Review by Booklist Review
Set against surreal realities, Cipri's inventive collection follows characters navigating the currents and connections of their lives. The haunting Dead Air consists of audio transcripts of artist Nita as she interviews lovers for a current project. After meeting her latest subject, Maddie, their one-night stand evolves into a deepening relationship, further heightened by the unsettling, eerie mystery of Maddie's past. In A Silly Love Story, Jeremy, a college senior on academic suspension, finds himself confronting the unexpected: a poltergeist in his closet and burgeoning feelings for his non-binary friend Merion. The standout The Shape of My Name weaves together time travel with the visceral presence of family, regret, and identity. Before We Disperse Like Star Stuff follows former friends Damian, Min, and Ray, an amalgam of researchers and activists, through the fallout of Damian's windfall after his book is optioned for a documentary, forcing the three to reconcile their current situations with former desires. The fantastical landscapes of Cipri's nine tales heighten the moments of crisis that force characters to confront the here and now as well as life's gritty unknowns.--Leah Strauss Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
PW reviewer Cipri's patchwork debut SF collection brings together nine stories about people, most of whom fall somewhere under the LGBTQ umbrella, struggling to connect with one another in bizarre circumstances. Other than that theme, the works have little in common. Some play with form: "Which Super Little Dead Girl™ Are You?" is a creepy Buzzfeed-style quiz that snarkily reveals the details of four girls' gruesome murders, and "Dead Air" is a terrifying found-footage thriller about a lesbian who audiotapes her relationships. Two character-driven epistolary stories, "Let Down, Set Free" and "The Shape of My Name," respectively feature a divorcee riding a flying tree and a transmasculine time traveler who's trying to better understand his estranged mother's choices. In "Not an Ocean but the Sea," a disgruntled housekeeper finds an ocean hidden under furniture. "Presque Vu" chronicles a lonely gay ride-share driver living through an apocalypse. Vibrant characters ground the well-written stories. The collection's diversity is both a strength and a weakness; there's something for everyone, but few people are likely to love it in its entirety. Agent: DongWon Song, Morhaim Literary. (Oct.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Nine speculative stories capture the most universal parts of humanity through an organic and refreshing take on the paranormal, all while letting queer, neurodiverse, transgender, and nonbinary characters take the lead.Neuroatypical artist Jeremy is sure there's an art-appreciating ghost in his closet, but he's more interested in getting to know his bigender neighbor, Merion, in "A Silly Love Story." The ghost is the perfect excuse to explore art, love, and personhood as, together, Jeremy and Merion try to paint the ghost a perfect still-life. Ghosts also roam freely in "Presque Vu," though nobody knows why they suddenly arrived. Clay wakes every morning with a metal key lodged in his throathis specific hauntingwhile also dealing with the day-to-day issues of depression and a new relationship with Joe, whose own haunting may know what the keys are for. In "She Hides Sometimes," Anjana's childhood home slowly, and literally, disappears when her mother develops dementia. Or is Anjana losing her memories too? Author Cipri, themself a queer, trans/nonbinary writer, uses the paranormal as the perfect lens for exploring everyday humanity. Interview transcripts between romantically entangled humans and monsters, zombie magazine quizzes, and archaeological mysteries wrap love and loss with a depth of character unusual in such short pieces. Some stories may have more paranormal elements than others, some may be sweeter or creepier, but they'll all haunt readers long after the book is closed.A beautiful, sometimes haunting, always inviting and inclusive collection about life, love, and the paranormal. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
