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Sympathy for Wild Girls: Stories
A debut collection of surreal, skin-piercing stories about the boundless longing of queer Black women
In Sympathy for Wild Girls, young Black women yearn for intimacy and search for it on turbulent ground. Navigating a subtly warped version of our world, where social mores loom like shadows and bigotry shape-shifts, Demree McGhee’s characters track the prints of their desire and pain to the edges of reality, finding refuge in unlikely places. Can they survive the chasms lurking in our common notions of “girlhood”—considering their heightened peril as queer women of color?
A runaway seeks shelter from violence with a pack of wild coyotes. A young woman falls into a hypocritical crew of white Christian YouTube influencers. A mother witnesses her daughter’s prophecy about the end of the world come true. A group of shoplifters lose themselves in their quest for cheap lipstick and cheaper fame. Fighting self-loathing and societal abuse, McGhee’s characters chase abandon on their own terms—embracing their feral strength and ugliest truths, howling at the moon to be known.
In Sympathy for Wild Girls, young Black women yearn for intimacy and search for it on turbulent ground. Navigating a subtly warped version of our world, where social mores loom like shadows and bigotry shape-shifts, Demree McGhee’s characters track the prints of their desire and pain to the edges of reality, finding refuge in unlikely places. Can they survive the chasms lurking in our common notions of “girlhood”—considering their heightened peril as queer women of color?
A runaway seeks shelter from violence with a pack of wild coyotes. A young woman falls into a hypocritical crew of white Christian YouTube influencers. A mother witnesses her daughter’s prophecy about the end of the world come true. A group of shoplifters lose themselves in their quest for cheap lipstick and cheaper fame. Fighting self-loathing and societal abuse, McGhee’s characters chase abandon on their own terms—embracing their feral strength and ugliest truths, howling at the moon to be known.
210 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 6, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 64 reviews
May 8, 2025
This is a collection of stories about queer Black women that is going to live in my head for a long time.
If you love Carmen Maria Machado, especially Her Body and Other Parties, you need to pick up Sympathy for Wild Girls. They’re both feminist, fabulist/magical realist stories that get under your skin. Some are heart-achingly sympathetic, like falling in love with your straight rich white best friend—who will never acknowledge anything between you but friendship, and yet says her boyfriend is threatened by your relationship. Others are far from most people’s lives, like a school nurse whose grief over her girlfriend dying makes her lose touch with reality and start experimenting on animals with a kid at her school in an attempt to find the secret to bring someone back from the dead.
Several deal with very intense, weird, undefined childhood friendships between girls, or complicated relationships between women that are left without clarity—if there’s any universal queer woman experience, this is probably it. There’s so much yearning and a lot of near misses. My heart went out to one character who is so confused about the judgment she experiences as a queer girl who hasn’t yet realized she’s queer—but her peers seem to sniff it out and isolate her regardless.
Some stories have an arc, while others are more like vignettes: snapshots into someone’s life. They’re always always visceral, evocative, and having to do with the body. These are the kind of stories that you can really dig into and interpret: I would love to have studied them in a class, because it feels like there’s so much packed into just a few pages.
Content warnings: Animal harm and death, eating disorders, homophobia, child harm, kidnapping, homophobia, racism, and violence.
Full review at the Lesbrary.
If you love Carmen Maria Machado, especially Her Body and Other Parties, you need to pick up Sympathy for Wild Girls. They’re both feminist, fabulist/magical realist stories that get under your skin. Some are heart-achingly sympathetic, like falling in love with your straight rich white best friend—who will never acknowledge anything between you but friendship, and yet says her boyfriend is threatened by your relationship. Others are far from most people’s lives, like a school nurse whose grief over her girlfriend dying makes her lose touch with reality and start experimenting on animals with a kid at her school in an attempt to find the secret to bring someone back from the dead.
