could it mean??)
- All that Glitters (I found myself physically nodding at )
- The Sanctuary (a beautiful depiction of empathy with the natural world)
- When She Laid an Egg (powerful but so, so sad)
- Puff (reads like a Black Mirror episode, really drew me in and gave me a lot to think about)
- The Moon Never Really Fades (a tiny moment spun into a story, an epiphany about the meaning of life)
- Becoming (a sad story of )
December 26, 2025
I didn’t think I liked magical realism but I think this set of short stories has got me into it.
Each one is packed from first word to last full-stop with story - I read them really quickly and often realised I’d forgotten what time of day it was when I finished one and looked around.
There are parenting scenes I related to strongly - the subjectivity of a real-life mother is kind of perfectly exaggerated using the magical happenings to show the dynamics of real-life with more clarity - and I laughed so much. It was such a joy to laugh with the author at the patriarchy. For example in ‘Underbelly’ where a father has to give his permission for his child to be born through the vagina. So I’d love to share this book with new mums because the shortness of the stories would make it possible to read with a sleep-deprived brain, and the author is so generous with the huge amount of comforting insights squeezed into the already jam-packed stories.
I loved ‘the moon never really fades’ because it encompassed so so so much postnatal experience in just 2 pages.
‘Nancy’ was just beautiful - I can’t even describe that - it’s just beautiful.
‘Becoming’ is like a shorter more poetic version of Nightbitch.
But my favourite is ‘you can’t kill it because it’s already dead’ - a one page sentence that says a thousand things and makes you laugh and it just felt so good laughing at myself with someone there with me.
Recommend x10
Each one is packed from first word to last full-stop with story - I read them really quickly and often realised I’d forgotten what time of day it was when I finished one and looked around.
There are parenting scenes I related to strongly - the subjectivity of a real-life mother is kind of perfectly exaggerated using the magical happenings to show the dynamics of real-life with more clarity - and I laughed so much. It was such a joy to laugh with the author at the patriarchy. For example in ‘Underbelly’ where a father has to give his permission for his child to be born through the vagina. So I’d love to share this book with new mums because the shortness of the stories would make it possible to read with a sleep-deprived brain, and the author is so generous with the huge amount of comforting insights squeezed into the already jam-packed stories.
I loved ‘the moon never really fades’ because it encompassed so so so much postnatal experience in just 2 pages.
‘Nancy’ was just beautiful - I can’t even describe that - it’s just beautiful.
‘Becoming’ is like a shorter more poetic version of Nightbitch.
But my favourite is ‘you can’t kill it because it’s already dead’ - a one page sentence that says a thousand things and makes you laugh and it just felt so good laughing at myself with someone there with me.
Recommend x10
May 1, 2025
I often struggle to read short story collections, and yet my favourite authors keep releasing them, or I find a collection based on a theme that intrigues me - and that’s what this was. With the description of “gardens, relationships and imaginations run wild”, how could I not be interested?! And interested, I was.
My favourite in the collection were the title story; I Wanted To Be Close To You, which is made up of just four short paragraphs about loss, desperation, stunning descriptive language about how it feels to make contact with the earth and, ultimately, death.
Other favourites included; All That Glitters, The Sanctuary, You Can’t Kill It Because It’s Already Dead, Puff, First Time At The Allotment and Becoming.
I rated all of these stories individually, and they had an average of 3.45 stars - so let’s call it 3.5 and I’ll round it up to 4 on here, because I’m feeling generous!
My favourite in the collection were the title story; I Wanted To Be Close To You, which is made up of just four short paragraphs about loss, desperation, stunning descriptive language about how it feels to make contact with the earth and, ultimately, death.
Other favourites included; All That Glitters, The Sanctuary, You Can’t Kill It Because It’s Already Dead, Puff, First Time At The Allotment and Becoming.
I rated all of these stories individually, and they had an average of 3.45 stars - so let’s call it 3.5 and I’ll round it up to 4 on here, because I’m feeling generous!
November 12, 2023
Magical and special, in both quiet and loud ways. Highly recommend to short story readers. 🪴✨
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews