"Beautiful insight into the mennonite community and a persons struggles and development"

"What a strong collection. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this collection exceeded my expectations. Lots of stories about motherhood and struggling partnerships. I was reluctant going into this, as I like short story collections but find many of them to be random and meandering, and I'm kind of burnt out on the topic of motherhood in literature.

Overall, the collection feels focused and the voice confident and fresh. Partway through the first story I forgot it was a short story - I would've been happy to read more of it. What an exciting debut!"

"Brittany Micka Foos isn't just channeling Lucia Berlin; she's refracting her through a distinctly modern lens. Like Berlin, Micka Foos excels at excavating the raw, often unsettling beauty within the mundane. She captures the jagged edges of domestic angst with a dark, almost gleeful humor, setting her stories in wonderfully unexpected landscapes. From the surreal spectacle of a cosplay convention to the tense space of a Canadian border crossing, Micka Foos proves she's a master of finding the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Her prose is vivid and deeply moving, evoking the most visceral emotions with startling clarity. Consider this passage from "Thumb Stump": "Polly’s body was rolled into the OR for an emergency C-section, which Polly experienced as a waking autopsy. She thought she had died on the operating table. Afterwards, she couldn’t explain this continued conviction that her body was a shattered, glasslike object, and not the malleable lump of flesh her rational mind knew it to be." This isn't just a description; it's a plunge into the disorienting depths of trauma, a moment where the physical and psychological become inextricably intertwined.

Micka Foos doesn't shy away from the messy realities of life. She confronts them head-on, with a sharp eye and a relentless honesty that leaves the reader both shaken and strangely exhilarated. She doesn't offer easy answers or tidy resolutions. Instead, she invites us to sit with the discomfort, to acknowledge the inherent absurdity and fragility of existence. In a literary landscape often saturated with saccharine narratives, Micka Foos offers a bracing antidote. She reminds us that even in the midst of chaos and uncertainty, there is a strange, undeniable beauty to be found. And for that, her work is utterly essential."