Several deal with very intense, weird, undefined childhood friendships between girls, or complicated relationships between women that are left without clarity—if there’s any universal queer woman experience, this is probably it. There’s so much yearning and a lot of near misses. My heart went out to one character who is so confused about the judgment she experiences as a queer girl who hasn’t yet realized she’s queer—but her peers seem to sniff it out and isolate her regardless.
Some stories have an arc, while others are more like vignettes: snapshots into someone’s life. They’re always always visceral, evocative, and having to do with the body. These are the kind of stories that you can really dig into and interpret: I would love to have studied them in a class, because it feels like there’s so much packed into just a few pages.
Content warnings: Animal harm and death, eating disorders, homophobia, child harm, kidnapping, homophobia, racism, and violence.
Full review at the Lesbrary.
May 21, 2025
JEEEESUS DEMREE THIS IS VICIOUS BUT IN THE BEST WAY
Coherent review to come
Coherent review to come
Read
November 19, 2025This is one of Book Riot’s Best Books of 2025:
This collection of stories about queer Black women is going to live in my head for a long time. If you love Carmen Maria Machado's work, you need to pick up Sympathy for Wild Girls. They both excel at writing feminist, fabulist/magical realist stories that get under your skin. These stories explore intense, undefined relationships between women; the horror at having a body (especially a racialized, sexualized body); and the strange paths grief can lead you down. Visceral, evocative, and thought-provoking, these are stories that benefit from discussion and deep reading. This collection deserves to be recognized as a new classic.
- Danika Ellis
This collection of stories about queer Black women is going to live in my head for a long time. If you love Carmen Maria Machado's work, you need to pick up Sympathy for Wild Girls. They both excel at writing feminist, fabulist/magical realist stories that get under your skin. These stories explore intense, undefined relationships between women; the horror at having a body (especially a racialized, sexualized body); and the strange paths grief can lead you down. Visceral, evocative, and thought-provoking, these are stories that benefit from discussion and deep reading. This collection deserves to be recognized as a new classic.
- Danika Ellis
December 30, 2025
not my favorite short story collection. many of these stories were less than 10 pages long and blended together in character and theme. it seemed like nearly every story was about the same thing, so i couldn’t separate them in my mind. the only one that really sticks out to me is the one about the christian youtube cult. otherwise i immediately forgot the stories.
demree mcghee writes wonderfully and creatively about girlhood, motherhood, and queerness, though. she has some wonderful lines that stuck out to me:
“Kissing girls felt like catching a ghost I could see, could touch.”
demree mcghee writes wonderfully and creatively about girlhood, motherhood, and queerness, though. she has some wonderful lines that stuck out to me:
“Kissing girls felt like catching a ghost I could see, could touch.”
September 4, 2025
This was spectacular. A vicious, violent, haunting, profound collection of stories centering Black queer women.
I love short form lesbian psychological horror!!! (if you can call this that, which I am).
I love short form lesbian psychological horror!!! (if you can call this that, which I am).
August 3, 2025
A great short story collection: all of the stories are actually short, and they all blend reality with fantasy in novel ways. These stories explore motherhood, girlhood and how racism pulls families apart and turns the world into a strange and hostile place.
Would rank higher, except for this trope: Across multiple stories, Black protagonists keep falling for the same kind of snobby blonde white girl — while seeing her whiteness as both superior to herself and more beautiful. This came up in like half of the stories and became a little repetitive and off-putting.
Would rank higher, except for this trope: Across multiple stories, Black protagonists keep falling for the same kind of snobby blonde white girl — while seeing her whiteness as both superior to herself and more beautiful. This came up in like half of the stories and became a little repetitive and off-putting.
April 10, 2026
3.5 - hm. Butterfruit & be good were my favorites
May 21, 2025
My Selling Pitch:
Collection of short stories mostly about a semi-closeted black lesbian lusting after problematic white girls. Skippable.
Pre-reading:
If there’s one thing about me, it’s that I’ll pick up a book just for the cover. She's S T U N N I N.
