No One Belongs Here More Than You is a contemporary American short fiction collection. Each story explores intimacy, sexuality and isolation and often the relationship the three things have to each other. An older woman develops a fantasy about Prince William. Two girls leave home and engage in a sexual awakening. One woman teaches old people to swim out of water. The stories embody the dose of absurdism currently so popular in short fiction to varying degrees of success.
It's hard for me to put my thoughts on this collection into words. With the exception of two stories, I kind of hated it. Finding it dreary, trite, and needlessly absurd. July aims for intimacy and unfortunately misses more times than she succeeds. That said, there were two stories I loved in the collection, that hit the mark for me emotionally in ways I didn't expect and damn near made reading the whole thing worth it. Something That Needs Nothing was beautiful and heartfelt and unpredictable, exploring first loves, sexuality and coming of age so tenderly that the second I finished the story I went back and read it again. The same thing happened with How to Tell Stories to Children, a story of unexpected intimacy in the face of desolate loneliness.
Those two stories were brilliantly rendered, taking the reader on a journey that mattered. Unfortunately though, with sixteen shorts in the thing, it wasn't exactly good odds. The best word I can think of to describe it is uneven, embodying that phrase of sublime to the ridiculous, and I left too many stories feeling diengaged and, well, nothing, which is never something you want in a book.
2/5 Identity Changing Wigs
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