A fabulous collection of short stories that leave you wanting even more...genuine, thought provoking, real. Pick it up...you'll be glad you did.

3.5 stars, rounded up
Short stories are the tapas of the book menu. Small plates, when I like big portions. So, I was really conflicted about reading this. I like Curtis Sittenfeld, but I hate the fact that a short story typically ends just as I’m getting invested in a character.

There does seem to be a theme here, involving communication, appearances and first impressions. What do we say? What do we stay silent about? Or what do we think we know about someone vs. what is real. In each of these stories, the narrator misjudges someone.

Sittenfeld tackles some interesting subjects. Adult crushes, texting affairs, belatedly realized sexism. Almost all the stories involve the interaction between men and women.

All the stories are interesting, some really grabbed me (like The World Has Many Butterflies and Plausible Deniability) . They’re all really well written. She does a great job building up the tension between characters. And there’s always a point to be made.

But damn it, in the end it comes down to I want more. A five minute YouTube clip isn’t enough, I want a full length movie. Nothing against you, Curtis, this is just not my style. Please, please, please write a full length novel next time.

My thanks to netgalley and Random House for an advance copy of this book.

I'm a fan of short stories so this collection by Sittenfeld, who is one of my favorite authors, is a real threat. These ten tales are not always perfect but golly they're good. All of them are keenly observed portraits of women who are sometimes struggling, and sometimes talking to themselves about themselves and others. And, btw, the pettiness and snarkery that women can inflict upon women (and themselves) is portrayed wonderfully. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. This was a perfect collection to dip in and out of- to savor each story and each woman for itself and herself.

A fascinating collection of short stories that illustrate the fact that life is full of bumps and bruises in an entertaining way.

This is a book of short stories all centered around the messy experiences of being a human in today's world. There are stories of love, regret, roads not taken, families and life in general.
I am a huge fan of Curtis Sittenfeld and jumped at the chance to review the new book coming out. I failed to notice that it is a book of short stories however. I am not a fan of short stories. That being said, the stories were for the most part enjoyable and I feel like anyone who does enjoy short stories would enjoy these.

This collection popped up on radar earlier this year when Reese Witherspoon announced she was optioning it for a television series. I’ve yet to watch/read (both on my ‘shelf’) <i>Big Little Lies</i>, but I hear no end of good things about both. I immediately requested an ARC of this collection because while Witherspoon is not on my list of favorite actresses necessarily, she is definitely doing things for women in film and books.

<i>You Think It, I’ll Say It</i> is my first time reading Curtis Sittenfeld’s work. The collection did not disappoint and I will be moving my copy of <i>Eligible</i> further up in my tbr pile. There were moments at the beginning of reading this that I found it really difficult to connect with the writing. I wasn’t sure if it was the tone or that my experience with short stories is not vast. However, a few pages into the third story I was feeling more at home. It was quite easy to see how Sittenfeld’s writing would translate so well to television, even film. I felt refreshed and at home in the Midwest setting of the stories. There is a newness to each host of characters and while 20ish pages each felt perfect (and I am wholeheartedly jealous of how well contained and complete these stories are), I can see them as entire novels or films. I am a cinephile, so forgive me talking film here too. As the collection goes on each story feels more and more engaging. I would sit down to read for a few minutes between work and my next task and find myself saying just finish this story, you have to know!

If I had to pick a favorite in the collection it would probably be the last one. It is a very intriguing thought that would could approach our infatuations later on in life when we are more grounded and able to make ‘saner’ attachments. Many reviews I’ve read have said how there are lessons to be found in each story and I can see them, but I also see how these are people like you and me navigating life. Honest, stark, and refreshingly human.

Write more Curtis Sittenfeld. I’m grateful I have some catching up to do with your backlist.

Curtis Sittenfeld + short stories = one really terrific book! These stories are very, very good.

My life has been feeling pretty boring lately (on my way home from picking Rue up at daycare, I get to the third song on the Moana soundtrack at the exact same red light every. single. day) so there was something comforting about the stories in Curtis Sittenfeld's new short story collection.
Each was about someone living a perfectly ordinary life, yet still page-turningly interesting. It gave me hope: Maybe I'm not as boring as I think I am-- or maybe Curtis Sittenfeld is just really, really good at this whole storytelling thing.

