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That Time I Loved You
That Time I Loved You | Carrianne Leung
13 posts | 12 read | 19 to read
Life is never as perfect as it seems. Tensions that have lurked beneath the surface of a shiny new subdivision rise up, in new fiction from the author of the Toronto Book Awardshortlisted The Wondrous Woo The suburbs of the 1970s promised to be heaven on earthnew houses, new status, happiness guaranteed. But in a Scarborough subdivision populated by newcomers from all over the world, a series of sudden catastrophic events reveals that not everyones dreams come true. Moving from house to house, Carrianne Leung explores the inner lives behind the tidy front gardens and picture-perfect windows, always returning to June, an irrepressible adolescent Chinese-Canadian coming of age in this shifting world. Through June and her neighbours, Leung depicts the fine line where childhood meets the realities of adult life, and examines, with insight and sharp prose, how difficult it is to be true to ourselves at any age.
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Night_Reader
That Time I Loved You | Carrianne Leung
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Pickpick

4.2/5 🌟

I'm not usually a fan of short stories so I'm pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. I loved how the stories were all linked and centered around different families from a neighbourhood. The ending seemed a bit abrupt at first but in hindsight I think it was a fitting ending. 👍

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Megabooks
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Pickpick

After reading Turbulence, I was jonesing for another good interconnected short story collection & I found one.

Taking place across 2 years in the same small neighborhood in Scarborough, ON, this collection follows many ethnically diverse characters. An older lady who is a minor thief, a woman having trouble conceiving, a teen caring for her aunt with cancer, and 3 times, June, a Chinese teen just trying to find her way. Many suicides. #24b42020

Andrew65 Well done, great time so far. 👏👏👏 4y
Megabooks @Andrew65 Thanks 😊 4y
79 likes1 stack add2 comments
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Megabooks
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#24b42020 starting lineup! I did an hour before bed last night.

@Andrew65 @jb72 @TheReadingMermaid

The Coates is an early #newyearwhodis @youneverarrived @monalyisha

kspenmoll Good luck! Enjoy your reading! 4y
Andrew65 A good start, well done. 👏👏👏 4y
Megabooks @kspenmoll Thanks! I am so far! 4y
See All 8 Comments
Megabooks @Andrew65 💜🤗😁😁 4y
Scochrane26 Between the world & me is amazing on audio. 4y
Megabooks @Scochrane26 it really is! 4y
youneverarrived I‘m happy you‘re liking it 🖤 4y
Megabooks @youneverarrived it‘s so good!! 4y
72 likes8 comments
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wallacereads
That Time I Loved You | Carrianne Leung
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Pickpick

A series of interconnected short stories about growing up in the suburbs. This is one of the best books I have read this year.

britt_brooke Sounds good! #stacked 5y
32 likes2 stack adds1 comment
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merelybookish
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A new book for week 2 of swim lessons. A collection of short stories by a writer compared to Munro, so I'm in.

BarbaraBB Love the cover! 5y
Megabooks I bought this at Parnassus but haven‘t read it yet. 5y
merelybookish @BarbaraBB Great cover for a book set in 1970s suburbia! 5y
merelybookish @Megabooks I've only read the first story. So far, so good. 5y
67 likes1 stack add4 comments
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DebB117
That Time I Loved You | Carrianne Leung
Pickpick

Two big thumbs up!! It is a collection of stories about people that live on the same street in Scarborough in the 1970s. It deals with what it was like to grow up in that era, new immigrants finding their way in Canada, adults looking for happiness.

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TheNerdyProfessor
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Pickpick

This is a collection of stories about a subdivision neighborhood in the 1970s. Each story is unique, but they are interconnected. Usually, I am not a fan of short stories because I desire intense character development. Leung is able to give her characters depth even in a short amount of space. The topics are at times dark (given the premise that the adults in the neighborhood begin dying by suicide) but the prose is beautiful and lyrical. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

67 likes4 stack adds
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xicanti
That Time I Loved You | Carrianne Leung
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When I was a young person, I was unlucky enough to read two or three literary novels that convinced me all litfic mistook dispassion for sophistication.

That was wrong, obviously, and *I* was wrong to judge all litfic by those few duds. Sometimes, though, the shoe fits. The first two stories in this collection were so bland I've decided to bow out.

Here's a picture of Casey being ordinary, since I think that's kinda the point of this one.

batsy Modern litfic short stories in particular tend to suffer from this. I love a good short story but nowadays it feels like a series of MFA exercises announcing themselves as, "I Am Very Serious Literary Fiction". But usually tend to be 20-40 pages of meh. 5y
xicanti @batsy this is so accurate it hurts. I read a lot of short fiction, but until pretty recently I read more short SFF than general material. I've found some good short litfic in the last couple of weeks (Alice Munro and Claire Battershill both did it for me), but even there I marvel at the lack of resolution compared to the SFF I'm used to. There's so much ambiguity in litfic; so little interest in outcomes. 5y
batsy I agree! I'm fine with ambiguity if done well and suits the story but too often it seems like a cop out 😬 5y
37 likes3 comments
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Bibliogeekery
That Time I Loved You | Carrianne Leung
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Pickpick

This book was so delightful! Set in the 1970s in a subdivision of Scarborough (Toronto) it's a series of connected short stories about people in the subdivision. There are a series of suicides that link the stories together - but the book isn't as grim as that might make it sound. Leung weaves complex narratives about race, about domestic abuse, sexuality and coming of age in these well written short stories.

BookBabe Sounds interesting. I‘m intrigued 👍🏻 5y
61 likes6 stack adds1 comment
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Bibliogeekery
That Time I Loved You | Carrianne Leung
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Next up!

45 likes1 stack add
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Becker
That Time I Loved You | Carrianne Leung
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Pickpick

This book of connected short stories really worked for me. I like the storytelling quality of the author‘s writing and it made me nostalgic.👍

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dixi_e
That Time I Loved You | Carrianne Leung
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Mehso-so

This is collection of interconnected stories, revolving around families in a newly built suburban neighbourhood. This is one of those books that I find hard to review; the stories are entertaining enough to keep me reading yet they‘re also somewhat blasé. I enjoyed the book but wouldn‘t go out of my way to pick it up now that I‘ve experienced it.

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dixi_e
That Time I Loved You | Carrianne Leung
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Not great, not horrible but nearly late. Gotta finish it but mostly because I‘m 2/3 of the day through it and it‘s not bad enough to warrant leaving it incomplete.