The New York Times Book Review - Laura van den Berg
…transcendent…Oyeyemi so expertly melds the everyday, the fantastic and the eternal, we have to ask if the line between "real" and "unreal" is murkier than we imagined—or to what extent a line exists at all…The deeper one descends into the fabulist warrens of these stories, the more mystery and menace abound, and with each story I had the delightful and rare experience of being utterly surprised. A collection is, by my lights, a chance to build a universe, an overarching ecosystem. But it's common enough to encounter a hodgepodge instead, where flashes of brilliance are undercut by clunkers. While What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours is linked loosely by keys (and also by character…), the collection is even more urgently united by the author's playful, inventive sensibility. Oyeyemi has created a universe that dazzles and wounds.
Publishers Weekly
01/11/2016
In her first story collection, Oyeyemi (Boy, Snow, Bird) conjures present-day Europe, made enticingly strange by undercurrents of magic, and populated by ghosts, sentient puppets, and possible witches alongside middle-aged psychiatrists, tyrants, and feminist undergrads. Loosely linked by a theme of keys and doors, many of the stories feature female protagonists discovering their sexuality or coming into their own. In “ ‘Sorry’ Doesn’t Sweeten Her Tea,” 14-year-old Aisha and Tyche, her father’s colleague, send the goddess Hecate to torment teen idol Matyas Füst for beating a prostitute; in “A Brief History of the Homely Wench Society,” Aisha’s sister, Dayang, is a member of a women’s society at Cambridge University, waging a good-natured war against the Bettencourt Society, a rival all-male club. “Drownings” is an allegorical tale set in a dictatorship where citizens are “drowned in the gray marshlands deep in the heart of the country.” “Dornicka and the St. Martin’s Day Goose” is a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, draw on Eastern European history and lore. And in “Presence,” a married couple in London undergo a pharmaceutical trial causing them to hallucinate a son they never had, a “makeless” boy. Readers will be drawn to Oyeyemi’s contagious enthusiasm for her characters and deep sympathy for their unrequited or thwarted loves. Agent: Jin Auh, Wylie Agency. (Mar.)
From the Publisher
Magical and show stopping.” —Elle.com
“Oyeyemi so expertly melds the everyday, the fantastic and the eternal, we have to ask if the line between ‘real’ and ‘unreal’ is murkier than we imagined—or to what extent a line exists at all. . . The deeper one descends into the fabulist warrens of these stories, the more mystery and menace abound, and with each story I had the delightful and rare experience of being utterly surprised. . . Transcendent.” —The New York Times Book Review
“It is, in a word, flawless. . . Oyeyemi seems to be incapable of writing anything that's not wholly original. . . Oyeyemi manages to make the story both realistic and fantastical, and the characters are rendered with grace and compassion. . . [What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours] is a lot of things: dreamy, spellbinding, and unlike just about anything you can imagine. It's a book that resists comparisons; Oyeyemi's talent is as unique as it is formidable.” —NPR, Michael Schaub
“Oyeyemi’s fictional world is scintillating and eccentric, an ‘implosion of memory,’ as one character puts it.” –The New Yorker
“What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours. . . boasts ambitious stories written masterfully by an adventurous author, and is another example of Oyeyemi’s skill at finding inspiration in the smallest and most ephemeral details.” —Women in the World, in association with The New York Times
“An enchanting and beautifully crafted first collection of stories, linked by the recurrence of keys. . . Oyeyemi’s storytelling is without parallel.” —BBC.com
“Oyeyemi infuses magic into the lives of contemporary characters.” —TIME
“Dizzying, baffling, and beguiling. . . The stories in What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours are unruly in the best way, drawing on pre-modern modes of tale-telling (fairy tales, Boccaccio, The Arabian Nights) to show they’ve lost none of their power in the present.” —New York Magazine, Vulture
“[Oyeyemi] again shows her ability to mesmerize and enchant.” —The Washington Post
“Oyeyemi writes with mastery, sometimes keeping her prose sparse and declarative only to unleash a bounty of description and humor a sentence later.” —Entertainment Weekly
“In this collection of short stories, there are many keys that unlock many things. . . What links them all? You’ll want to open and see.” —Cosmopolitan
“These modern fairy tales from award-winning author Helen Oyeyemi…will unlock your imagination with stories of love, loss, and. . . keys. . . magical, feverish, spooky, and delightful.” —Marie Claire
“The most inventive. . . story collection of the year.” –O, The Oprah Magazine
“Inventive and free-ranging. . . Combining the fantastical and the ordinary to dreamlike effect, these tales are full of tenderness, humour and strange delights.” –The Financial Times
“Summarizing Oyeyemi is like trying to tell a dream. . . Casual and accessible at the sentence level, [these stories] are not so much experimental as deeply comfortable with the pre-narrative and proto-narrative impulses at the heart of storytelling.” —The Chicago Tribune
“A potent and playful collection.” —The Boston Globe
“[U]napologetically odd—a goldmine for those who crave magical realism with surprising twists told through spectacular writing. . . Readers should take their time with each story, possibly rereading in order to glean as much of Oyeyemi’s intent and meaning as possible.” —San Francisco Book Review
“These hauntingly enigmatic linked short stories attest to the author's reputation as a stylist of the first rank… Fasten your seatbelts for the ride… ‘What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours’ [is] a testament to her growing reputation as a contemporary master.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Spellbinding.” —The Denver Post
“Flirting with the speculative, Oyeyemi weaves stories about living puppets and their puppet masters, old diaries not meant to be opened, ancient libraries, and secret gardens. It’s hands-down my favorite book of the year thus far.” —The Chicago Review of Books
“Think the god Hermes, that fleet-footed trickster, and perhaps you have Oyeyemi’s style in a nutshell… Oyeyemi’s infinitely nested stories seem an end in themselves, born of a limitless imagination.” —Los Angeles Review of Books
“Breathtakingly bold and original.” —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“Oyeyemi demonstrates her deftness with description, of finding beauty in bizarre places. . . being granted access to these inventive and ambitious stories is a bit like receiving a gift, one full of strange and private wonders.” —Miami Herald
“Whether it’s the one about the puppetry school or the mystical diary, these nine virtuosic stories promise to mix up your reading diet with deliciously weird, thought-provoking, and fearless fare.” —Los Angeles Magazine
“Surprising, and satisfyingly so.” —Dallas Morning News
“Short stories that lead readers on secret journeys without ever leaving home.” –Pittsburgh Tribune Review
“Boldly original stories, often with fantastic elements.” –The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“In every story, surprising and beautiful phrases fall carelessly from the author’s pen. Which is a good reminder for aspiring writers: Trust that your imagination is infinite. Creativity is not like currency; spending it doesn’t leave you with less. Thinking creatively inspires more creativity. Oyeyemi shows us what can be accomplished with absolute trust in the expansiveness of one’s imagination. If you’re feeling uncertain, just dip into What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours for the proof.” –Washington Independent Review of Books
“A book that is sure to unlock the imagination of anyone who follows along.”—Refinery29
“A downright addictive read.” —Nylon
“There is no other fiction writer working in English, save Toni Morrison, whose books I look forward to more.” —Brooklyn Magazine
“Masterful.” —Slate
"Contains Oyeyemi's heady trademark combination of upside down fairy tale fantasy that is as emotionally resonant as it is inventive, and the excellent details from modern life that bring her stories firmly into some magical version of our own world." —Esquire
“A restless imagination harnessed to a smooth and propulsive prose style — Helen Oyeyemi’s fiction is a juggernaut, and she brakes for no one.” —Vulture
“Helen Oyeyemi is a literary genius, and it shows in this fantastic collection of short stories. . . With characters that will welcome you, push you, and surprise you, Oyeyemi's writing takes you past your expectations.” —Bustle
“Helen Oyeyemi has established herself as one of the premiere fabulists in the realm of the contemporary novel. . . [This collection] serves beauty and violence in equal measure, but is beholden to neither.” —Flavorwire
“A revelation. . . the perfect story collection.” —Mashable
“Here is the delightful union of vivid language, compelling plot, resonant characters and profound meaning that we turn to literature to find.” —The Root
