Anthologies are always so hard to rate and review because their contents are so varied. And this one, for me, was such a mixed bag. On one hand, there was hardly a single story whose premise/core idea I didn’t enjoy. On the other hand, the execution often was a bit of a letdown, with more vibes than actual storytelling. You know those short stories that start off with a specific narrative promise but then dissolve into just, “I don’t know what’s even happening here, but the prose is sure pretty and it’s giving me some type of feeling?” There are sure a lot of them in here, and while I enjoy this type of shorts now and then, I probably shouldn’t read so many in a row again. They all just mash up together into one chain of vibes and pretty words.

For a few stories that did stand out to me, I’d like to name:

- The Shape of My Name by Nino Cipri: a strong starter with sufficiently weird and painful time travel and a fraught relationship between a son trapped by being seen as a daughter and a mother trapped in a linear life. It’s got all those vibes and words, but also character arcs.
- Contents of Care Package to Etsath-tachri, formerly Ryan Andrew Curran by Holly Heisey: a really small one, just a collection of three letters to someone who chose to be an alien. The mother’s letter made me tear up, in a good way.
- Chosen by Margaret Tenser: I always appreciate twists on the Chosen One trope, and the somewhat tongue-in-cheek writing style here is fun and really stands out.
- Where Monsters Dance by A. Merc Rustad: largely one of those “vibes and words” type, but with *really* beautiful words and *really* thick, dark vibes. Far more of a fairy tale than it claims to be, I feel, if you like your fairy tales raw. Very voidpunk.
- The Thing on the Cheerleading Squad by Molly Tanzer: I found the writing somewhat clunky, but what can I say, I’m a sucker for all and any queer reimaginings of Lovecraft’s mythos, and this one had a feel similar to Season 1 episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, back when it was all campy high school. Fun stuff.

Overall, it was great to see so much trans and nonbinary representation under one cover, and some of the ideas here will certainly stick with me!