(obviously potential spoilers from here on)
Thick of it:
Sympathy
3/5
———-
Throwing Up
Why am I Hilary, lol?
Interesting thought. Because I think we all thought we would be different afterwards, and the response to that is, well, what did you want to change? And I don’t know what I wanted to change with it. Maybe just the validation that I am attractive and worthy of lust because I spend so much time picking apart my appearance, but like lol def only made it worse!
4/5 more please
———-
Scratching
2/5
———-
Even Here
A summer book
1/5 I didn’t like that one at all or get it
———-
Thinning
4/5 no girl has ever had an original experience around food lmao
———-
Exchange
Our gen is so burnt out.
2/5
———-
Pollen
These stories remind me a lot of Come and Get It.
I feel like this collection is mostly black lesbian lusts after problematic white girls
1/5
———-
She Is
3/5 like I get it. It’s just kinda obvious and miserable and done to death.
———-
Nico
1/5 men are so annoying.
———-
Butterfruit
Why’s it bad that the trees grow peaches?
Like she's only spoken to to be corrected, but like who cares. Why do you need attention 24/7?
1/5
———-
Be Good
4/5 make it a whole book.
———-
Valerie
Every book is bears.
2/5 I just don’t get it.
———-
Swallow
1/5 I’m getting a little frustrated with these vignettes. I need a bit more structure to them.
———-
Better Days
1/5
———-
A Matter
3/5
Post-reading:
I don’t know, this was fine. I don’t think there’s a single must read story in here. The three that I liked, I would’ve preferred if they were developed into books. I don’t think they were satisfying short stories. I think the strongest, most interesting one was Be Good. I think that could’ve been developed into a successful character study with religious and gender commentary.
The rest are just kinda meh. I love a short story collection, but I need those stories to have clear arcs. The majority of these felt very musey and unfinished. They felt like vignettes developed around one banger line and then abandoned when the author ran out of steam. With short stories, you really have to have punchy characterization. These all felt like the same perspective and characters over and over again. If you fuck with surrealist magical realism, you might get on better with these then I did.
I think it’s a 2.5 that I’ll round up to a three. It’s not something I would discourage people from reading, but it’s also not something I would recommend. There’s too many stories in the collection that I didn’t get. I got a little frustrated with them, wondering what the point was. And once you trigger a negative emotion in me, it’s pretty hard for the book to come back. It’s doable. It’s been done. This just wasn't the book for that. The cover’s beautiful, though, and I would try the author again if she puts out a novel.
Who should read this:
Short story fans
Surrealist magical realism fans
Queer short story fans
Ideal reading time:
Summer
Do I want to reread this:
Nope.
Would I buy this:
No, and I’m bummed because I love that cover.
Similar books:
* Death Valley by Melissa Broder-surrealist magical realism short story
* Come and Get It by Kiley Reid-lit fic character study, queer, social commentary
* Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird by Augustina Bazterrica-edgy short story collection, horror
* Mouth by Puloma Ghosh-edgy short story collection, horror
* Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link-edgy short story collection, horror
* Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado-edgy short story collection, horror
* Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder-magical realism mommy horror
Collection of short stories mostly about a semi-closeted black lesbian lusting after problematic white girls. Skippable.
Pre-reading:
If there’s one thing about me, it’s that I’ll pick up a book just for the cover. She's S T U N N I N.
(obviously potential spoilers from here on)
Thick of it:
Sympathy
3/5
———-
Throwing Up
Why am I Hilary, lol?
Interesting thought. Because I think we all thought we would be different afterwards, and the response to that is, well, what did you want to change? And I don’t know what I wanted to change with it. Maybe just the validation that I am attractive and worthy of lust because I spend so much time picking apart my appearance, but like lol def only made it worse!
4/5 more please
———-
Scratching
2/5
———-
Even Here
A summer book
1/5 I didn’t like that one at all or get it
———-
Thinning
4/5 no girl has ever had an original experience around food lmao
———-
Exchange
Our gen is so burnt out.
