I felt these short (very short) stories started off in interesting ways, but ended abruptly without me really caring about the protagonists. Maybe I'm guilty of thinking to myself "THIS is supposed to be the best Catalan author ever?" while reading them. "The Salamander" opens the book on a bit of a shocking note, not unlike Jerzy Kosinski's book The Painted Bird (one of my least favorite books ever). "The Elephant" is one of the most pointless things I've ever read. There was a pretty good story about someone turning into a fish, but, as with the others, it ended quickly out of the blue. The author seems to like to write from the viewpoints of marginalized, lonely, outsider type people who are withering away in a society that couldn't care less about them. Several involve grown men who for some reason are infantilized / have obsessions with dolls or toys.
(Update a few weeks later: I decided to bump my rating up half a star just due to the author's great use of words; then again, I'm reviewing the English translation, so take that with a grain of salt. And I was gonna sell it, but there's something so strangely unique about her writing style that I decided I had to keep it.) ( )