While this book had been on my radar for a bit I ultimately picked it up to have a book for the Book Riot Challenge in 2018. Ultimately I was underwhelmed by a majority of the book. Don't get me wrong the talent was there and had the author lived she would have had more time and opportunity to fully develop it. But the stories read like everything else I read in the creative writing classes and even wrote myself; nothing there made her, for me at least, stand out as the voice of her generation. In fact, upon reflection, I only really enjoyed "Winter Break", and "Hail, Full of Grace" since I found those to be the better written ones. "Reading Aloud" and "Challenger Deep" were okay as well but for me not as memorable as the first two. The only non-fiction that I enjoyed (including the titular essay) was, funnily enough, "I Kill for Money" which was the only one that wasn't directly about her because I feel it takes more talent to humanize someone else in a non-fiction setting.

Overall, it was okay just, hence the two stars. I am not as cynical as others who say she wouldn't be published had she not had her 'connections' (which I guess I glossed over) or had passed because again the talent is there even in these rough copies of her story (as the introduction mentioned there was no editing done for these at all). So chances are she would have gotten published more even if not forever. I will say I don't think she'd be as well known though because there was nothing in any of the stories in this collection to make her stand out from every other student who may have taken classes with her or others who have been in, are in, or will be in creative writing courses in the entire world. However due to her early passing we will never what could have been for her and if she would have stayed in the literary world or if she would have moved on to other fields. We just don't know, and maybe that's one of the reasons that this book causes such division because there is no way of getting an answer to that.