as a whole: these are stories about fragile morals, predation, codependency, faulty thought processes, "love/hate" and "hate/love" and sometimes love and hate separately (but perhaps hard to distinguish at first)
individual stories:
"the corn maiden"--interesting narration style and POV maneuvering, all effectively conveying that something is wrong with our would-be killer, but nobody can pinpoint what. the nods to the violent and morbid strain of pre-smartphone internet culture (my native country) give a sense of verisimilitude. there's a lot of layers in this story that reward a reread
"beersheba"--emotionally accurate to the experience of dealing with someone with power over you who is very sure about you and will not hear otherwise. this one felt like it needed a little more time in the toaster oven but the pacing is about perfect

Love how cheap this cover looks lmao
the bush administration was a bad time for book covers