Other than some questionable language regarding skin tone, this was a lot of fun. A lot of suspension of disbelief is necessary to read some of the smut scenes though.

These are some excellent short stories. They're all sad and heartbreaking, but definitely full of heart and humanity, as well as empathy for these flawed, broken characters.

Sometimes I'll take a chance on a motherhood-centric story despite how much I despise human babies and pregnancy. It helps that this is folk horror. It is about Faye, a woman who grew up in a commune/cult. She is next in line to be steward, and then she finds out that in order to ensure the health and safety of her community, she has to sacrifice her firstborn child to the forest. Like any reasonable parent would, Faye refuses and instead decides to attempt escaping through the forest. The descriptions of the forest were a real highlight, and the writing was engaging enough to keep me reading till the end. Even if this didn't impress me that much I'll still seek out more of Lisa Quigley's books in the future.

I only read the introduction for this book, and from that I found out that one of the writers in this anthology has a stepchild. That is NOT being childfree. Childfree means not taking on any parental responsibilities, and that includes stepchildren. Perhaps I'd relate to the rest of these essays, but my interest in reading these essays has completely dropped.