If You See Me, Don't Say Hi

Alienation. Many children of immigrants feel alienation not only from their parents who grew up in a different place but also from their peers, whose family lives can seem more homogenous. In the eleven short stories in the collection by Neel Patel titled, If You See Me, Don’t Say Hi, the characters struggle with identity and with finding ways to escape dysfunction of many types. There’s loneliness in these stories, anxiety about family expectations, and couples who are out of sync. The intimacy that Patel creates with just a few paragraphs in these stories leads to insights about human behavior that may be enlightening to many readers. Rating: Four-star (I like it) Click here to purchase If You See Me from amazon.com.