Again, another book that as soon as I saw the title and read the blub I wanted to love but didn't. This short story collection really fell flat for me and that breaks my heart because it sounded so good.

Each story is very unique and there are a few that I liked/loved and a few that I did not enjoy whatsoever.

Overall, I liked that these stories were about women and there was queerness all around but some just felt a bit lacking. My favorites: Fiddler, Fool, Pair; The Changeling, and Algal Bloom felt like well written stories to me. They kept me engrossed and I wanted to know what was going to happen as soon as I started reading. I would argue that Fiddler, Fool, Pair is the best story in this collection. Other stories just felt a bit rushed or not written well enough to get the major points across. At times, a few of the stories were just confusing and not my cup of tea but I can see how someone else may love them. I wouldn't say don't read this book because there are gems in there but also read this collection because it will teach out something about what you like as a reader.

Also, the story Fruiting Bodies was great but I couldn't get past the characters eating the mushrooms. I'm not super squeamish but this was over the line for me.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the ARC. This collections of stories were very strange and sometimes I wasn't really sure what was happening or what the author was trying to say. Yet, I found them interesting and the writing drew me in.

(ARC from NetGalley except I got around to it after the pub date so no longer "Advanced") I feel like this is one of those books all the hot people on TikTok SHOULD be frothing at the mouth for. It's in the same category as 'Her Body and Other Parties'-- weird, haunting, thought-provoking short stories with elements of magical realism. Gotta grab a physical copy to mark up and annotate to my heart's desire.

Wide ranging, eery and wonderful. I enjoyed Harlan's focus on the body, her descriptions of the body and her infusion of the natural world into her stories.

Eight snippets of girlhood, coming-of-age, and queerness captured through a delightfully nostalgic lens. From childhood crushes to queer relationships, I saw fragments of myself in these stories that are near-impossible to relate to in heterosexual narratives.

As with all short story collections, some of these are stronger than others; the stories range from near-perfect (Fiddler, Fool Pair made me cry) to mid: the back half of this collection felt half-baked; the backbones were there, but the stories fell short in execution—these latter stories are definitely carried more by Harlan’s beautiful writing than by their plots and structures. Overall, it’s a fine collection—a decent read in the moment, but not something I’ll be reaching for again.

Many thanks to W.W. Norton & Company and NetGalley for the advance copy provided in exchange for an honest review.

Myth? Folklore? YES. Those will always pull me in. Short story collections are always a gamble. The art of the short story is a difficult one, but this author really nails it. We've got magic, we've got fungi, we've got climate change, we've got changelings. What more do you need??

3.5 stars, rounded up.

A solid debut collection. Definitely leans into the grotesque/speculative and grapples with themes of coming of age in a female body. Favorites of the collection were the first and last two stories, "Algal Bloom," "Hunting the Viper King," "Fruiting Bodies," and "Endangered Animals."

Thank you to W.W. Norton for providing me with an early copy through Netgalley! Fruiting Bodies comes out on June 7.

I absolute LOVED this queer, haunting, childlike, magical, short story collection. Some of the stories stood out amongst the others, but I loved all eight of them. This is the first piece of Kathryn Harlan’s writing, and I enjoyed so much immersing myself in her fantastical, imaginative stories. Stories of friendship, sisterhood, coming of age, and elements of horror, fantasy, folklore, and magic are interwoven throughout the text. One of my favorite books of the year. Thank you!

**I was provided an electronic ARC from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for honest review.**

Kathryn Harlan presents Fruiting Bodies, a short story anthology that seems to defy any genre other than to classify it as speculative. There are some stories than lean into scifi, fantasy, or horror, but there is also something that feels literary about Harlan's writing. Most of the stories feature queer folk going about their lives, though their stories are all different in tone and nature.

As with any anthology, some stories will hit harder than others. My favorites from this collection were "Fiddler Fool Pair" and the titular "Fruiting Bodies". Some stories did not appeal to me, but most were just fine. After rating the stories individually and averaging them, the rating came out to be a true 3 stars for this collection.

Harlan's strength is in her descriptions. She is able to develop atmosphere and tone to each story that is distinct and that is pervasive to the reading experience. I would also say that Harlan has strong concepts for each story, despite whether or not I fully enjoyed the stories themselves.

Overall, I feel like fans of speculative anthologies, particularly folk who enjoy darker works, will find something to enjoy in this collection.

Fruiting Bodies is the incredibly impressive and varied debut collection from Kathryn Harlan.I leaned more towards the surreal stories, but there are some great queer coming-of-age stories in here. Out of eight stories, I absolutely adored over half of them. These were my favorites:

Hunting the Viper King is a fine example of how Harlan can quickly create engaging worlds and characters. A teenager joins her father on his quest to find the Viper King. No spoilers, but the ending of this story unravels so beautifully. I loved this.

The Changeling is a deeply traumatic tale of family jealousy and adolescent insecurity, where an adopted girl learns her adoptive mother is going to have a baby.

Take Only What Belongs to You reached out and grabbed my heart. The story involves a woman researching the personal correspondence of her favorite author, desperately trying to validate something she wants to be true. I could absolutely relate to this; I love to project favorable personality traits onto my favorite artists.

I was completely transported by Fiddler, Fool Pair, an engaging, human fantasy story, involving a literally underground card game, with incredibly high stakes. This was my highlight of the collection.

I love stories of fraught, strained mother/daughter relationships, and Is This You is a true gem. Younger version of the narrator’s self begin to show up at her house. She learns that her mother is capitalizing on her past trauma by writing an essay collection.

Fruiting Bodies is such a strong debut collection, with shades of Karen Russell and Carmen Maria Machado.

An extremely creative short story collection with the main topic being women and bodies. It's really hard to describe it in general but I can say this left a huge impression in me, the idea of each story could have been a whole book if the author wanted to. My favourites were The Changeling, how far can your beliefs go? Fiddler, Fool Pair, this was so dreamy, I also want to go and gamble parts of my body and mind for no good reason. Fruiting Bodies, beautiful and gross, dont you just love reading about a girl that grows mushrooms out of her body? And Endangered Animals which was really strange and left me with a sour taste at the end but that I loved regardless.
Every story was good, in my opinion, but there was a little bit of me feeling unsatisfied by the way the stories that I didnt name turned out.
But overall, pretty unforgettablewhich is what I think is the hardest thing a short story collection can do, but this one surely did so.

What an incredible collection of stories!! This is the first book for me to read by Kathryn Harlan but definitely won't be my last! Highly recommend this!!

Thank you netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this debut! It was very feminist of Carmen Maria-Machado’s “Her Body and Other Parties” in the sense that this was a collection of gothic and primarily queer stories that focused more-so on women and the female experience. My favorite stories were in this collection were “Algal Bloom”, “Is This You?”, and “Fruiting Bodies”.

I would certainly recommend this one to fans of Maria-Machado and look forward to whatever this author publishes next!

A collection of eight short stories that creep into the fantastical. With eight stories in the collection each story has room to breathe and really delve into it's world, with themes of longing, change, and relationships that deal with reconciling what we are with what we thought we knew. The stories that were more fantastical were the ones that I really got into and they definitely reminded me of Karen Russell, but make it queer. Stand out stories for me were "The Changling," about young girls fearing a newborn sibling would be a mystical creature. "Algal Bloom," about young girls tempted to swim in a toxic lake, "Hunting the Viper King," about a father and daughter's search for a magic snake, and "Fiddler, Fool Pair," about magical games with the fae world.

If you like long form speculative fiction stories that range from dipping their toe into fantasy, to a full dive in I would recommend this, especially if you are a fan of Karen Russell.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the advanced ebook to review.

I definitely dig the mushroom/fungi theme that's been running through fiction for a few years now, but this book wasn't my favorite. The stories were engaging enough, but they weren't particularly memorable or strikingly written, so I ended up feeling fairly neutral by the end of the collection.

"I remember feeling like the shape of her skeleton would be imprinted on me for the rest of my life."

What an amazing collection of queer, speculative short stories! It's honestly hard to pick a favorite (though if I had to, it would be Fruiting Bodies). The stories discuss girlhood, sexuality, family, bodies, climate change, fairytales, etc!! It's truly a wonderful collection, highly recommend for people who like Carmen Maria Machado.