Like a good album: No skips.

I’ll be honest: I was a little worried after reading Romantic Comedy about the direction Curtis Sittenfeld’s work was going.

But I needn’t have. What was a singular departure into the kind of women’s fiction that is enjoyable to read but wastes the talent of a writer like Sittenfeld had no bearing on what we got after that in this fantastic collection.

The thoughtful, funny, and beautifully evocative prose that Sittenfeld gives us when she’s at her best dominates this collection. They aren’t all five star reads, but a notable number of the stories are, and the book as a whole is without a doubt a five-star reader experience.

The last story in the collection, Lost but not Forgotten, is the book’s best. There’s not a bad one in the bunch, but here’s the best of the rest: Show Don’t Tell, The Richest Babysitter in the World, The Tomorrow Box, A for Alone, and The Patron Saint of Middle Age.

I'm all over the map with this author.

I didn't care much for Eligible, but I loved Romantic Comedy and Sisterland.

I snapped this one up, not knowing it was a collection of short stories.

Turns out, it was just what my ADHD brain needed in the moment.

I really liked how the stories were so varied, yet all dealt with Crossroad Decisions.

I can't say I loved all the stories, or all the characters (I get second-hand cringe when characters start making Bad Decisions) but on the whole, I really loved this collection.

The author does such a good job of HUMANIZING her characters.

I may not like them, but I UNDERSTAND.

Sittenfeld does it again with this collection of stories that show she knows just how to distill the details of life and love (and divorce) into extremely readable prose. Show Don't Tell is right! I will definitely be encouraging my patrons to try this one. Great for the short-story-reluctant and the lover alike.

This book is a collection of 12 short stories. Each stand by themselves with no connection to each other. The author gives us glimpses into different characters and their stories. The characters are those that may be similar to your friends or relatives. Many of the story’s end, leaving you ,the reader to decide what may come next. There are stories of divorces, college reunions, old friends reuniting, completing projects related to what is known as “the Mike Pence Rule”. (To be honest, I never heard of that rule and had to do some research about it.) While I have not read any previous works of Curtis Sittenfeld, one of her stories in this collection talks more about a character from her book Prep.
Many of the characters in this collection of stories is at a time in their life where decisions may impact their futures. Most of the characters are middle aged women. The stories are warm, funny at times and keep your interest.
My suggestion to new readers it to try to read each story in its entirety. I sometimes lost the train of thought when I had to put my reading away for the day before finishing an individual story. While you may not enjoy all the stories or the main characters, there is something for everyone to enjoy.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for allowing me to read the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. Published on February 25, 2025.

Wow. Curtis Sittenfeld is talented. Each of these stories had me wishing for a full-length novel dedicated to these characters. I think this book will really resonate with middle-aged women (I'm not suggesting that other readers won't love it but that felt to me like THE demographic for these stories). So many of these stories feature women dealing with divorce or failing marriages. You are truly dropped into their lives and become so attached to these characters in such a short amount of time.

A lot of these stories left me feeling both unsettled and hopeful which is a unique combination. Short stories often don't give the reader the closure that so many of us crave; I'm almost always left wanting more!

As in any collection of short stories, there were some I liked more than others but I think they were all written well and I think the collection was curated beautifully.

I enjoyed reading these and I hope that Sittenfeld considers publishing more short stories in the future.

I wish more authors would put out a collection of short stories like this! It’s nice getting closure in digestible chunks. While not each story had a female narrator, each story focused on the female experience. Each was honest, if painful (White Woman LOL), and some explored the inevitability of disappearing (The Marriage Clock). Sittenfield does an incredible job of making women feel seen and heard through her writing, so an immense thanks to Random House, Sittenfield, and NetGalley for the ARC!

