This book is so much more than it’s description. It’s a book that you need to pay attention to because the little details are important nuggets further along. I really enjoyed the length as well because it was just long enough to unwind the full mystery but didn’t add too much fluff. It was perfectly short.

When I first started reading Terrace Story, I wasn’t really sure where it was going. Admittedly, I wasn’t fully sold until I got to Stephanie’s section of the book. But once everything started coming together, I was so invested on how the rest of the story would unwind.

I really enjoyed how the book was essentially written through different collections of short stories that all related back to one another. This was a fun read.

It was good. But it wasn’t great. I do see how it’s highly rated because there is a lot to like. The stories are endearing and captivating. There are no lulls and the book flows at a constant pace. But there was something missing. More details, maybe? I saw the connections happening and I get what the author was trying to do, but it didn’t resonate with me. I didn’t completely understand it all. Maybe I have to read it again? Maybe I have to take notes of the characters and the timelines?

Stephanie’s story was my favorite. It was the clearest to me and had enough detail for me to follow along (until the end, of course, when she’s through the alightment). There was a lot to unfold, but I really liked her story and what she encountered once on the other side. It was hard to feel compassion for her, though. Her story did not move me.

So many thoughts about Folly and the future and ghosts and, overall, what is happening (that’s both a question and a statement). If you like a book that moves your mind and really makes you think, this is that book for you. Despite being short, there is a lot to ponder.

The story of Rose was too far into the future. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. There wasn’t enough detail for me to picture it. The interview tugged my heart strings but I wanted more!

This is definitely a story about love and loss with a magical, futuristic twist. It’s short enough that’s it’s worth a read. 3.5 stars rounded up.

What would you do if your dingy one-bedroom apartment suddenly developed an inexplicable (and beautiful) terrace through the closet door? Expanding off her terrific short story of the same name, Hilary Leichter delivers a magnificent and moving second novel -- one whose weirdness is perfectly balanced with its incredible beating heart. Every turn was wonderfully surprising, unabashedly strange, and absolutely captivating.

First, thank you so much to Netgalley for the e-arc! I had such a fun time with this book. I do agree with the other members here that the beginning was a bit slow but this story was so unique in its approach to family and death that I definitely recommend giving it a try!

Thank you Netgalley for the advanced copy of Terrace Story, I was really excited to read this one as I lived in small apartments for most of my adult life and would have LOVED if a magical terrace appeared in my place of dwelling.

This book is done in four parts. The first is about a couple who have a small apartment and one day realize a huge, lovely terrace has appeared when they open their closet. They have no idea how this happened, but don’t look a gift horse in the mouth as they say and so they keep mum about it and enjoy their outside space which has no right to be there.

The other three parts expand on the original story line, but get more and more out there as the book goes along. I enjoyed the book, but I did get kind of incredulous and didn’t really get how the author wrapped everything together at the end, maybe I just missed something? Anyhow, I found the writing great and loved the premise, but wish I had understood where she was going with everything a little more.

Honestly, this is such a fun story if you’ve ever lived in a tiny, cramped apartment. I did in NYC for many years and would have been real ok with magical outside spaces showing up.

First, I’d like to thank NetGalley, Hilary Leichter, and Ecco for this ARC! While I went back and forth on how to rate this book, there’s no denying it’s unique. It made me feel both intrigued and sad, somehow. I think this book is open to its reader’s interpretation and everyone will not read it in the same way. The stories are interwoven, touching on grief, sadness, hopefulness, and love. I don’t generally read short story novels, but this was quite different and I did end up really enjoying it. I’m rating this book 3.75 stars!

I liked this book. While it had a slightly slow start most of the characters were enjoyable and I loved the heightening tensions throughout the story. Would definitely read it again as it was a story built off of the ordinary and not solely hinged on fantastical elements! 6.5/10

If you like odd little books, then you will love this. I'm somewhere in the middle. It's a cute and quirky story, but I don't think the ending pays off. It's part reality, part fantasy. I liked the husband and wife, and I felt their struggle in the financial department, but the magical realism lacked something. I can't put my finger what the story was missing. I appreciate the novel being short and tidy, but I think I needed more character development. I wanted to know the main characters a little better.

Thank you, Netgalley and Ecco for the digital ARC.

3.25

Thank you to NetGalley and Ecco for the E-ARC of this book!

Terrace Story consists of four separate but intertwined short stories, all exploring various themes of love and loss. The first story unfolds with a family of three: Annie, Edward, and Rose (Rosie). They live in a cramped apartment but find solace in a secret, mythical terrace that only ever seems to appear when Annie's friend Stephanie is over. This is the story that kickstarts the events of the others in which we follow other characters that are all connected in the same web of the universe.

This is my first experience with Leichter's work and I definitely will be keeping an eye on her from now on. She has a very deliberate prose, somehow encapsulating intangible feelings and concepts but in such a beautifully subtle way. Her writing is simple but somehow manages to strike you right in the chest. In particular, I'm amazed by how attached I grew to feel for the characters in this story despite only spending short amounts of time with them. When characters experienced various forms of loss, I felt a distinct form of it as well. Their pain was my pain.

Reading this collection elicited the same reflective and almost eerie feeling I get when reading Emily St. John Mandel's work – specifically, I think if you enjoyed [book:Sea of Tranquility|58446227] then you'll enjoy this one. It leaves you with that same haunting inexplicable feeling of how vast the universe is but how connected everything feels anyway.

I also very much enjoyed the magical realism elements involved in the story what with the terrace and a specific character's abilities (that ended up being my favorite story of the four and even now, I want to read more about them). I never thought of myself as a magical realism fan but recently, specific books have been changing my mind!

My main grievance comes with the plots or storylines themselves. I enjoyed how every story interconnected, but I feel like I was left with this feeling of incompleteness with each one. I am a great appreciator of ambiguous endings and conclusions, but in the case of these four vignettes, I felt deeply unsatisfied with how they left off. Every time, it felt like the story was going somewhere with a specific theme of love and existence and then it would abruptly cut off. As the end drew near, I wasn't sure if I would be leaving with what the author intended me to leave with, and I still feel that way to an extent.

I feel like there was a lot of potential here, but I'm not sure all of it was lived up to. I do think many will disagree with me and enjoy the lack of concrete endpoints, but I personally was left hanging.

Overall: I do recommend for a genuinely interesting and quick collection of stories, but I still wouldn't enter with too grand of expectations.

This book is essentially four short stories woven together regarding the characters in the book. I really felt that the book had a lot of interesting ideas and concepts that really made you think, however in the end they did just not mesh together as a whole which was essential for this book to come together. I felt the writing was good, but it just did not go anywhere. It was a bit frustrating. Thanks for the ARC, NetGalley.

Despite the title, what Hilary Leichter has written is four interlocking stories, not one — each part fable and part, well, I don’t know what. I had been expecting a magical children’s book, but Terrace Story isn’t that at all. The book is unsettling in all the right ways, but it would be simply too easy to spoil the many surprises it contains. Let me just reveal that I enjoyed it very much, and I will be sure to appreciate every day with my loved ones.

In the interest of full disclosure, I received this book from NetGalley and Ecco in exchange for an honest review.

Terrace Story’s cover caught my attention immediately! It is beautifully written and has an interesting plot. Unfortunately, I found myself confused through most of it and rereading paragraphs. This book just wasn’t for me.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this!

I loved the spare writing of this book, and thought that the premise was incredibly imaginative. I do wish that the book had been a bit longer, as I felt like the separate narratives didn't fully come together into a cohesive idea at the end; I was left wondering "so what?" There were so many ideas about loyalty, parenthood, marriage, and partnership but I feel like none of them were as fleshed out as I wanted them to be. That said, the ending was lovely and really original. I didn't see that coming.

In all honesty I don't know what I think of this book. It is pretty deep and I also suspect that the depth runs even deeper than what I could grasp. It was beautifully written but in the end I feel like I just missed much of the intention.

