A Manual For How to Love Us by Erin Slaughter is one of the strongest story collections I've read in a long while. This interlinked collection of stories explores the primal nature of women's grief and offers insight and so much perspective through the lens of varying degrees of loss.

What I loved about this book was how seamlessly Slaughter shifts between the speculative and the real, balancing the bizarre with the subtle brutality of the mundane. I was so impressed by her writing voice. The stories are unconventional and unpredictably connected, with the book's title story put smack-dab in the middle to connect the other stories.

My favorite stories in the collection were "The Box," "The Forgotten Coast," and "You Too Can Cure Your Life." In "The Box," a couple speaks only in their basement in a large box, and in "You Too Can Cure Your Life" A woman treats herself and others with LifeCure, an unregulated diet and health plan, both of which explore the absurd ways in which we seek control in an unruly world. In "The Forgotten Coast," a throuple navigates loyalty and the division of not just love, but responsibility.

Slaughter's writing is powerful and I found myself feeling seen so many times as I read. These characters were raw and real for me and I absolutely recommend this book to those who like books rich in emotion and depth.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Harper Perennial for an ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts!