Curtis Sittenfeld shines as a short story writer! SHOW DON'T TELL is the perfect follow-up story collection to YOU THINK IT I'LL SAY IT. Sittenfeld is so smart and so GOOD at capturing the ordinary feelings women have, especially feelings of shame, embarrassment, and awkwardness. It's an utter delight to read. I loved how many Midwest settings there are in this collection! The characters felt like people I'd know in real life. The final story is such a treat for long-time fans of Curtis Sittenfeld because she returns to Lee Fiora, the main character in PREP; we get to see her attend her 20 year reunion at Ault with Martha, Dede, and other characters from the book. I adored it, partly because it was so special to get to see Lee's happy ending.

I love Sittenfeld’s novels, but I just don’t think her short stories do it for me. There’s so much cheating and not many likeable characters! Unfortunately, I read this book just a few weeks ago and can hardly remember any stories.

Thanks to net galley for the ARC!

Classic Curtis Sittenfeld. Well written and well conceived set of shot stories. I don't usually reach for anthologies but I quite enjoyed this one. Its been nearly 20 years since I last read Prep (way too young, mind you) and I wish I had revisited it as one of the short stories examines the lives of the characters 30 years after the events of the book. Recommend!

This was a beautiful collection of stories featuring imperfect and real people living imperfect and real lives. It was classic Curtis Sittenfeld, and I especially loved revisiting the characters from Prep 30 years later.

We explore many aspects of the human experience with 12 stories that span many aspects of life. We explore marriage, divorce, infidelity, motherhood, friendship, art, college life, and many other life experiences. The stories have a thread of nostalgia and revisiting the past, and events that shaped the characters.

I enjoyed many of the books in this collection. They were very real and bittersweet and felt authentic to the human experience. Some of the stories did not totally hit for me but overall it was an enjoyable read.

I don’t usually select a group of short stories as I generally prefer long novels, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to read this collection by Curtis Sittenfeld. I’m a huge fan of her previous work and this collection doesn’t disappoint.

Each story is a wholly formed idea, varied and satisfying. It was enjoyable to read different stories at one sitting, all highlighted by the author’s familiar writing style. The first story seemed to be autobiographical and the last story revisited the main characters of the iconic book, Prep, thirty years later. All were well written and insightful.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and Random House for the opportunity to read and review this collection.

Thank you to the publisher for a Netgalley.

This is my second book by Sittenfield; both being short story collections.

This one did not quite hit for me the way You Think It, I'll Say It did, but this was still so well written.

3.75

If you liked Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep, you will enjoy Show Don't Tell, a group of short stories. Most are told from the perspective of a middle aged woman, married or divorced, but all dealing with different issues. Fans of Prep (which I am) will especially appreciate Lost but Not Forgotten, which returns to Lee, who is attending her 30th reunion at Ault and seeing what has changed and what hasn't. The most painful story to read was "White Women Lol" but others are interesting for different ways. I like Sittenfeld's way of taking us down different areas within the same story. Some of them seem more like good writing rather than a good plot, I guess that's why they didn't turn into novels.

I loved this book so much. Usually I don't really like the idea of short stories, I prefer to get into a thick meaty novel. But this collection proved me wrong. I don't know how Sittenfeld does it. How does she create all these very interesting stories which you would think would start to feel repetitive, but to me never do. They are different from each other. They come from a similar place, but there are individual stories that bring to life the small differences between people who outwardly seem the same. Those small differences create ripple effects and that keeps me coming back to see what these characters do.
I do feel Sittenfeld is writing about a world familiar to me, which makes it more intriguing to me. I guess everyone likes to see themselves in a story. But I think most people can relate to these small things, the time someone was really mean to you in high school, the time your dad was mean to you in front of a friend, the time your friend's dad was mean to you. Little things that pack a punch.

I appreciated this upcoming release from the author of Romantic Comedy. Sittenfield's astute insights find their perfect home in this collection of short stories, which are bittersweet and purposeful. The characters are so fantastically developed that it's hard to believe they're fictional. This is the perfect read to wrap up the winter season.

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Show Don't Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld
Show Don't Tell
by Curtis Sittenfeld (Goodreads Author)
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I've been reading Curtis Sittenfeld since the early 2000s—so long, in fact, that I even met her when she visited my college campus to talk about Prep. That’s to say, I’ve been a fan for almost 20 years, and in some ways, it feels like we’ve grown up together.

Her latest short story collection, Show Don’t Tell, is classic Sittenfeld: sharp, observant, and character-driven. The standout stories for me were Show Don’t Tell, The Richest Babysitter in the World, and Lost but Not Forgotten (especially for Prep fans like myself). Almost all the stories center on middle-aged women and their relationships—whether friendships, marriages, or creative ambitions. Sittenfeld has long identified as a women’s fiction writer (a theme she even cleverly weaves into one of these stories), and I found myself wondering whether this collection would resonate as much with readers who aren't middle-aged or don’t see themselves reflected in the traditional family structures she often writes about.

There’s a thread of cynicism in many of these stories that didn’t fully match my current mindset, but that’s more about personal taste than execution. Sittenfeld is undeniably skilled at crafting characters—within 20 pages, you know these people. Even if you don’t always like them, you understand them.

Overall, I enjoyed this collection. A solid 4 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This collection of short stories was classic Sittenfeld. If you read Prep fifteen years ago and loved it read this collection. I'm usually not the biggest fan of short stories, but these ones were so well crafted I didn't even mind. I was so happy for the nostalgia of the Prep follow up at the end too. This was a lot of fun.

Sittenfeld offers up some slice-of-life short stories that deeply delve into each characters' psyche and past experiences in order to inform their present decision making. She can deftly involve a reader into a short story-so much that each story felt much more thorough than you would think.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in return for my honest review.

Thank you Random House and NetGalley for the ARC!

I am a big fan of Curtis Sittenfeld, so I was thrilled to receive this ARC. I went in blind and wasn't quite sure what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised! I liked the short stories, and I found they all addressed a different concern we all have in relationships. My one critique is that I feel as though they ended in the middle of the story (which I am sure was intentional, as life is not wrapped up neatly at the end of a phase/life event), but I felt like it was a little jagged from one story to the next. Overall though, this was a great read and I will recommend to my readers!

Thanks again for the ARC!

This book of short stories is a treasure.

Curtis Sittenfield's novels are typically beloved (Romantic Comedy is one of my all-time favorites), and this book of short stories reinforces the strength of her characters.

These stories look at marriage, friendship, life, and choices through various lenses and situations. They're all meaningful and hook the reader.

Her situations force people to examine their lives, how they feel about situations, and the status quo for them. I could have read full-length novels about more than half of these characters. I find myself still thinking of them days later.

"A for Alone" and "The Hug" are my personal favorites-- but that's like picking my favorite flower-- they're all beautiful.

This was my first time reading a book of short stories that weren’t strictly autobiographical and I really enjoyed it. Each story shined a light on interpersonal behaviors with a particular focus on race, gender, and wealth. I wouldn’t say it was earth shatteringly insightful but made for interesting reading. My only other experience reading Sittenfeld’s work was Romantic Comedy and this was a great introduction to the rest of her work. A huge thank you to the publisher and author for the ARC!

I think I’ve finally come to the conclusion that I just don’t like short stories. I have to care about the characters and short stories don’t give me enough time to get there. But I do love her writing

I am a huge fan of Curtis Sittenfeld’s writing, and really enjoyed this collection of short stories. I feel like the title of this collection is exactly why I love her work— her writing is incredible, and she is able to articulate observations in large and seemingly mundane moments in life— discussing marriage, friendship, race, wealth, privilege, fame and more. Every story was thought-provoking and I couldn’t stop thinking about each of them.

Thank you to NetGalley, RandomHouse & Curtis Sittenfeld for the chance to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

I found these short stories to be an incredibly palatable exploration of flawed thinking and patterns. The various narrators' point of view were often cringe inducing and quite pretentious. But I think reading unlikable characters can induce more empathy.

I really enjoyed this collection and will definitely seek to read more of Sittenfeld's backlist.

A set of short stories with such thorough character development and such clear, succinct, and essence depicting prose that I read the whole set without once wishing I were reading a novel instead (I tend to get bored with short stories about 1/3 of the way through the collection).

The stories run the gamut of professions, relationship statuses, races, and problematic situations. Just about all of them got me thinking about some little aspect of life that I hadn’t necessarily considered before. While the characters are all different, they do seem to all share an earnestness, a tendency toward reflection, a (shared with us) path to insight, and a focus on whether or not they are, indeed, good people. A few over thinkers (unfortunately, I do identify with this). I loved the exploration of human fitness and honesty within relationships. There is plenty of dramatic tension, but of the “it could happen to me” variety and not the melodrama that so many people seem to crave.

I liked all of the stories but here are a few that tickled my thinking bone: a VP of film production heading to Alabama to convince the religious author of a popular marriage book to allow a gay couple in the movie; a babysitter for a future internet billionaire; a woman researching the “Billy Graham rule” that “if you’re a married man, you don’t spend time alone with another woman;” a Covid story that unearths strange behavior patterns in a long time couple.

Quotes:
“He’s the kind of writer, I trust, about whom current students in the program have heated opinions; I’m the kind of writer their mothers read while recovering from knee surgery. To be clear, I’m mocking neither my readers nor myself – it took a long time, but eventually, I stopped seeing women as inherently ridiculous.”

“Even if it takes a month to get through a novel, the ritual still anchors me, the access to lives I’ll never live.”

“Among the gifts Alison had given me years before when she said ‘only white women are afraid of getting old’ was the reminder, at a time when I’d needed it, of just how many cultural narratives were optional rather than compulsory.”

“I hadn’t thought adulation was something I wanted or needed; I had thought companionship sufficed. But I’d failed to anticipate how calamitous the standard erosion of affection over time could be when you started with a modicum as opposed to an abundance.”

“Not for the first time, it occurs to her that perhaps, rather than exploring the customs of married, heterosexual socializing, she is inadvertently demonstrating the isolation of modern life.”

“I’d noticed over time that neither she nor Cheryl insulted themselves in the reflexive, somewhat disingenuous way my white friends did; Allison and Cheryl didn’t use self-criticism as a bid for either praise or bonding.”