©2025 Fable Group Inc.
3.5 

Breakable Things

By Cassandra Khaw
Breakable Things by Cassandra Khaw digital book - Fable

Why read on Fable?

Discover social reading

Chat inside the ebook with emojis, comments and more

Annotate with notes, tabs, and highlights

Share or keep your notes private with our annotation features

Support the World Literacy Foundation

We donate 20% of every book sale to help children learn to read

Publisher Description

Cassandra Khaw's dynamic and vibrant debut collection, Breakable Things, explores the fragile and nebulous bonds that weave love and grief into our existence. This exquisite and cutting collection of stories showcases a bloody fusion of horrors from cosmic to psychological to body traumas.

"A delicious bowl of razor blades. With coiled prose and whetted instinct, Khaw's stories put a finger on the dark pulse of being human."- Rich Larson, author of Ymir and Tomorrow Factory

"A remarkable collection of tales from one of the most versatile and vital voices of their generation. Cassandra Khaw's stories are deftly wrought and sharp enough to draw blood, building entire worlds in a scant few pages. Horrifying and beautiful!"- Christopher Golden, New York Times bestselling author of Road of Bones, and Ararat

"Khaw takes the familiar and gives it a vicious cutting edge. Breakable Things is haunting, and in the best way, sneaky. It gets inside you, and when you least expect it, it strikes, leaving you bloodied on the floor unsure if you're laughing or crying."- Nghi Vo, author of The Chosen and the Beautiful

"Some writers are simply indispensable if you want to understand your cultural moment. Cassandra Khaw is three of them. For reasons, take your pick: a (1) master storyteller who (2) finds multiple angles into the deepest recesses of your psyche to (3) leave you not just stricken, but strangely relieved, strangely edified. Breakable Things is a match-strike in the darkness that makes you understand the value of darkness. Enjoyed best under the covers!"- Carlos Hernandez, Award-winning author of the Sal and Gabi series

14 Reviews

3.5
“Wonderful, and many stories were actually disturbing, which is not something I feel often. This was a rare slow read for me, I could only handle reading one or two stories in a sitting, most were dense and rich with meaning that necessitated sitting with them for a bit and allowing them to digest. There were a few (very few) duds, but the gold far outweighed the copper. And, as always, Khaw's prose is a pleasure. My very favorites were: A leash of foxes, their stories like barter Recite her the names of pain ("The worst thing you can do to a coward is make sure they live forever." Ah, gold.) An ocean of eyes Goddess, worm A priest of vast and distant planes For the things we never said She who hungers, she who waits You do nothing but freefall The ghost stories we tell around photon fires And in our daughters we find a voice (prequel to The Salt Grows Heavy) In the rustle of pages Some breakable things (hated it, but loved it) The stories that didn't work for me: Don't turn on the lights (first story in the collection, I was worried after reading that one, it just bored me) Radio werewolf (silly) The truth that lies under skin and meat (disjointed) The rest not mentioned were somewhere in the middle.”
“I am a sucker for a collection of short stories.”

About Cassandra Khaw

USA Today bestselling author Cassandra Khaw's books include, Hammers on Bone, a British Fantasy Award and Locus Award finalist; The All-Consuming World, one of the Washington Post's best science fiction, fantasy and horror books of 2021; and their most recent novella, Nothing But Blackened Teeth, a Japanese haunted house story described as sharp, playful, and nasty as hell, which was published by Tor Nightfire in late 2021.Their short fiction can be found in a myriad of places, including The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lightspeed, Tor.com, Nature, The Dark, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Khaw is also an award-winning game writer who has worked on games such as She Remembered Caterpillars (German Game Awards Best Children's Game 2017), Wasteland 3, and Rainbow Six: Siege. They currently reside in Montreal with two gigantic cats, and can be found on Twitter and Instagram at @casskhaw.

Start a Book Club

Start a public or private book club with this book on the Fable app today!

FAQ

Do I have to buy the ebook to participate in a book club?

Why can’t I buy the ebook on the app?

How is Fable’s reader different from Kindle?

Do you sell physical books too?

Are book clubs free to join on Fable?

How do I start a book club with this book on Fable?

Error Icon
Save to a list
0
/
30
0
/
100
Private List
Private lists are not visible to other Fable users on your public profile.
Notification Icon
Fable uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB