The stories in What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours are strange and wonderful in weird and convoluted ways. In "Books and Roses," two women wear keys around their necks; the keys open unexpected doors for both of them, providing answers to questions about the fates of two lovers. In "Drownings," an evil dictator locks away a traitor and loses the key to the cell. "Is Your Blood as Red as This?" takes readers to a puppetry school, and " 'Sorry' Doesn't Sweeten Her Tea" features a house full of doors that won't stay closed.
Helen Oyeyemi (Boy, Snow, Bird; Mr. Fox) toys with common motifs (keys and locks, both metaphorical and physical, make frequent appearances) throughout the collection. Characters are reintroduced from one story to the next: a puppetry student features as a medium in " 'Sorry' Doesn't Sweeten Her Tea"; the daughter of one narrator's boyfriend becomes the central character in "A Brief History of the Homely Wench Society." Though each piece ultimately stands on its own, what is most fascinating about the collection is the ways in which the stories are woven together. Characters appear and reappear in stories that seem entirely distinct--set in a different time, place, even a different world--allowing Oyeyemi to stretch readers' definitions of time and space and imagination. Individually, and then again as a whole, the stories in What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours invite readers to reconsider what is real and what is imagined--not just in Oyeyemi's skilled prose, but also in the world in which we live. --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm