Leung (The Wondrous Woo) presents 10 sweet, sad, sympathetic stories set up in Scarborough, Ontario, for a group portrait of immigrants, misfits, adults, adolescents, and teenagers, all of whom discover suburban comfort does not ensure happiness.... Crystalline prose, sharp storytelling, and pitch-perfect narration enhance Leung's accessible and affecting depiction of how cruelty undermines and kindness fortifies people's sense of community.-- "Publishers Weekly"
Leung, author of Toronto Book Award-finalist The Wondrous Woo (2014), walks readers through the matching split-levels of a Toronto suburb in her striking U.S. debut.... Readers peer through chain-link fences and discretely pulled curtains along with Leung's vivid, quotable characters--and are reminded that life doesn't happen between soap-opera episodes, cigarettes smoked at the kitchen sink, and trips to the mall, but during them.--Annie Bostrom, Booklist (starred review)
Though each story in That Time I Loved You can stand alone, they are cleverly interconnected.... The effect mirrors subtly yet precisely the feeling of living in a close suburban neighborhood: that of lives stacked atop one another, entirely separate and walled off and yet closely intertwined by both proximity and culture.--Kerry McHugh, Shelf Awareness
Heartbreaking.... Leung's stories lift the veiled curtain of late 1970s suburbia to reveal the sadness and isolation of its residents.... Written in the tradition of Alice Munro and Jhumpa Lahiri, Leung's debut story collection marks the career of a writer to watch.--Kirkus Reviews [starred review]
If you think Updike and Cheever have a monopoly on the familial and cultural quakings of 1970s suburbia, Carrianne Leung is about to complicate and enrich that picture. Here are expertly confected stories about what families and neighbors unleash upon one another in a milieu too raw for contentment but too beauteous to abandon.--William Giraldi, author of Hold the Dark and American Audacity