“While deftly exploring diverse genres—coming-of-age, speculative, contemporary realism, auto- and meta-fiction—Chou convincingly interrogates and exposes unsettling relationships between family members, lovers, and former strangers . . . Yes, fiction is imagined and created, but Chou also manages to shrewdly, impressively deceive . . . Chou's intriguing first collection of stories showcases diverse genres, agitated relationships, and—oh, so very cleverly—unreliable narration.”—Shelf Awareness

“A clutch of stories that starkly question assumptions about our identities . . . Chou’s debut collection—following the novel Disorientation (2022)—is built on premises where characters’ sense of self is rattled . . . Chou is gifted at storytelling with a surrealistic bent . . . The collection’s title is a classic microaggression—a way to box people as foreign or other. Nobody in the book actually utters the question, but throughout Chou cleverly exposes just how difficult humanity is to simplify, whatever our provenance. Sharp storytelling that bends and blurs genre expectations.”—Kirkus (starred review)

“The six stories and novella in this scintillating collection from Chou (Disorientation) explore themes of beauty, identity, and morality . . . Throughout, Chou’s surrealism feels all too real, whether in the concluding novella, ‘Casualties of Art,’ an intimate exploration of an illicit affair, or in ‘Happy Endings,’ the story of a DNA researcher in Hong Kong who visits a virtual reality sex-bot brothel where intercourse is a ‘constant negotiation, a high-wire act with the thinnest of lines separating pleasure from violence.’ These expressive and atmospheric tales mesmerize.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)