I started out liking this book. By the end I was actually angry. The first story was very good. The second was as well, although I thought to myself, "some similar themes here." The third: "Hmm, this is a trend, same themes." The fourth: "Oh, this is different. Oh wait, here we are again." And so forth.

Every story in this collection covers all or most of the following topics: middle-aged angst, middle-aged emotional numbness, cookie-cutter middle-aged lives, disconnection with self that increases over the years, repeated sameness for years and years. The stories are told similarly, too, with emotional metaphors, odd phrasing, lack of definite nouns (names being "You" or "He" kind of thing). Taken alone, each story is well written and interesting, taken as a whole, he's a one-trick pony.

I believe Mr. Yu is deathly afraid of middle age. So I took a look at his little bio and it turns out, he was at the most 30 years old when he wrote these. Now I do believe people can write about experiences they have not had. I do think a young healthy person can write about being old and dying. However, when a young person repeatedly writes about characters who are depressed and emotionally dulled and self-defeating because they are middle-aged and have no purpose in life or are doing things not because they want to but because they are supposed to, it becomes a little ridiculous. It's kind of like a skinny person only writing stories about how sad and pathetic fat people feel their lives are.

I seriously began to get offended by the middle of the book and by the end I was positively (negatively?) angry. I am almost 43 and my friends are all in their forties. All of them are in different places in their lives, with varying degrees of success in work, family and social circles but none are like the people in this book. These people are the ones Hollywood portrays, the Desperate and miserable Housewives. But I don't know any people like that. My friends are mostly middle and upper middle class but they all do fun, interesting things, like attending Zombie walks and Solstice parades. They do creative and artistic things and they joke about what they'll do when they grow up. Not all are happy but those that aren't, are not miserable because they are middle aged and in a rut but because of other, more systemic factors.

Anyway, Yu mostly writes from the point of view of miserable successful men or miserable loser women. A little of the reasoning comes to light in the final story which I'm not sure is fiction, where he talks about his mother's misery and uselessness. I think he projects that on to himself and it terrifies him. It's sad. I suffer from major depressive disorder and I think I'm more positive and optimistic than he is.

So I recommend reading one story at a time if you read it at all. Read something else in between and then you might be more appreciative of his writing gift. Because he does have one, if you can see past the angst.