Thank you to Ecco and NetGalley for sharing this ARC!

Terrace Story is one of those books that is intriguing in premise but lacks in execution, at least in my opinion. I wanted to love this story but it flew over my head and left me perplexed There is certainly an audience for this type of book but it is not me. I will give credit to the interesting characters and the original story presented.

When I read the description, I thought it would be a bunch of story from the same building, but alas it is not. Although, I still like the story, I found the main character Stephanie to be sad and abandoned by those who were suppose to love her, because they didn't understand her and couldn't believe what she could do. You see, she has a special abilities to expand things and make things into reality even dimensions and because no one else could guide her, she ends up doing catastrophic things that changes people lives around her and she can never change them back.
Although, there are explanations as to why everything Stephanie has done is explained, it still leaves me sad, because she can never undo what she has done to Annie or for that matter to the planet.
The book starts out ordinary but as it progress it is takes you to a totally unexpected place.

I want to thank Ecco and NetGalley for an advance copy of the novel, its was quite a journey.

This was the second proof I received from Netgalley. I requested this title shortly after or during my reread at the start of the year of the Wayward Children series, a portal fantasy series I love. When I saw the premise of this book was about spaces that exist at some times and don't exist at others I was in the mood to read it. I was unaware that this book is broken up in to four pretty separate-feeling stories. I honestly can't remember back to the first story and all I recall about the fourth story is that I think it was set in the future. The second story was the most memorable and enjoyable for me. It was about a couple who have a friend over one day shortly after moving into a new, cramped apartment only to find that when she opened what was typically a closet door it turned into a beautiful patio space. It was interesting to see how it impacted their lives. The third story was the longest and focused on the woman who came to their apartment and the fact that she had this power to create new spaces. I just found myself pretty bored by her story. I honestly felt pretty lackluster throughout the book and it felt like a bit of a slog to get through.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this novel, releasing in August 2023!

I had previously read the author's novel Temporary, and enjoyed it but wasn't blown away; Terrace Story was much more emotionally affecting. The book is a series of four interconnected stories about a related cast of characters that examines love, family, and grief with a metaphysical bent. I really enjoyed the characterizations (especially the way characters introduced in the first story evolved throughout the book) and the writing and found the stories very moving. The ending chapter was something of a surprise in terms of the setting but I thought wrapped everything up very effectively. Happy to recommend this one!

A well crafted set of interconnected stories that examine love and grief stretched across time and space. Told almost like a fairy tale, Annie invites a colleague, Stephanie, to her apartment to meet her new baby despite being embarrassed of its small size. Yet when Stephanie opens the wardrobe, instead of clutter, she magically finds a gorgeous terrace to enjoy a beautiful day outside. Annie and Eddie are astounded and find that themselves quickly addicted to the terrace space that only appears when Stephanie visits. The rest of the stories add context to Annie and Stephanie and the events that transpire.

The reader is required to suspend belief a bit and just enjoy how the stories unfold. I enjoyed each story which included tales of castles, funerals and the complications of relationships and love across death and time. I loved how the ending came together. I've had Leichter's earlier book on my to read list and will definitely move it up the list. Her language and characters are well crafted. I felt is if I knew them or were them.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early copy.

Thanks to NetGalley and Ecco publishing for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was excited to read this book as the premise of a magical terrace sounded very interesting to me. Unfortunately, I had a hard time understanding what the theme was. A couple downsizes their family into a smaller apartment and a magical terrace, that is quite quaint and beautiful, appears only when one of their friends shows up. I pressed forward trying to piece together the time segments, the funerals, apartments, couples, etc., but I really struggled to understand the plot, if one. I hate writing negative reviews but this just did not work for me. I just did not understand what I read as it was not a cohesive story.

Terrace Story by talented author Hilary Leichter is a well written novel but needs a plot or a theme. The author's potential was evident but it just did not execute well here.

2.5 stars rounded up.