Sloan Crosley just keeps getting better and better! I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of short stories.

I don’t know why Curtis Sittenfield dropped off of my radar, because when Prep came out I read it in one sitting, and then passed it around the office because it was so brilliant. And waited with baited breath for American Wife, which I enjoyed immensely too. So now I’m really, really excited to discover her other novels that have been published between them and this wonderful collection of short stories entitled You Think It, I’ll Say It.

You Think It, I’ll Say It is a collection of 10 stories depicting human nature in all its (dirty) glory. Curtis Sittenfield has a fantastic ability to craft characters in such a way that they appear in front of you, lifelike and real. We jump into their lives for a few minutes, a few days, and drop out again, but their stories remain with us. I love how each story contains seemingly mundane, everyday life, plots, but the mere interaction between characters, or the thought process of the main character makes them so original. Relatable and original. Depressing but also uplifting. In the end this is life: a collection of mundane but original situations that we make the most or the worst out of before we move along to the next one.

While I enjoyed all 10 of the stories, finding a piece of myself in most of the characters, I especially loved The Prairie Wife, Bad Latch, and Off The Record. Be prepared to smile, cringe, laugh out loud, shed a tear, and cringe a little more when you read the stories, as there is no way you won’t relate to something or someone in every one of them. Gender roles, coming of age, politics, becoming a mother, the most recent election: all of these topics are laid open in these short stories, in such a brilliant way.

You Think It, I’ll Say It will be published by Random House on April 24th. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance copy!

This is probably a 3.5 star book for me, but I'll bump it up to a 4 since it did make me intrigued to give the rest of the author's back list a try. This is a solid short story collection, with most of the stories thematically touching on some level of self-deception. The political elements I felt were handled well, and I'd say my favorite story in the collection was "Gender Studies," which is the opener. I did feel that the author was holding me at a distance somewhat with the writing style, which is not something I always love & why I dinged this down. Still, as I said, I'd like to try one of the author's full novels after reading this collection, so that certainly says something.

(Disclaimer: This review was based off an ARC kindly provided by the publisher)

Dear lord. Curtis Sittenfeld. This book is brilliant.

First of all, I don't really do short story collections. I've only read a few in my life. I always find myself frustrated by short stories, because I want to know more, about the characters and what happens next. So when I got an opportunity to read this, I was skeptical. But I will read anything Curtis Sittenfled writes, forever and ever, so I dove in. And it exceeded my wildest expectations.

Every single story in here is just a perfect snapshot of real life, all of the pain and beauty and pettiness of it. Curtis somehow manages to capture how we can all be such assholes to ourselves and each other, but also how we try so hard to redeem ourselves.

I would read an entire book about any of these characters, but somehow these stories were just the right length and I didn't feel like I was missing anything when they were done.

Great Writing, Honest and Unpredictable. This is Sittenfeld at her very best. OMG do I love her writing, her insight, I wish I could express my adoration for this book (and her others) as eloquently as she would.

Short stories are best when they take unexpected turns and reveal how every day life can become surreal in a moment. This collection examines men and women navigating life with the impact of social media, jealously, miscommunication and the weight of western life. Often funny, sometimes deeply embarrassing and at times really touching, this collection of short stories made my commute and nightly reading enjoyable and able to take my own everyday worries less important.

Do love Curist Sittenfeld's writing! Her stories are so compelling and kept me reading until I finished.

