In a Nutshell: An OwnVoices debut story collection focussing on the lives of ordinary citizens in Kashmir. Good stories, but none made me go “Wow!” in any way. Barebones in description but great in character sketches. Slice of life in every way, so if this writing style doesn’t work for you, the book might not.

This debut collection of eleven stories focusses on the lives of ordinary people in Kashmir, a conflicted territory ever since the Indo-Pak partition with both nations fighting over its “ownership”. Most stories that are set in this region focus on terrorism, soldier brutalities, religious discrimination, or rebellion. This book is one of the rare ones that focusses only on common people and common problems without forcing in aggression and uncertainty into every scene. As the author is from Srinagar (the summer capital of Kashmir), I had been looking forward to getting a genuine glimpse of Kashmiri lives without getting more of the same religious/political agenda.

Does the book deliver? Well, the results are mixed for various reasons.

There is no author’s note, but the blurb states the stories to be weaving in “larger, devastating themes of loss, grief, violence, longing, and injustice with the threads of smaller, everyday realities that confront the characters’ lives in profound ways.” This is a somewhat ambitious declaration, methinks.

The location should have been the primary factor in this collection. However, in focusing on the “ordinary”, the focus is so removed from the setting that most of the stories could have been based anywhere. There is absolutely nothing about the place, be it the scenery or the weather or the lifestyle or the insurgency. Barring a few passing mentions of soldiers or guns in a couple of the stories, there is nothing to suggest that the location is under strife. In fact, the writing is so generic that the same stories could have been transposed to any contentious location anywhere in the world without any edits. This was a big disappointment to me; while I did want an agenda-free book, I didn’t want a Kashmir-free book. But I just didn’t *feel* Kashmir herein.

The writing style is clearly slice-of-life, with each story focussing on an event in the life of the primary character rather than having a neat start-middle-end progression. Slice of life is a hit-or-miss style with me, with my satisfaction heavily dependent on how the stories phase out. In this collection, most stories didn’t offer me a satisfying closure. They are not complete, and not even abrupt or open-ended; there’s just the end of a scene and then nothing! I felt like I was watching a play where the curtains came down before the final act. In most cases, I was left wondering about the point of the story.

The content is quite character-oriented, as is common with slice-of-life. But the characters do uphold the strength of the book. Each character (whenever human; one story has only dogs as characters) is a relatable person, with hopes and struggles we can identify with even though we don’t live under similar circumstances. The challenges they face are from routine life and nothing to do with the political turmoil. This aspect was a plus for me.

As always, I rated the stories individually. Of the eleven entries, most earned 3-3.5 stars from me. If I had enjoyed the slice-of-life writing style more, some of these might have earned more points. But the main reason for my lower satisfaction was not the writing but the endings. The only two stories that went to 4 stars were ‘Flowers From a Dog‘ and ‘The Mannequin‘, both poignant tales of regret and yet quite dissimilar from each other in tone and impact.

All in all, I wouldn’t recommend this as a story collection showing you the true Kashmir. But I would certainly recommend it as an OwnVoices work showing you how humans take solace in the ordinary even in darker times. It would help if you enjoy slice-of-life writing and character-oriented storytelling.

3 stars, based on the average of my ratings for each tale.

My thanks to Tin House for providing the DRC of “The World With Its Mouth Open” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

This is a short story collection set in Kashmir. It focuses on the everyday of the people who lived there. The writing style is very beautiful with a poetic nature to them. Each scene is a vignette of those lives and are full of the wide spectrum of human emotion



Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC of this novel.

Zahid Rafiq’s The World with Its Mouth Open, introduces readers to the little-known, disputed territory of Kashmir, a place they are unlikely to forget after reading these eleven collected short stories.

Rafiq masterfully creates a scene, whether a young journalist admiring a small painted box he cannot afford in Mr. Hussain’s store, a schoolboy failing a test, a pair of boys infatuated with a newly arrived girl in the neighborhood, known to them only as “Beauty,” a grieving man carrying a wilting bouquet of roses as he searches a cemetery for the grave of a woman he loved years ago, or a construction worker unearthing a severed hand while digging a foundation for a new home.

Full of varied emotions, ranging from awe and humor to grief and terror, each story engraves images on the reader’s mind. However, exactly what point the author wants to convey may remain unclear, making this an interesting and discussion-worthy book club selection for those who prefer serious fiction rather than light-hearted fluff.

Thanks to NetGalley and Tin House for an advance reader egalley of Rafiq’s eye-opening introduction to Kashmiri life.

I love reading short story collections, but this one was a bit of a letdown. What saved this collection for me was the writing style. The author has a beautiful way with words, but the content/variety of the stories left me wanting more. I would read from this author again but overall; I was disappointed in some of the stories. It's a mixed bag for me.

Short stories set in Kashmir about everyday people - shopkeepers, young boys, families. Filled with humor, violence, and grief.

A beautifully written collection of short stories, but somehow I didn't really relate to most of them. Not my cup of tea but your mileage may vary!

This book was a collection of short stories. They were written poetically and were written beautifully. I do think some stories were good and others bad and some even amazing. It was a great collection and I enjoyed reading it, I think some should have flowed together more

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for this complimentary ARC in exchange for an honest review!!