This was a fun read. Really enjoyed the catty, passive-aggressive (and then just straight up aggressive) email exchange in "The Wainscoting War" between a newly moved in trophy wife and her older townhouse neighbor.

There are two stars of this collection, the first of which was "Dumpster Diving With the Stars". It features a genre-savvy writer who has only one cult classic novel to her name, published 15 years prior; she joins a reality tv show at a friend's behest. The finale event for the contestants ties in with a dead background character from "Wainscoting War" - I love when short story collections make it obvious that there's a cohesion to their world.

The second star of my heart was "Dead Doorman", which started off as a bit eerie in tone. You worry for the nameless narrator, a woman with the distant husband and the overbearing mother-in-law who didn't like anyone to get "too comfortable" in her house. But each neutral statement she makes about her life builds on one another until you realize that maybe she's the one you need to worry about. ˡᵒᵛᵉ ᵐᵉ ˢᵒᵐᵉ ˢᶜᵃʳʸ ˡᵃᵈᶦᵉˢ