My freshman year of high school I crushed on a boy named Tony. After months of in-class flirting and meaningful looks, Tony asked me to go to the movies with him one afternoon after school. My first date! I was thrilled. I don't remember the movie or how it ended, because we kissed for most of the second hour. Pretty innocent stuff, but literally the most exciting thing that had happened to me at age fourteen.
School was out soon after that date and I spent the rest of May and most of June waiting for him to call me. The phone never rang but that didn't stop me from building up an entire fantasy world in which he was on an extended vacation with his family-somewhere with no phones. I was certain that once school resumed, so would our budding romance. This is not what happened. What happened is he made fun of my hair to his friends when he bumped into me at Big Splash Water Park then walked away from me like I was nothing. The romance was over before it really began.
This painful memory is also the sharpest one I have of a time when my carefully tended inner fantasy world was gutted like a dead fish. The story I had concocted-that he was a nice person, that he really liked me-was nothing more than a sand castle washed away with the morning tide. I learned a hard lesson that day about what to do when the world I had pictured vanishes under the weight of someone else's actions.
Characters in Curtis Sittenfeld's latest collection of short stories, You Think It, I'll Say It, learn this lesson too. And they learn how to move on, in tears, in joy, in resignation, and always in the knowledge that there are ways in this world that we will always, inevitably, be alone, whether in relationships or out of them. The women (and one man) of these stories are flawed, hopeful, lonely, observant women at their lives' midpoints, navigating motherhood and marriage and professional success with sex and power and love. Taken together, the tautly written and multi-faceted story collection is a portrait of modern womanhood, albeit one within a bubble of affluence and comfort.
Misunderstandings abound, as Sittenfeld's characters navigate the sticky mess of interpersonal relationships. While misunderstandings can be spun into comedy gold, a la the 1970s and 80s "Three's Company," Curtis Sittenfeld rends them heartbreaking instead. She exposes the essential, silly or delusional truths we tell ourselves, and the internal worlds we create and try to keep intact. What is life, really, but our internal voice spinning the narrative of our lives? If those inner worlds intersect with reality, sometimes we are pleasantly surprised, but more often than not, we are Julie in the story "The World Has Many Butterflies," from which the larger collection draws its title. Julie's marriage has lost its luster, and "for a stretch of several months, whenever Julie had sex with her husband, she pretended he was [her husband's co-worker] Graham." She and Graham had yet to share anything intimate other than a game they played at social engagements to which both couples were invited. At country clubs and dance recitals, they play I'll Think It, You Say It, a game he initiates that allowed him to stand in silence while she dished and gossiped and judged the couples around them. The scene in which she confesses her love for him - at the Four Seasons Hotel - is painful and embarrassing, as he spells out in a "legalistic" manner that he was never romantically interested in her and that worse, she realized that she was never saying what he thought, that he was just listening. Her humiliation from the lunch is not quite over. Julie runs into Graham's wife after their divorce at the Butterfly Center where their children are on a field trip. She learns that Graham had moved in with a co-worker named Beth Brenner, ten years younger, blond and svelte, in mergers and acquisitions. "How embarrassing, in light of the news about Beth Brenner, that Julie had imagined Graham might desire her forty-four-year-old self, even boob-lifted and hair-straightened…Beth Brenner offered rather convincing evidence that he'd said he was never romantically interested in her because he was never romantically interested in her."
Part of Sittenfeld's work is to trace how tenuous our connections to other humans, even those closest to each other, can be. And how commitments like marriage and parenthood are made in a thousand ways each day. In "A Regular Couple," we join newlyweds Jason and Maggie on their honeymoon. Maggie, a successful attorney with a national reputation for defending a famous sports star in a rape case, and her public defender husband encounter one of Maggie's high school frenemies, the then-popular girl Ashley Frye and her husband, also on their honeymoon. The conflict with Ashley Frye, decades-old, exacerbated by Maggie's career choices, comes at a dance club, and causes Maggie to also spill her venom on Jason, who we learn is as much her trophy husband as Ashley is her husband Ed's trophy wife. When Ashley finds Maggie's sore spot and inserts the knife, Maggie's response threatens her new marriage. Insisting that the sports star Billy Kendall "had raped the cocktail waitress" but also using a tone of voice that "she also didn't really care," Ashley's comments goad Maggie into saying "As for Jason being by conscience, I'd say it's more like I'm his gravy train."
Sittenfeld wades into #MeToo territory in the final story, "Do-Over." Told from the point of view of a good-looking, wealthy white male named Clay, we meet Sylvia McClellan, the woman he stole a student council prefect election (prefect, we are told, is a fancy boarding school name for president) a quarter of century ago. Readers of Sittenfeld's debut novel Prep (Random House, 2005) will easily picture these characters in the dorms of Ault. The story opens up, appropriately, with Clay reassuring his fourteen-year-old daughter after the election of Donald Trump as president, crushing her hopes for the first female president. "Progress happens in fits and starts," he texts his daughter, and we learn that that night he dreams of Sylvia. Four months later, he's not surprised when out of the blue she emails him, wanting to meet for dinner. Clay is no Neanderthal, and gets why she may be calling, and this is exactly where Sittenfeld's characterizations are so spot on. We can't hate Clay for the white male privilege he's benefited from, not just as a white male, but as a handsome, athletic one born to money and with little struggle ascended to success in his field. We don't know what he does for a living, but investment banking or lawyering seem like the right fit.
Perhaps the recent election of Donald Trump spurred him to make the comment, as he avers, or maybe it is as a father of a girl about the same age Sylvia would've been at the time he stole the election, but he wades into an apology over dinner. "I guess we'll never know the results of that runoff, but I'd be willing to bet I lost and you won. And even if it was a different time, even if I wasn't the one who came up with the plan, what happened was completely sexist," Clay says. It turns out, however, that this was not her intent for the dinner at all. She was following up on secret crush she'd had for him during that time, a crush that perhaps made her willing to go along with the plan where he assumed the prefect role and she became associate prefect just because he "had more experience." Without ever knowing the actual outcome of the election. Sylvia, it turns out, never voted for herself in the election, a note that rings true to female readers taught that to do so would be "conceited or indecorous."
It's a nuanced version of #MeToo, lacking the gut punch of some of the stories passed around since the movement caught fire last October, but one that many women can relate to. It's the story of women who have ingested messages of inferiority and people-pleasing so deeply that the acting this way has become ingrained. When the time comes to stand up, women like me fail sometimes. We don't trust ourselves. It comes externally, and from inside our heads. How many ways, how deep is our desire to get along and be liked, how willing are we to suppress what we want for the good of the other. "I learned an important lesson from all that, which was to be my own advocate and if I came off as immodest, so be it? And you have to figure that out at some point, right? Or at least if you're a woman, you do, or not a white man," Sylvia tells Clay.
At any rate, it's not why she called him. She is assailed with dissatisfaction in her own marriage, weary of seeing her husband Nelson filling his unemployed days with video games in the same track pants with orange stripes. Sylvia confesses to Clay that she cooked up the whole plan to meet him: "I came here to go on a date with you. You wouldn't know it was a date, but I would," she tells Clay. "I wasn't hoping we'd end up in bed. For one thing, I don't think I could live with the guilt, and for another childbirth wrecked my body." Her awkward confession turns into date sabotage as she asks him if he's ever had an anal fissure "as blasé as if she's asking if he's ever tasted coconut water" before telling him about her own caused by her daughter's birth.
We feel Clay's pain: he's hardly the most sensitive man in the world, but he's trying. He sits with Sylvia, he doesn't bolt, even though "the narrowness of the margin of error allowed here, combined with the high likelihood of his screwing up-it reminds him of marriage counseling." This is a particularly apt of the place that most men find themselves when discussing issues of gender inequality. Sittenfeld has chosen to tell this story from the man's point of view, but still it is Sylvia whose voice shines. "There was this story I told myself, that growing up I'd been the awkward good girl, the responsible student, and I'd missed out socially but in the long term I'd come out ahead…But something came loose inside me, something got dislodged, and I am still that teenager," Sylvia tells Clay.
The reader can take away lessons, too, that the ten stories in this collection provide a snapshot of modern womanhood that is more nuanced than proponents of gender equality may wish to acknowledge. Sittenfeld doesn't tell stories with black-and-white morals or victories of right over wrong. She tells a quieter truth of a loneliness that can persist through marriage and motherhood and professional success. For women who thought they could have it all, the goal remains ever elusive.

