2020 might be the first year I have had multiple favorite short story collections read & that feels nice! I used to absolutely loathe the form as I was forced to read too many during school but last year, I forced myself to read a few collections and I decided to continue that side challenge this year, too.
I’m glad I did because “See You In Paradise” manages to be the first book I’ve thought of as “cerebral, but in a, like, cute way.” It explores very mundane aspects of life but does so in a way that makes the ordinary fantastic or deeply thought-provoking, and I truly couldn’t get enough of how each & every story made me feel. 5/5 stars, for sure, and I definitely recommend it to both lovers & haters and anyone in between of the short story form.

None of the stories leap out as better than the others, per se - I don't know that there's one where you'll go "OH WOW!" and post it up as a banner example of Lennon's work. Instead, each of the stories spins together into the whole and makes this collection that oh-so-rare example of being greater than the sum of its individual parts. And those individual parts are all good. They are not connected, they are not linked - they are just all solid pieces of short fiction. And reading them on a porch or in air-conditioned suburban 'security' was just one of those perfect confluences of time, place, and story.

More at RB: http://ragingbiblioholism.com/2014/08/12/see-you-in-paradise/
and at TNBBC: http://thenextbestbookblog.blogspot.com/2014/08/drew-reviews-see-you-in-paradise.html

Fantastic stories. Funny, dark, quirky, and real, often several of these at once. Lennon makes the mundane interesting and the interesting meaningful.