Curtis Sittenfeld has spun a career out of characters who observe much and understand less.

The men and women in her new short story collection, You Think It, I’ll Say It, exhibit a wincing cluelessness as they seethe through life.  A housewife gets awkward with her husband’s coworker. A newlywed recalculates her worth through the eyes of her high-school rival. My favorite character is a woman who once had an affair with a Christian mommy blogger and is so full of rage that she equates it with lust.

As in her past novels, Sittenfeld writes perfect moments of hubris, embarrassment, and redemption. She delivers ten of them in this collection.