Book of the Week: You Think It, I’ll Say It

This is going to be late and short. I’m sorry. I’m also sorry for the lack of witty commentary on yesterday’s Week in Books [ed: the commentary is meant to be witty? Try harder], any how, to business.

I’ve written about Curtis Sittenfeld before – I spent a lot of time telling people how good Eligible was back when that first came out. I’ve read most of her books now, and I had the paperback of this on a preorder than Amazon mysteriously cancelled. So I was very happy when my library hold on this came through for me. You Think It, I’ll Say It is a collection of short stories which feels very applicable to modern day life. There’s the former shy girl who gets to meet her high school nemesis years later and see how it all turned out. A woman flirting with adultery with a man in her social circle. It’s tough to pick a favourite, but having spent a lot of time reading blogs, dissecting blogs and watching the rise of influence culture, the woman who takes an unhealthy interest in the career of an Instagram influence-cum-lifestyle guru she once knew might be mine.

Sittenfeld’s writing is sharp and has got the balance right (for me at least) in these stories of enough happening to make things interesting, but not so much that you don’t get to know the characters well enough to care about how it all turns out. I don’t read a lot of short story collections, but this is a very good one. And – as much as you can tell on a kindle – they are all short stories, this is not a few stories plus a novella situation. If you liked Helen Ellis’s American Housewife, this did some of the same stuff for me, but without the horror or supernatural elements. If you haven’t read Sittenfeld before, I might still start you with Eligible, but that’s because it’s tough to top a retelling of Pride and Prejudice where Kitty and Lydia are cross-fit fiends, Mrs Bennet is a kleptomaniac and Jane is the sort of yoga instructor who would spent all her spare cash on crystals from Goop. It’s a high bar.

You should be able to get hold of a copy of You Think It, I’ll Say It from a good bookstore – Amazon even have a paperback now, despite my struggles with them!

Happy Reading!