I’d like to return to this short story collection in the future, especially because I felt that I wasn’t in the right headspace to fully appreciate every story and the touches of magic realism across the pages. I really appreciated the deeply personal look into Haitians’ lives, with some characters in Haiti while others were part of the diaspora, and I thought that Lamy did a wonderful job delivering emotional depth in her exploration of various focuses ranging from interpersonal relationships to one’s identity and sense of belonging. The magic realism elements made it that there was a (very slight) challenge for the reader to stretch their imagination a bit to fully immerse themself into the microcosms crafted by Lamy. Additionally, I felt that there were hints of absurdist humor scattered here and there, though there were certainly some more serious (even unsettling) stories.

Like many other short story collections, some worked for me better than others. While I struggled a bit to stay focused on each story (again, this was just an issue of not being in the right headspace), I can see the promise in Lamy’s storytelling, and I’d love to see what she has planned next for her readers.