RaveStrange Horizons\"These are stories in which the strange is never questioned, only interacted with; sometimes embraced, and often initially ignored until it cannot be shunned anymore. The whimsical is the vehicle that propels the initial plot, but it is what these devices reveal about the true natures of and relationships between the characters that drives the narrative. The fantastical is used to explore existence, connectivity, loss, love, loneliness, joy, grief, and more ... It is a style that works so consistently because Bertino has a knack for infusing even her most uncanny and surreal of stories—and in this collection, every story contains an inherent unnerving, even the most upbeat and wholesome ones—with an at-times almost bludgeoning emotional heft (one that is often all the more potent because of an element of surprise) ... there is something wondrous in each story, a reverence for life, death, everything in between and beyond.\
