FRIDAY BLACK is a short story collection infused with a sense of dread, full of stories set in worlds a few degrees away from our current reality.

Overall, I felt like most of these stories were strong, and quite haunting. The most effective stories are the extremely near future speculative fiction ones, which take the circumstances of our world to the logical extreme. And this is exactly why they’re so haunting - you know they aren’t real, but you don’t have to work very hard to imagine a world where they could be.

I do want to talk briefly about the story LARK STREET. I’m glad I’d read @postgradreads’ review in advance, or else I may have thrown this book across the room. It is FULL of antichoice imagery and tactics, and in a way that seems sort of unquestioned to me. I can see how this story fits the “logical extreme” idea I mentioned above, but to me it reads as dangerous, given that clinic protestors will literally hand out plastic fetuses while shouting “Mommy, you killed me!” It felt out of place to me. I’m open to hearing other interpretations though - hit me up if you think I’m seeing it wrong.

There are a couple of forgettable stories in this book, but also a few that I think will stick with me, notably ZIMMER LAND and THROUGH THE FLASH (I need an extended version of that story pronto).