It’s so fascinating how many of these fables I’ve been told since I was a child (e.g. “the boy who cried wolf” and “the tortoise and the hare) — little did I know they were fables. The further I progressed into the book the more repetitive the morals of the fables felt, despite me only reading a few a day 🦊 I defs have many favourites though which I took note of. My faves had Hares, the Sun, and Trees in them 🐇

My first short story collection! I haven’t read anything like this before so it did take me a bit to get used to the format & structure etc. Next time I want to read a couple individual short stories per day.

Meditation: 03/09/25 - 3.5 ⭐️ Overall

My favourites:

• Children on the Country Road
• Unmasking a Confidence Trickster
• Resolutions
• The Way Home
• The Men Running Past
• The Trees
• Unhappiness

Metamorphosis: 26/08/25 - 4.5 ⭐️

Wtf did I just read. I got so emotional throughout & literally had a nightmare about someone transforming into a cat creature thingy. I am not going to stop thinking about this story, I simply cannot comprehend how the author came up with this dark, unique, twisted story. Such a genius. This is the first book I have read from Franz Kafka so I am very intrigued to read his other works. Such a timeless story I definitely want to re-read to develop further understanding.

In the penal colony 04/09/2025 - 3.5 ⭐️

A Country Doctor. Little tales: 04/09/2025 - 3 ⭐️ Overall

My favourites:

• A country Doctor
• Before the Law
• The next Village
• A Dream
• A report to an Academy

A Fasting artist. Four Stories: 02/09/2025 - 3.5 ⭐️ Overall

My favourites:

• A Little Woman
• A hunger artist

So interesting and thought provoking!

Wow. 🖤❤️💛

This annoyed me. The whole time, I felt so lost and confused. I personally really love stream of consciousness writing and can comprehend it quite easily. But not this one. It was so messy, most likely due to the pacing. The pacing was so off and led to it being even more rough to read. I don’t know how to feel about the characters. Am I meant to sympathise and care about them? Or have fun with them? Or feel annoyed at them? The main character was sexualising Tristessa’s thin body too much, and the cat scenes were very unnecessary and uncalled for.

so cool! if this was written by any other author i don’t think i would’ve liked it as much — it was written so well 👗🖤

But of course fairies are real 🧚‍♀️

1st read: 4⭐️ (14/10/2025)

2nd read: 4⭐️ (06/04/2026)

Having read a few “stream of consciousness” books since the first read 6 months ago, I understood this a lot more and I found the words were flowing really well, despite no quotation marks.
There are many aspects and themes I deeply admire about it for sure and will continue to seek out in other books. But although I definitely understood this book more in a re-read, I do still feel as though something was missing. Or maybe it’s the number of pages - it could’ve done with even 10 more pages of something. I found it a bit empty in some parts but solid in others. Overall I still really enjoyed it and found some quotes I really want to dive into later on.