beautiful exquisite amazing writing; i'm absolutely in awe and couldn't put this down. i'm oficially a lily king stan as of today and need to get on to her backlist asap! this was also the first short story collection i ever read from start to finish, and, wow, i loved the experience. (a bit like listening to an album right?) i've always been into short stories but other collections have failed to keep me engaged. well, not this one! my favorite part was 100% the writing. lily king's style is so clear and yet rich, the exact right amount descriptive and funny and simple. she captures emotion, and you only stay with her characters for a little bit but still feel like you've known them all their life. the different stories also fit together so beautifully, and i'd like to think that some characters are making an appearance in more than one. the stories that i definitely need to reread were 'creature' (okay, what a start to this book?!), 'when in dordogne', 'five tuesdays in winter', and 'the man at the door' (which has left me a bit ??? but in a good way). my absolute favorite was 'timeline'; this one reminds me so much of king's novel 'writers & lovers', especially because of the narrator. there's also so much depth to that story, and a lot is left unsaid, just like in all of the stories from this book. overall, this book was a big surprise and a new favorite for sure!

Lily King erzählt auf meisterliche, ungezwungene Weise Geschichten von ganz normalen Menschen voller Fehler, Geschichten mit und ohne Happy End, Geschichten, die das Herz berühren. Ihre Charaktere sind wie Du und ich, wunderbar unvollkommen und wunderbar lebendig. Jede der Kurzgeschichten malt ein eigenes Bild der Liebe, von Romantik, Geschwisterliebe, Loyalität bis zur unsterblichen Liebe einer Mutter berühren Lily Kings Worte und zeigen alle Licht- und Schattenseiten der Liebe in all ihren Facetten. Ein Buch voller naiver Hoffnung und Sehnsucht, aber auch ein Buch zum Fühlen und Nachdenken.