PositiveColumbia Journal... the world is deftly established ... The overall effect is the creation of a chilling, thrilling chorus of what the world might look like if the eyes watching us today were not big corporations looking to mine our data, but simply other curious humans, like us ... Schweblin’s cool, clinical prose refuses doing the work of interpretation for us, leaving the reader to draw their own learnings from the stage she’s set. Yet, at turns, our connections to the individual stories are severed, reminding us that we are ultimately guests in a narrative world of Schweblin’s making; engaging, but not wielding any real power in the way the world works.
Brandon Taylor
PositiveColumbia JournalTaylor approaches Real Life with...precision ... In the hands of a lesser writer, the novel could very quickly devolve into an endless discussion of the competing hierarchies of trauma—but Taylor’s commitment to portraying real life and all its messiness spares none of his characters the full consequences of existing in such a space ... Taylor forces his characters to be active participants in the mess of reality. By rejecting their impulse to isolate themselves, he grants them culpability, dignity, and ultimately, humanity.
