A chaotic, creative, confusing, surrealistic jumble that seems, I think, to center ideas of trans-ness, of discomfort inside one’s body, of alienation from the reality one is expected to inhabit by outside forces. It’s frustrated and apocalyptic, yet without a misanthropic outlook, and hopeful that we can do better. Not everything about this novel works for me but it’s a memorable and surprising read. ( )

Calling it quits at pg 214 (plus flipping through the rest). Far too much body horror and lovingly described natural disasters for my taste. The form is interesting, but I Just Can't with the content.

I can't say I get what the point is either, other than re/creating an atmosphere of apocalyptic anxiety for its own sake. ( )

A genre-defying novel full of memorably surreal occurrences. It was a wild reading experience, with moments of terror and laugh-out-loud funny satire that made our own reality scarier and more stark, but not entirely hopeless. In the end, I’m not sure what else to say beyond praising its existence. ( )

This is a weirdo of a book. Jumping among a large collection of characters, most of whom do not interact with each other, the novel jumps back and forth through time, or maybe through alternate fates, most of which are bizarre, but some are very normal.

One day, a mountain begins to grow in Central Park. It grows at a rapid rate, sending scientists, tourists and New York residents into a frenzy, and then things calm down and the mountain becomes background, or it takes out a large part of the tri-state area, sending millions into refugee camps hastily erected in neighboring states. This is a novel about ecological disaster and the end of the world, where a malevolent golem-like creature does battle with an entity composed of foliage and bees. There's a guy who flies back to New York from his family home in Hawai'i only to find that he also stayed in Hawai'i. Meanwhile, a young writer deals with an ant problem, and buildings, from tents to apartment buildings, grow animal legs and go places. And everything is fine, or the world ends; it's kind of hard to tell.

This is experimental fiction that follows the exuberant imagination of Stintzi's brain. There's a real fondness for all of the characters and a steadfast hope in the resiliency of the human spirit that grounds this truly bizarre novel. Each character gets a short chapter (there are hundreds of chapters) then the book moves on to the next character, only to circle back to an earlier character, who may or may not be in the same situation they were when their previous chapter ended. Sometimes, dead characters return, having never died at all. I liked Stintzi's love for their characters and the sheer audacity of their imagination, even as I was reminded that I like a little more grounding in reality and a more cohesive kind of novel. ( )

The weird and wacky entrant to the Morning News Tournament of Books for 2023! I liked it -- I might not have understood all of it, but I liked it. But the imagery and ideas are interesting. There are quite a number of characters here but they are somehow easy to keep track of (something that might usually be a problem for me). There are a number of Out There books I could compare this to, but I won't.

*Book #133/322 I have read of the shortlisted Morning News Tournament of Books ( )