Review by Frank Plowright

I Ate the Whole World to Find You presents five separate stories by Rachel Ang of her protagonist Jenny relating to her friends and the wider world.

They’re playful, unpredictable, sometimes funny and frequently experimental, which makes for a good starting point. All elements combine for the second story ‘Passenger’ in which Jenny is on a train journey sitting opposite her former boyfriend and his new partner, who’s a life coach. While she attempts to sell Jenny on her services, her boyfriend constantly picks at anything Jenny says, as if they’re still a couple near the end of their relationship. It’s uncomfortable, featuring blank word balloons indicating failure to communicate before everything dissolves into a hallucinogenic fantasy.

It’s the most unusual contribution, but each of the others has something to say about an awkward subject. Jenny gradually becomes closer to a workmate, who eventually opens up about his desires. She has a conversation with her ailing sister that hints at dark incidents during childhood, then confirms them. Meeting an old friend at a swimming pool seems largely without purpose until an event that turns the story round, making protagonists and readers questions their values, and the final story is a series of thoughts around pregnancy.

In places there’s the feeling Ang’s storytelling could be compacted, but energy, spirit and an ambition to try something new all hit the target. However, whereas Ang’s writing is imaginative and experimental, her art is precisely the opposite. Page upon page features overworked head shots with little else. Puzzlingly this is a conscious decision as for the final contribution Ang considerably broadens her repertoire to fit the more abstract nature of communication.

Ang has plenty of interest to say, but could have communicated far more efficiently.