I really love Rafael Frumkin's work and this book of short stories did not disappoint for me. It was a complex tapestry of characters and themes that had me captivated from start to finish. I particularly liked the title story, I found many of its elements relatable! Look forward to reading whatever Frumkin does next!

The stories in Bugsy & Other Stories tackle tough, cringy, heart-wrenching stories in a very real way. I will admit, the first story ("Bugsy") was a difficult start, but by the end ("The Last Show") I was rapt, putting aside other responsibilities so I could finish Flora's story.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review of Bugsy & Other Stories. Unfortunately I did not get to this before it was archived. I'm looking forward to checking it out at my local library!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.

I don't always love short story collections as I feel like they can often be disjointed and not fully formed. However, each of these stories were compelling in their own way. The title essay did a lovely job exploring queer chosen family, sex work, and mental health. Although most of these essays had elements that made them uncomfortable to read, it was done in a compelling way and was well-written and fully fleshed out enough to keep my interest throughout. I thought the final essay, "The Last Show" was a beautiful end of life fever dream and a great choice to be the finale.

My bad. I thought this was going to be for me and unfortunately it’s not. It held my attention for a good bit but I’m just not the intended audience.

Did not like that. Felt shocking just for the sake of shocking readers rather than saying something meaningful. Didn’t connect with it at all.

Don't really know why I requested this title, I'm sure its great but just not really my thing. Also the cover also throws me off just looking at it.

I loved Bugsy and Other Stories! I appreciated the vulnerability in writing the various characters and I really felt for most of them. Great writing that kept me engaged.

This story collection kept me entertained and reading until the very end. My favorite story was Bugsy, as I think we can all relate to longing and desperation of fitting in when you are young. It made me laugh and cry. I loved every moment.

Five stories, widely varied, all immersive, all in a prose that's difficult to describe -- Frumkin's at home in language and I bet he loves it: he certainly knows what he's doing with it -- and all painfully distressing. They're ... I think "investigative" would be a good word, which isn't to say that the people in them feel abstract or unfleshed. I was most moved by "Fugato," in which a psychologist has something like a transcendent breakdown as the voice of Alex Trebek encourages him to heal the world's pain, and by "On the Inside," whose protagonist (and most of the time, narrator) is a nonverbal autistic boy. ("On the Inside" comes with a brief introductory note in which Frumkin explains that he's neurodivergent and wanted to expose the abuses to which autistic people are subject. Kind of impressive that it works as a story about a fully realized person: it's not my experience as a reader that principled agendas make good fiction.)

I wonder sometimes how the rule evolved that Serious Fiction can't have a clear resolution or even a hopeful ending. I enjoyed Bugsy and Other Stories in a number of ways that sum up as "This is really well done," but every time I finished a story I turned to the next one feeling something like dread, because I knew that when I got to the last page I would be a little unhappier than I was at the first. Not that it's fiction's job to make readers happy; still, I wish the unhappiness would -- relent.

Thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the ARC.

The titular story "Bugsy" was probably the story that stood out the most to me, and the one that viscerally impacted me. Bugsy drops out of college, is not welcome back home with her parents, and begins working part-time to try to move forward. This was a tough read, because I really felt for Bugsy, whose birth name we never learn (the nickname Bugsy is given to them by her new employers/chosen family and she just accepts it, because she notes that so many people have said her name is "horrible").

Bugsy navigates depression, isolation, and generally feeling deeply misunderstood. She finds Vanessa, who inducts her into their sex work family/house , with Bugsy eventually moving in and falling in love with Stella, one of the other sex workers/producers. Bugsy explores her identity a bit, but mostly falls head over heels for Stella, while not recognizing how naive and sheltered she looks in others' eyes. I was so devastated for Bugsy's self harm and suicide attempt; it was again, very hard to read.

The other story that pulled me in was "On the Inside," which includes a short author's note at the very beginning with Frumkin sharing that as a neurodivergent person, he wanted to expose the harmful practices that impact the autistic community, especially children. I appreciated this note, and this story ends with a hopeful note of Lina, the POV we receive, in naming her humanity, rather than being a test subject or "other".

This is my first read of Rafael Frumkin (nonbinary trans man) and I will definitely seek out more of their work!

cw: Sexual content, Self harm, Panic attacks/disorders, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fatphobia, Toxic relationship, Injury/Injury detail, Homophobia, Suicide attempt, Drug use, Mental illness, Blood, Medical content, Cursing, and Body shaming

I was graciously given an e-ARC of Bugsy & Other Stories by Rafael Frumkin. This is my true and unprompted review:

While I personally enjoyed this collection of short stories, this is definitely not going to be for everybody. However, the raw reality of each character in each short story was beautiful (albeit sometimes painful) in its own way.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the opportunity to read this beautiful work of art.

