The Billion Shop

You know the feeling of discovering a great new band, one that s still small enough to be playing local clubs and seedy bars, but you can just tell from the quality of their music and the awesomeness of their sound that they re going to make it big someday, and that you were a superfan before they broke through Reading this chapbook is like the literary equivalent of that experience.I ve been a fan of Stephanie Ye s writing for a few years now, mostly catching her short fiction in Quarterly Lite [...]

This book is a perfect gem of beautiful ordinariness, where the descriptions so effortlessly describe a world all at once foreign and familiar After visiting Singapore to attend a conference early this year, I became fascinated by the short and curious history of this tiny city state The short lines on the back of the book described the changes the author a 30 year old at the time of publishing Singaporean had experienced in her life, and these stories a paper offering to the places and people t [...]

Deftly crafted, these four interlinked stories are a little window into middle class Singaporean JC and post JC life, its outward facing character and the tenuous connections between people when they leave school Quite beautiful.

There s so much feeling in less than 100 pages I love it when I found out that the stories are actually interlinked, and I only realized it when I came across familiar names in the next stories The last part brought me to fully round up a story of childhood friends, and how far the relationships have stretch after they re no longer bound by the force of school universe Bringing or ordering, in a case one chapbook home made me feel like a kid carrying her unopened gift box home I knew that it wou [...]

It was amazing how well they linked all the 4 short stories together, concluding with one of the most important elements in life friendship.The local setting would definitely set in nostalgia for readers like us as well, billion shops found among shophouses It is a pity that our small country s rapid development have been eroding many of these areas, and these stories serve well to hold memories of this place which would otherwise have been forgotten.

Ye reminds me of a Singaporean Alice Munro somehow The stories grow in strength The Billion Store and Astoria are especially wonderful even if they re not as sublime as Seascrapers, that really is a standout short I m not sure how much I cared for the continuing retinue of characters though that felt like writerly scaffolding that could have been done without with It s a very lovely anthology though, and I can t wait to read from Ye.

I bought this book during my vacation in Singapore because I wanted to read something local What I got, though, was a glimpse of how internationally involved Singapore is The stories span countries and cultures I think my favorite of the four short stories is The Billion Shop but I like how all of the four were connected to each other.

A great, but too slim, collection of stories Displacement, physical and spiritual, is a theme that runs through all three of the stories here, and Ye s skill with language is remarkable Definitely a writer to watch out for.

of moments missed, due to the choices we made life is beautiful in its mysterious ways, and Ye brilliantly illustrates this through her wonderful interlinked stories the best stories give you insight on the human condition, and this doesn t fail on that aspect.

Loved the way Stephanie, through reducing the most familiar local things in writing, made them into something much than the ordinary things we have grown to neglect around us I loved this book so much that I hate how it ended too soon.

Five stars for Steph but seriously, these stories take me back to the textures of Singaporean JC junior college life in the 90s.

Beautiful writing Really enjoyed this

Lovely book with sweet prose that tells neat little stories about people who desire for something Enjoyed it very much.

Really liked Cardiff and Astoria and the sense of the passing of time.

This collection includes City in C Minor , one of my favourite short stories of all time.