I absolutely love whatever Curtis Sittenfeld writes, I think the way she creates characters is so compelling and they are often complex. You never know if you should be rooting for them or for their downfall. Sittenfeld navigates the world of politics, racial identity, sexism, and other "sensitive" subjects masterfully and in a way that always catches me by surprise. They are so seamlessly woven into the short stories in this collection. Each one feels carefully curated for the next.

Thank you to Random House Publishing and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I'm not normally a short stories person but these were SO good. I felt for each character. The way Curtis makes you feel like you know the characters is wild.

I have loved all of Sittenfeld's books and i believe I have read all of them. This one was dificult to conect with for some reason - I couldn't get into it. I think the short story format is a certain type of reading I need to prepare for. I appreciated the connection to the Prep character L
ee Fiora who attends a reunion. The topic of divorce in "Patron Saints" is very believable - and all the characters have interesteing personalities and descriptions. Again - I think short stories are something I will have to get used to.

QUICK GLANCE-
My format- ARC ebook
Other formats- 📖Physical (320 pages) and Audio🎧 (10 hours and 33 minutes)
Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️(vulgar comments and open-door scenes in almost every short story)
Language:🤐🤐moderate

MY THOUGHTS-
I was really looking forward to this ARC, especially after enjoying Curtis Sittenfeld's Romantic Comedy. However, this book just didn't quite hit the mark for me. While I appreciated the idea of each story focusing on different characters and plots, by the time I was about 75% through, it felt like most of the stories had a similar message about politics and societal issues. This made the book feel repetitive and personally unrelatable.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Publishing for the advanced ebook in exchange for my honest opinions.

4 ⭐️

Came for the “Prep” sequel (and loved it) but stayed for the amazing other stories in this book. I think it’s so fun to see how an author can write so many different stories with complex and interesting characters in such a short setting. Curtis Sittenfeld has written many of my favorite reads in the past and this collection was just as good.

Thanks NetGalley and Random House for an ARC!!

I'll be honest, as soon as I saw that Curtis Sittenfeld had a new book coming out, I jumped to read it! I absolutely adored Romantic Comedy, and thought Eligible was a fun twist on Pride & Prejudice. Her latest publication, Show Don't Tell, is a collection of short stories that ruminate on life and love and the decisions that define our lives.
I have become a huge fan of short stories over the years, and Show Don't Tell reminded me why. These stories were fun and concise, but so effective. I felt like I knew the characters within paragraphs, especially best friends Janie and Pippa in "Follow Up" who text one another three straw hat emojis with the green ribbons with to say "I love you" even though neither can remember why. It's quirky and cute, and communicates so much about a relationship between old friends. I loved it. It was actually one of my favorite elements within several of the stories--they discussed romantic love, but also showed these real and relatable depictions of platonic love. I love romance, but I live for the love between good friends, so these scenes just touched my heart.
And I loved these stories. They jumped in time and setting, and the narrators were a variety of characters (male and female), but all were compelling, drawing in the reader with a hint of a scandal or the narrator getting big news, a message from someone in their past. And we were treated to an examination of love (platonic, romantic, familial) and life and the elements that draw it all together. Some of the stories made me cringe at the awkward bits, or laugh out loud at Sittenfeld's humor, and more than once I found myself underlining bits that felt so true, so perfectly real. I could have spent so much more time with the various characters, but felt that each story was just the right length. Though I think I'll soon be reading Prep for more time with Lee because I found her such an intriguing character!
If you're a fan of short stories, this is definitely a read for you.

🌶️ HOT TAKE:
Sharp, ironic, and effortlessly readable—this collection captures the quiet complexities of modern life with Sittenfeld’s signature wit. You’ll fly through it.

🧶 THE SUMMARY:
A collection of short stories that center around middle-aged women navigating marriage, friendship, fame, and the unspoken rules of social interaction. While the subjects vary, each story is distinctively matter-of-fact, often laced with irony, and driven by a deeply human main character confronting the small (but significant) tensions of everyday life.

💁🏻‍♀️ MY THOUGHTS:
🔸 After loving Romantic Comedy, I was thrilled to get an ARC of this one and see Sittenfeld working in a different format. Short story collections can be hit or miss in terms of pacing and engagement, but I breezed through this—always a good sign. The variety of narratives kept things moving, and despite the shifts in characters and themes, the collection as a whole was a complete experience.

🔸 A for Alone was a standout for me—ironically self-aware and painfully relatable in the way it explores the tension between feminist ideals and the realities of lived experience. On the flip side, the final story, which expands on Prep, didn’t land for me as much as it might for longtime Sittenfeld readers. But even with that, I walked away from this collection impressed and would absolutely recommend it to anyone looking for a compelling entry point into short fiction.

Thank you to @netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for the ARC, provided in exchange for an honest review.

I love Curtis Sittenfeld's writing and I really enjoyed this short story collection. It's rare to find a book of short stories where every single story hits in some way. While not every story was perfect, and of course I enjoyed some more than others, the collection as a whole is very good. I almost want to re-read Prep after finishing the last essay about Lee.

This book wasn’t bad, but I really wanted to like it more than I did. I’ve like Sittenfeld’s previous stories, but I think the main reason I’ve liked her work in the past was the reason this one didn’t quite hit for me. Sittenfeld does a great job of getting you to inhabit the lives of her characters, and the short story format of this book feels jarring, jolting you from one character’s perspective to another. Each concept could conceivably have been expanded to at least a novella, but the slice-of-life style of writing here instead felt a little more like she was following a series of writing prompts. I also suspect that this book was compiled for the sole purpose of finding a way to publish her excellent final short story in the collection, Lost But Not Forgotten. Of all of her stories, this is one that I feel can truly stand alone and would have been an excellent reading experience, had I not trawled through the remainder of this book. Nothing here was bad, but my recommendation would be to pick this up, skip to her final story, and move on with your reading journey. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the eARC!

I enjoyed just about all of the short stories, but some of them seemed to drag to much for me. If you love reading short stories (about 30mins each), you'll probably love this book! Thanks NetGalley for the ARC!

I'm usually not one for short stories, but I found myself thinking about these long after I read them. I think Sittenfield has shown us that her voice is something that doesn't need tons of words and pages to get a well-crafted story told to her audience. Sittenfield shows their readers the messiness and reality of the human experience and it's something I treasure about her writing, Show Don't Tell is no exception.

I’m a big fan of Curtis Sittenfeld’s distinct literary voice, and her style shines in this collection of short stories.

Centering characters in middle-age with themes of reunion, divorce, and adult friendship, Sittenfeld imbues these vignettes with a hearty dose of dry wit. Some of the stories in the collection have been previously published and are already strongly dated, like the piece about an artist exploring the “Mike Pence” rule or the story about a couple’s fight over their COVID safety protocols in the summer of 2020 when an ex-boyfriend comes to town. But even these stories feel poignantly of their time, fitting with the slice of life style of the collection, and offering some truth about the experiences of the last several years.

A personal favorite is “Follow Up,” in which a middle-aged corporate executive in Milwaukee recounts a brief affair in her 20s following an inconclusive mammogram. And fans of Sittenfeld’s iconic boarding school novel Prep (like myself!) will enjoy the final (and longest) story returning to Lee Fiora and Ault at her 30th reunion.

Overall, this collection is very strong and a very enjoyable read! Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free eARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book was such a joy to read. Curtis Sittenfeld’s realistic humor is my absolute favorite. She takes the everyday, the cringy memories, the poignant, annoying, and mundane and makes it all so interesting and relatable. She remains one of my go to authors.

This was unfortunately not my favorite of Sittenfeld’s books. The collection of stories failed to captivate me or feel relatable. The subject matter came across as a bit pretentious and I wasn’t a far of the pacing of the stories. I think Sittenfeld is a talented writer but this one wasn’t for me. Thank you and much appreciation to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.