RaveCleaver Magazine... a short story collection containing twelve narratives that, though disparate in plot and subject, come together in a thematic and emotional symphony ... Fu’s writing has often been highlighted for its precision and freshness, and her latest publication does not disappoint, offering us a novel, sharp, and insightful perspective on the concept of normalcy ... in each story, Fu is determined to take reality and twist it. Ordinary life is teased apart and then slightly altered: a technology is added, a natural process is exaggerated, a standard element of life inexplicably disappears. Despite these alterations, the twists are so seamlessly woven into the fabric of our known world that we quickly come to accept them as just another aspect of reality. Though surprised when we initially find ourselves presented with the unfamiliar or the absurd, we soon find ourselves wondering why a Time Cube is any more difficult to believe than, say, an Apple Watch or a 3D Printer ... Fu’s prose is unembellished but often sparsely beautiful and, true to its title, is deeply resonant for a modern audience. Well-paced, clear, and confident, the narration navigates both the familiar and the absurd with deftness and wit ... There is something achingly and electrically familiar about the way that Fu characterizes the many dangers of modern life ... The familiarity of Fu’s prose is a testament to her ability to drop her readers fluidly and quickly into a fictional mind. The psychology of her characters is wonderfully immersive, and in a matter of lines, we believe them entirely as real and complex people. After the shock of the initial reading, printing a wife’s new body out in the basement comes to seem as ordinary a pastime as looking out a window or pouring a glass of orange juice. It is this combination of familiarity and strangeness, this simultaneous commitment to and deviation from normalcy, that makes Fu’s work so captivating.
