Status Updates From With the Heart of a Ghost: ...

Ooof so sad this collection is not working out. Nearly every story features a couple that broke up but still lives together, it's so odd. In the sixth story a guy wants to hibernate so he pays a woman a lot of money to bury him up to his neck. Then she visits him and spits in his face. Then her ex- keeps going and visiting the guy to give him water even though it's bad for his hibernation. No resolution.

Fifth story is another meh one for me. Basically a pathological liar named Jo loses his pet gecko and gets tricked into becoming friends with his upstairs neighbor. And SPOILER they don't find the gecko which is what the whole story is about. Meanwhile, the narrator (Jo's ex) seems to be greeting a lucky ghost at work but as soon as it feels like that plot point is going to be picked up the story ends, huh? Stop it.

Fourth story was the first dud imo, no real supernatural element, no real ending of catharsis. It follows a woman undergoing fertility struggles feeling pressured by her FIL as she reconnects with her best friend from high school who has joined a cult. It felt like it could have gone somewhere and then it just decided not to at the end. I don't mind an open ending but this one is completely open. Also puppies died.

Story three is about a man who comes home and refuses to leave until he sees his ex-girlfriend who has moved away in his absence. The new woman in the apartment tells him to leave but he can't, he's become stuck to the floor by literal roots. As the days go by the man slowly turns into a tree while the woman contemplates the repetitions in her life after her partner's passing and her boring job.

Read the first two stories. The first a girl is haunted by herself and has to learn to let go of the past. In the second, giant alien jellyfish invade earth but it's just inconvenient rather than world ending. Then some people decide they want to become jellyfish themselves. It also ruins the main character's relationship and I ended up crying at the ending lol.