Thought Train to Pusan

It’s been a minute since I’ve read a collection of short stories (or really, short stories in general), so I figured it might be worth a little revisit with Oyeyemi’s collection in What is Not Yours is Not Yours . Once again, I find my personal experience with short stories to be a bit of a mixed bag, not to mention how with any collection put together there are going to be those that are favored and those that are not. For the most part, these stories resonated on at least some level, and there was more positive than negative for me, though not completely. The nine stories in What is Not Yours is Not Your s are all connected through the motif of keys and locks, and the possibilities of what lies beyond a lock or what a key may open. A short blip to describe each is as follows (though they are pretty vague so as not to give anything away): “Books and Roses” - Two interconnected tales of loss and loneliness. A young orphan has a key around her neck, so similar to a key that was given to...