The stories in this collection are poetic and puzzling . . . get ready to tumble through the doors of this beautifully challenging and satisfying collection
NPR
Imaginative, playful and entirely unique, this collection of short stories is magical realism at its finest
Time Out (US)
Dizzying, baffling, and beguiling . . . unruly in the ... Read morebest way, drawing on pre-modern modes of story-telling (fairy tales, Boccaccio, The Arabian Nights) to show they've lost none of their power in the present
Vulture
What is Not Yours is Not Yours is like a charmed set of Russian dolls: spellbound, we are gripped by the seamlessly joined stories unfolding from-and into-one another, as we wait for Oyeyemi to reach for her next bit of magic.
Londonist
Her arguments, about identity, about sexuality, are more fluid than [Angela] Carter's . . . Reading What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours is like settling into a rollercoaster: you must abandon yourself
New Statesman
It is Oyeyemi's boundless inventiveness which drives these stories . . . stylistically bold, fantastical, disorientating and ruthlessly defying convention. Oyeyemi, one of the Granta Best of Young British Novelists 2013, now effortlessly outpaces most of her peers. In this short fiction we can discern hints of Angela Carter and hear notes of Aimee Bender but on the whole what rings out is Oyeyemi's singular, magical voice.
National
Oyeyemi has created a universe that dazzles and wounds.
Scotland on Sunday
Occasionally gothic, sometimes fantastical, always captivating.
Radio Times
A collection of short stories, which will suck the reader into Oyeyeymi's wild and surreal imagination.
Red Magazine
These short stories are pure, sensuous enjoyment, packed with colour and passion
Times
Witty and tender . . . simple and beautiful . . . hers is a rare talent
Kate Clanchy
Guardian
The best teller of fairy tales we've got . . . [Oyeyemi's] first collection of short stories is obviously a bit of a treat . . . allowing for more invention, more sexiness and more beautiful sentences that lead you round the corner to something surprising . . . brilliant
Emerald Street
Beautifully broken tales with wonderfully flawed characters . . . a fascinating glimpse into a world built on our fears, hopes and desires . . . articulating such disorder proves Oyeyemi as the painstakingly masterful writer that she is.
Stylist
Oyeyemi captures the off-kilter fairy-tale magic of her 2014 masterwork, Boy, Snow, Bird . . . [she] writes with mastery, sometimes keeping her prose sparse and declarative only to unleash a bounty of description and humor a sentence later.
Entertainment Weekly
Oyeyemi takes the classic folk tale on a sometimes dark, often erotic, always fantastic, journey. The book itself is a thing of beauty, too.
Pool
[Oyeyemi] has come up with something unique, keeping pace with a modern mixed-up world
Daily Telegraph
Oyeyemi's fireworks illuminate a world in which other people are always more mysterious and strange than we might think
Spectator
This is a truly exceptional work of fiction, by a writer we should be delirious to have as a contemporary.
Stuart Evers
Independent
What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours illustrates the necessity and power of private, written confessions.
New Yorker
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.
New York Times Live
Ethereal beauty and unexpected humour
Independent on Sunday
Curious, erotic, by turns dark and humorous; like the many secrets these stories reveal, Helen Oyeyemi's imagination is ripe to be unlocked, revelled in and treasured.
Literary Review
Enchanting . . . the breadth of Oyeyemi's imagination is impressive, teetering, as ever, on the edge of magical realism. Her use of fairytales, folklore and ghost stories is distinctly reminiscent of the work ofAngela Carter . . . inviting, luscious prose.
Lucy Scholes
Guardian
Wild, luscious and startling . . . Oyeyemi glides seamlessly across time, space and genre . . . Oyeyemi's observations are as sharp as they are humorous. But she is equally at home in a more lyrical mode, her writing warm and sensuous . . . these gorgeously baroque stories are full of humour, tenderness, wisdom and strange delights
Rebecca Abrams
Financial Times
Alluring . . . the style and peculiar authority of this exceptional young writer will carry you carefully through the labyrinth and into a new and exciting literary landscape . . . If you are seduced by magical realism - particularly the novels of Allende and Marquez - you will savour Oyeyemi's inventive tales.
Daily Mail
Transcendent . . . the pleasurable awareness of a story being told courses through the collection like electricity . . . Oyeyemi expertly melds the everyday, the fantastic and the eternal . . . with each story I had the delightful and rare experience of being utterly surprised . . . Oyeyemi has created a universe that dazzles and wounds
New York Times
Oyeyemi's imagination is impressive and vast . . . Her ability to conceive her stories on such a grand scale is what makes her work so magnetic, sucking the reader into any number of netherworlds. Perhaps it's this ability to consume and be consumed that keeps Oyeyemi constantly, and prolifically, at work.
Guardian
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