his victim stalking him later is weird and interesting and much more believable, though the combination of the two tales feels like something emma cline would write. i'm not sure that's a compliment because i'm not sure that i like emma cline

the best stories in this one are the first two and the last. several others are pretty good. many of the characters have interesting dimensions despite the brevity of their stories. i never felt like their developments went in unfounded directions even when i didn't expect the motion

i really liked the on-the-nose but entertaining skewer of an academic TED-talk-giving 'thought leader' type--i enjoy hating them in real life and i enjoyed hating this fictional one. his story has some effective bathos because he's a cartoonish but still believable camera flash of a douchebag, almost dickensian

the story of the therapist was a standout for me, perhaps because i've been a doomer in therapy sessions and wondered if the therapist understood what i was actually talking about: not just bad feelings and how i can't deal with them, but the irreparable societal causes of those feelings, and how 'dealing with them' involves an unhealthy degree of passivity and denial. are depression and anxiety rational responses to reality as it is now? millet doesn't like it, but she thinks so