'When she’s in a bad mood, she doesn’t hide it, and I’m not sure if I’m jealous or appalled.'

Of all the stories in Sittenfeld’s collection, I loved The World Has Many Butterflies. Julie plays a game, which the title of the collection comes from, with her friend Graham. Who knew sharing snarky comments about the people around them could explode into a flirtation. Where will it lead? It’s too real, too raw and oh the shame. I wish I could go on and on about how funny it was to me, but it would ruin the story. Her characters are perfect, they think inappropriate thoughts, are flawed like the rest of us and either thave wonderful clarity or lose the plot in their own lives. A Regular Couple is fantastic, what makes for a better story than a run-in with an old ‘evil’ girl from your school years? You know that girl, every school had one. The girl everyone adored for her beauty, who walked the halls wreaking havoc in everyone’s lives, who knew how to take power and she did, apparently from Maggie. But Maggie is high-powered herself these days, she is no longer an awkward nor clueless girl and how is it that all those high school memories are coming back? Why is she on the defensive, shrinking again? Ashley brings up the subject of the trial Maggie was involved in, already a ‘touchy’ subject, and Maggie has had enough! Getting called out by feminists is bad enough, but she isn’t going to take being called out by Ashley! Is her Honeymoon with Jason ruined?

Volunteers Are Shining Stars was another story in the collection that I really liked. The word volunteer brings to mind for most people feelings of love, harmony and brotherhood. Frances volunteers with children at New Day House, everything has its rhythm until a new volunteer named Alaina decides to dive in, and make waves. She is crawling under Frances skin in no time with her fresh ideas and her ‘insights’. Strange the how the most innocuous person can make us lose it.

These stories are full of simple interactions that are loaded with taut moments causing undue distress. Some are little humiliations, oh how wrongly we perceive what’s happening to us, so much harder to see with clarity just what is going on beneath the surface when we are in the way. I liked the collection for its mundane periods, the slightest friction and off we go with our emotional chaos. Nothing big has to happen, it’s the little things, isn’t it?

Publication Date: April 24, 2018

Random House

As a fan of Sittenfeld's novels, I was pleased to see that the same voice and writing came through in these stories. YOU THINK IT, I'LL SAY IT doesn't hold back on the complicated nature of human relationships whether between old loves or complete strangers.

You Think It, I’ll Say It is a compilation of ten short stories by Curtis Sittenfield. It will be released on May 3, 2018 and is currently available for pre-order. Each of the stories explores, in some manner or another, the way that we secretly judge others. In “gender studies,” a college gender studies professor makes snap judgments about a taxi driver and, in doing so, exposes flaws in herself; in “Bad Latch” a pregnant woman meets a “purist” mother in prenatal yoga; in “A Regular Couple,” a woman runs into the former popular girl from her high school while they are both on their respective honeymoons; and in “The Prairie Wife,” a woman is obsessed with a woman from her past who has since become famous.

The overarching theme of these stories and the others in the collection is that we, as humans, are very bad at accurately judging each other’s intentions and characters. The part I found interesting, though, is that Sittenfield also explores what these poor judgments say about our own values and how people make life-altering decisions based on incorrect perceptions.

It is a pretty strong collection. Normally I find that short story collections have 2-3 standout stories, and the rest are forgettable. Here, I felt like all of the stories were fairly equal in terms of quality. The characters were believable, and I admit – it was hard not to see myself in some of her stories. I mean, who out there hasn’t made poor judgments about others before? Sittenfield perfectly nailed human nature.

With that being said, I can’t say I absolutely loved the collection. Each story was interesting but had approximately the same theme, so it felt a bit like “more of the same” after a while. Also, I don’t think I am really the target audience for it because, generally speaking, I am not as interested in domestic drama as some other people are. This is another book that I recognize a lot of people will love, but it just didn’t click for me as much as it will for most people. I can see this being a book that fans of authors like Liane Moriarity (authors who explore interpersonal dynamics) will love. I am still glad I read it, though, and definitely consider it a solid four stars.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for letting me read You Think It, I’ll Say It in exchange for an honest review.

This book was not witty. It was not brilliant. It was just depressing. If this is a sophisticated look at current lifestyles I am even more grateful I am not sophisticated. Don't waste your time.