Adamczyk’s first collection revolves around youthful characters thrust into difficult situations and uncertain of how to move forward or adequately communicate their needs and desires ...Though occasionally veering into MFA pretension, Adamczyk’s confident, quirky first outing is bound to find admirers in fans of Aimee Bender and Karen Russell.
... [The stories in the book are] eerie, often spare, and contain uncomfortable examinations of childhood, adulthood, gender, and whiteness ... The collection as a whole is restless — and this is a good thing. The characters are almost always physically moving, but listlessly, commuters in their own lives. It's the kind of collection you want to read on a subway or in a moving vehicle or out in a café, as if to remind yourself that humans really are so often this way — inexplicable, urgent, slow to change, and unfathomable.
In an early story in this collection, Too Much a Child, a young teacher lives in a city where children are being taken. No one is sure by whom or for what purpose: Something is happening here that is more sanctioned, and therefore, more sinister, than simple kidnappings. Tensions in the city are peaking, and demonstrations are breaking out with citizens demanding justice ... Adamczyk clearly values symbolism and subtlety, which can leave readers with the feeling of looking at a photograph taken in the aftermath of a major action that has taken place just outside the frame. But despite the sometimes-frustrating mystery at the core of the stories, Adamczyk has a singular imagination and an often astonishing way with metaphor ... A challenging and unsettling collection that heralds a promising talent.
Adamczyk’s accomplished debut collection pulses with an underlying sense of menace. The short opener, Wanted, has a quiet depth that moves it away from what is traditionally thought of as flash fiction ... Adamczyk never writes the same story twice, giving this collection a sleek and unnerving feel as readers know something bad is going to happen, but are uncertain of what it’ll be.