2/5
———-
Pollen
These stories remind me a lot of Come and Get It.
I feel like this collection is mostly black lesbian lusts after problematic white girls
1/5
———-
She Is
3/5 like I get it. It’s just kinda obvious and miserable and done to death.
———-
Nico
1/5 men are so annoying.
———-
Butterfruit
Why’s it bad that the trees grow peaches?
Like she's only spoken to to be corrected, but like who cares. Why do you need attention 24/7?
1/5
———-
Be Good
4/5 make it a whole book.
———-
Valerie
Every book is bears.
2/5 I just don’t get it.
———-
Swallow
1/5 I’m getting a little frustrated with these vignettes. I need a bit more structure to them.
———-
Better Days
1/5
———-
A Matter
3/5
Post-reading:
I don’t know, this was fine. I don’t think there’s a single must read story in here. The three that I liked, I would’ve preferred if they were developed into books. I don’t think they were satisfying short stories. I think the strongest, most interesting one was Be Good. I think that could’ve been developed into a successful character study with religious and gender commentary.
The rest are just kinda meh. I love a short story collection, but I need those stories to have clear arcs. The majority of these felt very musey and unfinished. They felt like vignettes developed around one banger line and then abandoned when the author ran out of steam. With short stories, you really have to have punchy characterization. These all felt like the same perspective and characters over and over again. If you fuck with surrealist magical realism, you might get on better with these then I did.
I think it’s a 2.5 that I’ll round up to a three. It’s not something I would discourage people from reading, but it’s also not something I would recommend. There’s too many stories in the collection that I didn’t get. I got a little frustrated with them, wondering what the point was. And once you trigger a negative emotion in me, it’s pretty hard for the book to come back. It’s doable. It’s been done. This just wasn't the book for that. The cover’s beautiful, though, and I would try the author again if she puts out a novel.
Who should read this:
Short story fans
Surrealist magical realism fans
Queer short story fans
Ideal reading time:
Summer
Do I want to reread this:
Nope.
Would I buy this:
No, and I’m bummed because I love that cover.
Similar books:
* Death Valley by Melissa Broder-surrealist magical realism short story
* Come and Get It by Kiley Reid-lit fic character study, queer, social commentary
* Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird by Augustina Bazterrica-edgy short story collection, horror
* Mouth by Puloma Ghosh-edgy short story collection, horror
* Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link-edgy short story collection, horror
* Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado-edgy short story collection, horror
* Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder-magical realism mommy horror
March 27, 2025
Reads like a series of nightmares. Surreal and gnawing. Sweaty and nauseating.
In this hollowing collection of short stories, Demree McGhee follows in the footsteps of Toni Morrison and Audre Lorde in continuing the conversation of what it means to embody a Black, feminine, sexual sense of self in a society built on the degradation of Black womanhood and female desire.
Privileged to have gotten an early look at this debut collection, and I’ll be keeping an eager eye out for more of McGhee’s work! ✨
In this hollowing collection of short stories, Demree McGhee follows in the footsteps of Toni Morrison and Audre Lorde in continuing the conversation of what it means to embody a Black, feminine, sexual sense of self in a society built on the degradation of Black womanhood and female desire.
Privileged to have gotten an early look at this debut collection, and I’ll be keeping an eager eye out for more of McGhee’s work! ✨
September 1, 2025
gay n vicious
February 5, 2026
[3.5] rounding up! Great set of stories and almost all of them grabbed me from the very start. There were a few I wish were an entire novel in itself.
December 15, 2025
This one wasn’t for me, and that’s okay!!! I think my friend and frequent buddy reader, Adriana, is rubbing off on me with their hatred of short story collections. There is nothing wrong with Demree McGhee’s Sympathy for Wild Girls, and I feel like in another mindset, I could’ve enjoyed it!
