This is one of the best short story collections I've ever read. I read the entire book on the treadmill, and when I finally stopped, I had burned over 1200 calories.

In short, I found it compelling. What the author excels at is depicting expatriate, mainly European, (mainly Jugoslav) characters with astounding uncanniness. He is an example, like Nabokov, of someone who came to English as a foreigner, mastered the language, and writes some of the most charming prose you are likely to come across.

I loved this collection so much that I was profoundly disappointed by his novel The Making of Zombie Wars. That's not important, though. Just give his style a try, and see the world from a unique perspective between the pages of Love and Obstacles. ( )

Reviewers find it difficult to resist comparing Aleksandar Hemon to Nabokov, since both men are expatriates whose preternatural facility in their second, acquired language seems shadowed by the ghostly overtones of their first. The stories in "Love and Obstacles" are intricate and droll, with tricky narrative rhythms that only occasionally stumble over self-consciously literary language. Like Adichie, Hemon gets well-earned mileage out of the reliable trope of the foreigner encountering the excesses of American culture. His narrative inventiveness and the sardonic twist of his humor set this collection above the crowd. (From THE WASHINGTON POST, July 8, 2009) ( )

Superb set of linked short stories. Darkly funny and poignant - brilliant writing. The final story The Noble Truths of Suffering was as good a story about writing fiction as any I've read. ( )

This book is a collection of short stories, all about the same character. Some of the stories were five star stories, others were two star stories, but overall I guess there were enough good moments to average out to a four. Like Becky, I especially loved the story about the father and the book/movie he writes. And I liked the story about the roommate that left notes in verse form:

The door is either
open or locked
i like
locked ( )

Hemon's style knocks me out. His language and syntax read like poetry. The situations in this collection of stories have a lurking dread just off screen somewhere. ( )