“On the page [Oyeyemi] roars. . . Oyeyemi leaves us spellbound and begging for more of her ingenious and utterly addictive prose.” —Essence
“Helen Oyeyemi is a master at mixing magical elements with substantive topics.” —Redbook
“Both charming and unsettling, Oyeyemi’s stories will stay with you a long time.”—Bust
“[A] word must be said about the prose itself: spectacular.” —Electric Literature
“Stunning. . . Highly imaginative and enchanting. . . This collection is Oyeyemi at her best.” —Buzzfeed
“Enchanting.” —BookRiot
“These nine casually interlocking stories. . . overflow with the cerebral humor and fantastical plots that readers have come to expect from Oyeyemi.” —Kirkus (starred)
“[Oyeyemi’s] enthusiasm for a world where witches and phantoms coexist with psychiatrists and graduate students is infectious. What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours leaves readers with the captivating notion that behind every locked door lies additional mysteries.” —BookPage
“Page after page of macabre wit and beautiful, lingering imagery. This is a book where a busking viszla and ironic prison selfies happily co-exist. . . If these stories are mazes, they’re ones where readers can be all too happy to find themselves lost.” —Books and Whatnot
Library Journal
11/01/2015
The prolific and immensely talented Oyeyemi presents fantastical short stories that all revolve around a key, whether literal or metaphorical. (Prepub Alert, 9/15/15)
School Library Journal
09/01/2016
Keys are central to the short stories in this collection; they can either open or lock away something of significance for the characters. All of the tales are intertwined with themes of search and possible retrieval, which will draw young adult readers into worlds that are sometimes secretive and sometimes elusive; they will be able to easily identify with that search of self that so often comes with adolescence. The characters are relatable to YA readers, from the young woman looking for her long-lost mother and heritage to the hopeful music fan wanting to find the best in a broken artist. These worlds and characters are complex and passionate, and readers will find themselves longing for more once the stories end. Even though the settings are quite strange (a locked library, a city of stopped clocks, a marshland of the drowned), there's a complexity here and the brilliant prose gently pulls readers in, encouraging them to identify with the characters. VERDICT A must-add to libraries, this work will appeal to fans of literary fiction.—April Sanders, Spring Hill College, Mobile, AL
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2015-12-22
These nine casually interlocking stories, set in a familiar yet surreal contemporary world, overflow with the cerebral humor and fantastical plots that readers have come to expect from Oyeyemi (Boy Snow Bird, 2014). The opener, "Books and Roses," sets the tone: stories within stories and a fittingly cockeyed view of Gaudi's architecture as two women in Barcelona share their experiences in abandonment while searching for the loved ones who left them behind. Most of the volume takes place in England, with nods toward Eastern Europe. In " 'Sorry' Doesn't Sweeten Her Tea," weight-loss clinician Anton becomes increasingly involved in raising his boyfriend's two adolescent daughters, Aisha and Dayang, while fishsitting for a traveling friend. The story seems straightforward until Anton's friend falls in long-distance love with a mystery woman who's entered his locked house without a key and Anton's co-worker Tyche helps Aisha recover from a crisis in disillusionment by casting a spell from the Greek goddess Hecate. Tyche returns as a student puppeteer in "Is Your Blood as Red as This?," which layers creepy echoes of Pinocchio onto realistically genuine adolescent sexual confusion. Readers realize Tyche's fellow students Radha and Myrna have ended up sexually happy-ever-after when they pop up in "Presence" to lend their shared apartment to a psychologist so she and her grief-counselor husband can carry out the ironically eponymous science-fiction experiment that forces the psychologist to accept the absences in her life. While Aisha appears as a filmmaker employing puppets in "Freddy Barrandov Checks…In?," Dayang stars as ingénue in "A Brief History of the Homely Wench Society," a post-feminist romantic comedy about warring men's and women's societies at Cambridge. Several stories are pure fairy tale, like "Dornicka and the St. Martin's Day Goose," a twisted take on "Little Red Riding Hood," and "Drownings," in which good intentions defeat a murderous tyrant. For all the portentous metaphors (keys and locks appear in every story) and all the convoluted and fabulist narrations, Oyeyemi's stories are often cheerfully sentimental.