Part of why I think it might be a me problem vs. the author’s problem is because McGhee’s collection often reminded me of Lesley Nneka Arimah’s What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky, which is one of my favorite short story collections ever! It’s funny though, because while both stories share their moments of surrealism, I struggled to connect with those stories in Sympathy for Wild Girls.
My favorites here are a bit more straightforward, where I can enjoy the unique Oklahoma landscape, and latch onto why the characters are connecting with one another (outside of the fact that it would make for a quirky short story topic.) “Even Here, There I Am” is a moving story about how moving on rarely changes people in the ways they hope, and “Be Good” felt incredibly connective and like something you could just sink into. “Thinning” is about the way desirability impacts us all, by making us feel less deserving of love or quality treatment by the world—and I am always a sucker for lesbian sports connections. “Valerie” was also fun as someone who also expected lesbian couplings to be transcendent or magical, only to find out that I might just be ace and that’s okay!!!
As I always say, I don’t quite have the range for magical realism. However, that’s not always true—I’ve come to realize that for things to start being spooky, I need everything else to be really clear. This collection is really interested in the unexplained elements of attraction, both to family, friends, and more than friends. However, I think I struggled to understand WHY certain characters were being drawn to each other—which then makes it harder when those characters start levitating or having prophecies about the end of the world, LOL. So I cannot lie, by the time I got to the end of this, I was definitely jumping for joy. I don’t want to discredit it to others, because I think a different reader might really enjoy this. AND, I’m always happy to see more Black sapphic fiction being published (even if most of the love interests are white LOL). But, for me personally, I did not find this to be my cup of tea.
Part of why I think it might be a me problem vs. the author’s problem is because McGhee’s collection often reminded me of Lesley Nneka Arimah’s What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky, which is one of my favorite short story collections ever! It’s funny though, because while both stories share their moments of surrealism, I struggled to connect with those stories in Sympathy for Wild Girls.
My favorites here are a bit more straightforward, where I can enjoy the unique Oklahoma landscape, and latch onto why the characters are connecting with one another (outside of the fact that it would make for a quirky short story topic.) “Even Here, There I Am” is a moving story about how moving on rarely changes people in the ways they hope, and “Be Good” felt incredibly connective and like something you could just sink into. “Thinning” is about the way desirability impacts us all, by making us feel less deserving of love or quality treatment by the world—and I am always a sucker for lesbian sports connections. “Valerie” was also fun as someone who also expected lesbian couplings to be transcendent or magical, only to find out that I might just be ace and that’s okay!!!
As I always say, I don’t quite have the range for magical realism. However, that’s not always true—I’ve come to realize that for things to start being spooky, I need everything else to be really clear. This collection is really interested in the unexplained elements of attraction, both to family, friends, and more than friends. However, I think I struggled to understand WHY certain characters were being drawn to each other—which then makes it harder when those characters start levitating or having prophecies about the end of the world, LOL. So I cannot lie, by the time I got to the end of this, I was definitely jumping for joy. I don’t want to discredit it to others, because I think a different reader might really enjoy this. AND, I’m always happy to see more Black sapphic fiction being published (even if most of the love interests are white LOL). But, for me personally, I did not find this to be my cup of tea.
February 18, 2026
Emotional, Relatable, Wild
I loved this collection of short stories. The depiction of love, loss, queerness, otherness, in all of the stories, using a metaphor of wildness was very powerful. The details, the characterization, the plot, the challenges in each story stuck with me. If you are looking for a strong collection of short stories, don't sleep on this one!
I loved this collection of short stories. The depiction of love, loss, queerness, otherness, in all of the stories, using a metaphor of wildness was very powerful. The details, the characterization, the plot, the challenges in each story stuck with me. If you are looking for a strong collection of short stories, don't sleep on this one!
