This is verisimilitude done right. I liked how the thoughts of Pizza Girl conjure the ennui of a life where few things deviate from established patterns, and also readily telegraph the accents of her personality that are at odds with the perceived monotony. She’s funny and smart.

But grief is a thing that enters every aspect of a persons’ life. She’s lost her dad, forcing her to reckon with conflicting notions of who he was. Memories and verbal accounts from her mother surface from Pizza Girl’s stream of conscious.

I’ve always found narratives with a catalyst like grief to be interesting. It’s one of the only things that feels like it should be so broad that it ought to be generic, but in practice the specificity of the conflict triggers internal and external factors in such unique ways that anyone finds it accessible and easy to empathize with. It also has an unwieldy and unique property, since grief is unique to the individual. You find yourself being surprised at how they work through it and what the climax ends up being.

It’s an easy framework for defying expectations and endearment, as it does here.

This wasn’t on my radar until I saw The Poptimist Stop Asian Hate Reading List YouTube video. Check it out, there are lots of great picks here: https://youtu.be/8xTmhWJlis4