Fierce, funny and raw, this unflinchingly honest exploration of heartbreak is so much more than a book about one single break-up While this voice gives the collection its throughline, it also means that the stories blend together. No one story particularly stands out – although The Jam Maker, which won Harper’s Bazaar’s Short Story Prize in 2020, is undoubtedly the book’s strongest – but, rather, the collection works as one voice exploring the similar themes through different angles. In a stunning juxtaposition, Huma Qureshi utilises articulate and evocative language to communicate all the issues and concerns her characters can’t. In a sharp, beautifully executed collection of short stories, we explore the clashes of cultures, generations, and class divides with themes of love, familial relationships, motherhood, friendship, fertility, and death. Four of the 10 short stories in Huma Qureshi’s debut collection are set on holidays. In Summer, a grown-up daughter invites her mother along on a family trip to the south of France, with fraught results. In Foreign Parts, tensions arise between Mark and his wife, Amina, during a visit to Lahore. In Waterlogged, a tired mother nursing a newborn is irritated by her partner while staying at a genteel B&B in Oxford. And in Small Differences, Tasneem feels alienated while holidaying with her boyfriend, Simon, and his family in Tuscany. The two best stories had a magical, fable-like quality and were emotionally complex. A lot of the remaining stories sort of blurred into one. The writing has a real force but sometimes I wished we could truly enter the minds of other characters/types in the book.

If 2021 has blessed me with one thing, it’s my new found love for short story collections & goodness this one has shot up to one of my all time favourites. From the author of the award-winning Saltwater comes a beautifully told love story set across England, France and Spain. I felt most of the female characters were too 'mum hatey' and had a colonial mentality. As someone who has lived in many locations and with friends of all colours and creed but has comfortably settled into her proud Pakistani/Australian/ British skin, I found this book hard to relate to. The women generally had issues with the figures they associated with their brown identity and glorified the figures that they associated with their 'Western' identity. It just would have been nice to read a story where both sides were treated with the same respect. In most of the stories to always associate their brown identities with constraint/duty/oppression is problematic, and doesnt paint a full picture and 1 dimensional. All those experiences— the pain and the beauty of it all, make me appreciate even more the complexities of the lives we live, and how amazing it is when our tangents come to intersect.Huma Qureshi is a writer I know I’ll be reading for years and years and years’ Natasha Lunn, author of Conversations on Love Every aspect of her body or personality was up for inspection: too big, too small, too available, too hidden, too much, not enough.” One of the strongest stories – and surely the most heartbreaking – takes the perspective of one of Qureshi’s forceful mothers, Shaheen, who remains oblivious to how she smothers her daughter. The author renders her incomprehension painfully acute, while allowing the reader to see the big picture Shaheen misses. A luscious debut . . Qureshi is a dab hand at yanking the rug out from under the reader. Her immersive, poignant stories - written mostly in understated prose - often have a sting in the tale . . I fell for this lyrical, moving collection and the woozy intensity that infuses many of its stories. Qureshi creates gripping plotlines and vividly drawn characters and - most importantly - she is a writer with something to say. - i A lush, powerful tale of family and sisterhood from award-winning author Chika Unigwe, perfect for fans of Bernardine Evaristo and Tayari Jones

These are stories of fierce clarity and tenderness – I loved them’ LUCY CALDWELL, author of Intimacies Within each of the stories South East Asian identity is unsurprisingly prominent, highlighting the difficulties of organic love in the face of strict parents; strained parental relationships even as you grow up and apart into your own family. The struggle of interracial relationships was pinpointed from both sides, too, with both parties on the outskirts of a dynamic they otherwise weren’t party too. Other aspects of adulthood were there too, from outgrowing friendships to the loss of a parent to a thousand wishes after miscarriage.In the story, Too Much, which is possibly my favorite on the list, a daughter gradually leaves her dependent mother's life before changing her identity and disappearing entirely, leaving the mother sad and distraught. It was raw, poignant, and intellectually stimulating. Not only that— i experienced the angst of teenage love all over again; falling in love during the summer, and getting heartbroken by fall; peacefully outgrowing my friendships and leaving them in my past; encountering a past flame, and attaining closure after all these years; falling out of love from a seemingly-perfect marriage; and even the utter joy of childbirth after waiting for so long to conceive. A series of beautifully written short stories examining the pent-up frustrations and the everyday betrayals that even our closest relationships can cause. -- Francesca Brown, Stylist Christmas 2021 Gift Guide