This is by far one of my top reads of 2022.

In a stepford Garden of Eden where everything is perfect and suffering is considered contraband, Sophia tries to make sense of her world by focusing on the fact that she is happy, she is appreciated, she is loved.

But something isn't right. She's far too small for her house, hasn't earned the right to enter her locked basement, and her husband may not be as wonderful as she's been lead to believe.

Harnessing a Shirley Jacksonesque use of sharp, precise prose to unveil her hidden layers of creepy, Valente's 103 page story is a masterpiece. Symbolism, commentary, myth, lore, legend, deep questions into probing social issues, satirical statements on the world we inhabit... Yep, it's all there as Sophia tries to make sense of her increasingly dystopian existence. 

This book belongs on the shelf with Hunter's The Harpy & Johnson's Sisters. It is probing and visceral and gorgeous and original. I read it twice and got even more out of it the second time than the first.