This collection of short stories focuses on queerness, neurodivergence, self-discovery, and sexuality. Each story was vastly different in style and content, but were consistent in tone. Some of the stories were stronger than others, but all of them were interesting and worth reading. The writing is very well-done. The characters are well-written and the personal narrative style that many of the stories adopt allow for an interesting exploration of themes, especially of mental illness and self-discovery.

This book is a collection of several short-ish stories, all very down-to-earth and painfully real. All painfully relatable and so well written.

"Bugsy & Other Stories” is a collection of short stories that are supposed to be genre-defying and celebratory of taboos. Personally, this collection lacked sustenance. The stories were all good, but none were memorable. I enjoyed the first two stories the most and then they just steadily lost steam. I think they could have benefitted from some tightening up — they felt rambley and stream of consciousness, which didn’t add to the nature of most of them. Also, I’m not normally sensitive to content, but I would have preferred warnings of self-harm for one of these stories just because of how detailed and frequent it was. The author did an amazing job of vividly detailing mental illness, but it was uncomfortable to read for someone who does not have the issues presented in these stores. If you are closer to those particular illnesses, you might find getting an inside view particularly uncomfortable.
My main concern was the actual formatting of the book. Most of the stories had multiple perspectives and there were no scene breaks to warn the reader. I would be halfway through a paragraph and realize it was a different perspective and have to go back and start over. The narration also wasn’t conventionally formatted and was instead just lumped in. It made the whole book a little frustrating to read.
Lastly, thank you NetGalley, Rafael Frumkin, and Simon and Schuster for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a collection of short stories about real people and the real things they face in their lives. This is a book that will have Karens clutching their pearls, which is always the sign of something powerful and important! I appreciate that these are short stories, as it allows an in depth view of each character. I truly enjoyed and appreciated this read and its raw vulnerability!

This short story collection unfortunately fell a little flat for me. I quite enjoy the general direction of where Frumkin's stories wanted to go, but I'm not convinced the execution was effective in each instance. I'm usually a huge fan of short stories, especially short pieces that bend the rules and conventions associated with short-form fiction, but the use of multiple perspectives in some of these stories felt excessive and muddied the message. I think the overarching theme for these stories could be " it's good, but it'd be better if it was shorter." Tightening up the writing would have provided an extra star for my review. I do want to say that I appreciate the embracing of taboo topics and pushing boundaries. It is refreshing to see the viscera of the writing process sometimes.

I've read the author's other work, and I'm a fan of what they can do in novel-length narratives, but short stories are a whole other beast to tame.

Thank you so much to Netgalley, Rafael Frumkin, and Simon and Schuster for providing me with the digital arc for this review. I'll be sure to check out more of Frumkin's work in the future.

Content Warnings: Self harm, Suicide & suicidal ideation, Medical institutionalization, Stalking/Parasocial Relationships,

I enjoyed Frumkin’s novel, Confidence, so I was looking forward to reading this collection of short stories. Some aspects of his previous work are clearly evident here, such as creative situations in which to put first person narrators and excellent descriptive skills. The stories are all well-written.

However, I ultimately didn’t enjoy this collection for a few reasons. First, some of the stories had back-and-forth between two different narrators. With one story in particular, it’s two first-person narrators; while they each had a unique voice, the back-and-forth got tedious. Perhaps with clearer labels to prepare me for the shifts I would have liked it better, but really I think I would’ve just preferred seeing the story fully from a single person’s POV.

Second, one story, which offers the perspective of a non-verbal autistic individual, was just hard for me to read. Not hard in that the content was hard (though on one level it was, especially watching his parents succumb to misinformation and bad medicine as a result), but because it was just literally hard to understand. The author gave an excellent note before the story, and I can appreciate the creative effort being made. It just didn’t work for me.

Finally, I thought the stories were all just too long. I thought they could have been just as strong, and perhaps more impactful, from tighter writing.

I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of thoughtful, well-developed, very queer short stories!

The premises were creative and unique, the writing excellent, and the characters vibrant. The stories were all on the longer side, which was a pleasant surprise for me; the author did a wonderful job with pacing and making each story feel both complete and concise. My favorite was the titular story, “Bugsy,” about a young queer person who drops out of college, discovers queerness and kink, struggles with their mental health, and starts making a life for themself as an adult; “Like and Subscribe” and “The Last Show” were also utterly excellent. All in all, enthusiastically recommended!

Thank you so much to Simon and Schuster and Netgalley for the advance copy!