As the title of this poetry collection already reveals, this collection focusses on survival. The author explores surviving domestic abuse, living with chronic illness, surviving America. The collection is split into three parts: Surviving you, with poems that center around a past abusive relationship, surviving me, with poems that focus on living as a person newly disabled by the covid-19 pandemic as well as a trans person and surviving as an act of rebellion, with poems that focus on surviving when the American dream doesn’t apply to you and the world is falling apart around you.
I found myself deeply moved by some of the pieces in here and especially the stories that dealt with exploring me/cfs really resonated with me. 
All in all, I feel that is very important that there is now a collection of poetry that explores disability, trauma and being trans and if you enjoy poetry that deals with heavy topics as well as short poetry pieces I can absolutely recommend this collection! 

 Disclaimer: I received an e-ARC from the authors.

This story examines the life on an alien planet first rebelling against human occupation and then dealing with the fallout of the economic destruction humans left behind. It is told through multiple perspectives (but mainly, we follow Invidia and Clyra, two shroompeople trying to find their way in this scary and strange new world) and I found that really interesting as it offers us two different perspectives as we get to know this strange world and dive deep into the horrors its occupants experience. 
I really enjoyed Invidia’s storyline, their experience of survivor’s guilt, dissociation, attempts to flee from it through using their hallucinatory drug and yet, unable to give up despite it all were really interesting to read. It was a bit confusing at times, but for me it added to my immersion as it meant I really had to allow the horror of this experience to envelop me to understand Invidia’s state of mind. I also enjoyed Clyra’s story, their attempts to keep their group going even though they themself are struggling with the scars human medical experimentation left on them was heartbreaking to read. 
I also really liked that while the two main characters used they/them pronouns, not all shroompeople did, making this not just an alien-nonbinary-race story, but featuring actual nonbinary characters (a lot of the shroompeople do use they/them pronouns, but I did notice that there are some that do not, which made me happy to read!). This is not to say that alien-nonbinary-race is a bad concept in sci-fi, because it isn’t, but I do enjoy sci-fi with trans characters a lot.
As a fan of horror and gore, I also really found myself intrigued by the depictions of injury and the body horror that comes along with being severely injured, but unable to rest and recover in any meaningful way at the site where the injury took place. It made for a gruesome read at points and so while it is mentioned in the trigger warnings included in the book, I just wanted to mention that there is a lot of graphic depictions of injury and body horror stemming from that and it might be tough to deal with for some readers.
Another aspect I found myself really adoring was the depictions of the landscape, its former glory as well as the horror that was left behind and what it could become again. The story really flourishes in its descriptions of the flora, fauna and creatures inhabiting this planet
All in all, this is an incredible sci-fi (cozy) horror, dealing with some tough topics in a beautifully written way and with fascinating characters and a really interesting world to explore.

TW: body horror (insect infestation), chronic pain, colonization, corpses, decay, environmental destruction, depression, explosion/bombing, injury, gore, grief, medical experimentation, ptsd, survivors guilt, trauma surrounding death 

 Disclaimer: I received an e-ARC from netgalley. 

A short story collection of five tragic and dark stories filled with grief and trauma. The writing is lyrical and expressive and I really enjoyed it. I also liked the historical insights these stories provided and how each short story painted a clear picture of the place and time it was set in, which made the stories feel quite real. The main characters are another high point of the stories, often overtaken by emotions as they deal with dark experiences and struggle to find connection. Despite the darkness these short stories explore, I enjoyed that it also always tried to show that at least some joy could still be found. 

All in all I really enjoyed this anthology and if you like an exploration of queer life (in these cases gay and lesbian lives specifically) in unsupportive places, complex family dynamics and people dealing with trauma and grief in a variety of ways. 

A Song for Wildcats: A short story about a young queer man in the late 1960s, whose relationship with another man at college was discovered and lead to his exile. Examines the overlap between being forced to be secretive about your love because of external forces and the way it enables abuse to flourish. Heartbreaking, focused on recovery with an open end. Tragic, but beautiful. 

TW: physical and sexual abuse, dissociation, homophobia, self-harm, rape 

Heatstroke: A short story about a young woman traveling, caught in a loop of dreams and foggy memories. The beginning had me guessing what was going on a lot and I struggled a bit with the way the story was told, but the end broke my heart and reframed a lot of it in a way I enjoyed. Less poetically written than the first story, but I felt that worked well. 

TW: mention of domestic abuse, rape 

The Islanders: Another story set in the late 1960s focusing on Belfast and riots happening there during this time. We follow a boy and his aunt as they try to find a way to grieve the loss of a sister and a mother and forge a new connection, but keep hurting each other instead. Grief corrodes everything it touches in here and I really enjoyed especially the first part of the story and would have loved for the haunting horror of it to be explored a bit more deeply or this story to be extended so the ending feels more satisfying, but I still quite liked it. 

TW: body horror, death of parent, drowning, gore, violence, war 

The Wisp: The death of a friend from her past causes a young woman to return to the small town in the Irish countryside she left behind at 18. As she remembers the small cruelties and deep intimacies that shaped their friendship and reconnects with other people from her past, she befriends a strange young girl that lives in town now. Interesting and strange, I enjoyed this story a lot. 

TW: bullying, death 

The Lyrebird’s Bell: A gothic haunting tale of two young girls with troubled homelives and pasts filled with lies in the Australian wilderness as they tell each other dark tales (that might just be horrible truths or might not). Haunting, but a bit too long and repetitive to fully grasp my attention when compared to the other stories in this anthology. I still liked the setting a lot and the relationship between the two girls. 

TW: addiction, domestic abuse, eating disorder, murder, war