I'm not a digital reader at all, physical books all the way. Only in rare situations I opt for the kindle book, usually for the convenience of having something on my phone on the go. But when I saw advertisement for this new amazon Trespass collection (I know, how pathetic: drawn in by an add!) and realized that it includes some of my absolute favorite writers of the moment (and of all time) I knew I had to incorporate them into my reading, and it didn't hurt that I could download them for free

Lighthearted… but not reallyThe tone of this story is very lighthearted and playful mostly throughout, but there’s an underlying seriousness and pain that begins to seep into the narrator’s story as it moves into the final third. I suppose celebrating a couple’s divorce is likely to dredge up uncomfortable memories for some people. This story is never heavy-handed, but able to create an environment of serious internal self-reflection and regret for the main character. The gradual transition of g...

This is probably my least favorite story in the collection. It feels like it's trying to be deep and literary, but it just didn't work for me. An anonymous middle-aged man attends a divorce party (is this really a thing people do? If so, why??) with a younger woman he met in Vegas. At the party things slowly fall apart while the pet tortoise that was supposed to be a symbol of the couple's fidelity wanders around. It's got a surrealist tone and objectively the writing is fine, but I just did not...

Lit-fic isn't often a genre that works very well for me, but when it does work, I usually get kind of unreasonable about it. Here, this story works for me. For whatever reason, all the various pieces here coalesce for me into a whole that I can't, and don't want to try to, articulate here. I do know that one of the reasons this story works so well for me is that the writing doesn't take itself too seriously. There's a comedic tone here that works really well with the sadder, more melancholy aspe...

The Tortoise and the Flower GirlReview of the Amazon Original Kindle eBook released simultaneously with the Audible Original audiobook (February 24 2022).We people were the monsters crashing their party, weren’t we? The creosote bush scrub, the gypsum outcrops and alluvial fans, the bighorn sheep and kangaroo rats, the chuckwallas and the Gilas with their seething orange-and-pink backs, the twisted junipers and the woolly Joshuas, the burrowing owls and the raspy cactus wrens—this was their home...

So far, my favorite in the series. It's not as weird as the rest of this collection. Entertaining.

I think I own nearly every book Karen Russell has written and I've read none of them. This makes me a very bad reader indeed. I have been missing out, if this is any indication.This little novella is outstanding. In the midst of a very self-centered lavish gathering to celebrate a divorce, one man faces his personal demons, his past, his lonely future and comes out better for it with the help of a walk in the desert and a very special land tortoise.I cried.

A lonely, middle-aged man with a tragic backstory wanders a divorce party at which he was a plus-one and befriends a tortoise. Karen Russell was the only author included in the Trespass collection with whom I had no familiarity. This story made a lot of good little points and certainly had a party atmosphere, embracing the ethereal, unreal qualities of the collection as whole. Also, a man befriends a tortoise, which I liked.

This story wasn't necessarily bad, but I didn't really care about it. A middle aged white dude feels bad about his life? Groundbreaking.Rating: 2.5/5

Stan Dobrev goes gambling and ends up at a divorce party in the Southern California desert as Michelle’s plus one. Stan is baffled by the odd reverse traditions and simmering contempt before he wanders off to the beach with the flower girl and rescue tortoise Greely. The stream of consciousness writing style was a deliberate choice and makes sense for this narrator. The flowery language, surrealist atmosphere, and comedic tone make sense for an inebriated individual going through a midlife crisi...

I read all of the shorts included in the Trespass Collection. "The Tiger Came to the Mountains" was an excellent short story, with twins hiding in a cave waiting for the “all clear” to go home. "Wildlife" is about three odd ducks that live in a neighborhood - there are more neighbors, but we only meet the three. The odd ducks truly held my interest, but I definitely don't know what happened... How did I miss the chapter numbers were counting down until I was close to finished with the book? "The...

A lonely white guy befriends a tortoise at a divorce party in the desert which he attends as a last minute plus-one. The story is darkly comic, as it should be with such a plot line. It's made more so by the reveal of the main character's sad backstory and the reason for his own divorce years ago. Karen Russell is the only author in the "Trespass" collection of shorts whose works I'm not familiar with. I will need to rectify that lack, as I enjoyed this story.

“Divorce Tortoise. As a divorce tourist, I felt an affinity with the creature. Neither of us belonged here.”"'Developing' property, to use that especially cursed word. 'Reclaiming' wetlands. Bricking up the desert with chlorine-blue infinity pools. (When I mentioned this dissonance to Fern, she pointed out that I dissected frogs with children to teach them about conservation, parking my SUV on stolen land to collect my government paycheck.)”I adored this story. And "adore" is absolutely the word...

I have not yet read the whole Trespass series, but I can not imagine anyone surpassing this, or coming close.Regardless, this short tale is akin to that The New Yorker tale that hits you out of left field - just an incredible tale, with a unique protagonist - an older man invited to a dysfunctional party that he should not have gone to.In any case, incredible. I highly recommend it!

This short story/novella did not capture my attention as much and I got a bit bored with the plot of the story.

Not that I have any plans to divorce my wife, but with the right kind of split, the divorce party described here could be pretty fun. Probably better just to have an anniversary party though.

cw: alcohol/drug use, death of a childeh

3.5 stars