April 28, 2025
Sympathy is masterfully crafted and beautifully written; it lingers in the mind like smoke long after reading its final word. McGhee centers an urgent and necessary perspective about the dangerous world that Black women are forced to inhabit. Its stories contain a harrowing series of quotidian apocalypses, all darkly atmospheric and with an air of tragedy—even and perhaps especially the ones that end triumphantly. This is a stunning debut to what I expect will be a long and incredible career
July 16, 2025
Great set of semi-absurdist short stories centering different queer, female, and Black experiences. Even a few days after finishing there are some stories I'm still thinking about (the floating girl and the woman who moves in with Christian influencers are haunting me especially).
The stories hold space for endings, relationships, and feelings that feel incomplete without being unsatisfying or unfinished. I'm always a big fan of stories that embrace melancholy and imperfection without straying into being too grim.
Some stories are better than others, of course, but the best ones really shine. If you're looking for a bit of heartache, catharsis, and humanity in your next read, this is a great book to pick up.
The stories hold space for endings, relationships, and feelings that feel incomplete without being unsatisfying or unfinished. I'm always a big fan of stories that embrace melancholy and imperfection without straying into being too grim.
Some stories are better than others, of course, but the best ones really shine. If you're looking for a bit of heartache, catharsis, and humanity in your next read, this is a great book to pick up.
February 20, 2026
“I would carve myself into something gorgeous from all angles. Slough away my excess until there was so much missing, people would yearn for my body instead of overlooking it like mountains and buildings, things people look past to find what they want.”
This is a great debut story collection! I particularly loved Thinning and Be Good. McGhee’s writing is really strong and effective, making you care deeply for characters you’re only spending a few pages with. I really enjoyed this and look forward to whatever McGhee may write next!
This is a great debut story collection! I particularly loved Thinning and Be Good. McGhee’s writing is really strong and effective, making you care deeply for characters you’re only spending a few pages with. I really enjoyed this and look forward to whatever McGhee may write next!
June 24, 2025
I loved this collection of short stories so much, I devoured the whole book in one setting! Demree writes with such rich descriptive language and pulled me into the surreal world of each story. I also loved how quickly she established deep, complex characters with subtle details, connecting each person & story to the larger themes of queer Black womanhood. Highly recommend picking up this collection!!
April 14, 2025
a spellbinding, mystical collection filled with sorrow, grief, and strength. I love collections like these sooo much
Did Not Finish
December 23, 2025Not feeling this.
December 31, 2025
My favorite stories were ‘sympathy for wild girls’ and ‘thinning’! I loved the characters in each story, and how visceral some of the scenes and emotions were and how she was able to communicate those feelings in her writing. I highly recommend this to all my friends and I’m very excited to read whatever Demree McGhee writes next! I love reading yay!
April 3, 2026
oh my god.
i've never ever ever felt this represented by a book since TLU (if that's my soul, this is my blood and bone reality)
McGhee gets it. jesus. my heart goes out to all the girls in this book and whose hearts ached reading it. who felt their fangs coming out, their ears growing, their body floating away and turning to dust and bursting into flame with the turn of every page. like i did
i've never ever ever felt this represented by a book since TLU (if that's my soul, this is my blood and bone reality)
McGhee gets it. jesus. my heart goes out to all the girls in this book and whose hearts ached reading it. who felt their fangs coming out, their ears growing, their body floating away and turning to dust and bursting into flame with the turn of every page. like i did
March 20, 2025
Women can all relate to at least one story in Sympathy for Wild Girls, making it a must-read. Intimacy and grief are among the themes addressed in these beautifully written short stories. "Scratching" was my favorite story. Bringing back every animal from the dead was my dream as a child, and still is today.
July 6, 2025
When Sympathy for Wild Girls launched at San Diego's Burn All Books in May 2025, McGhee admitted she was a bit confused by the "subtly warped version of our world" comment in the book's blurb. "This IS my world," she said, in so many words, and after reading her gorgeous, fluid stories, I agree--this is as real, and as juicy, as fiction gets. Not only are the stories layered with complex emotional and philosophical truths, but they are also crafted with language we can bite into (see "Butterfruit"). McGhee creates contemporary scenarios that include and intrigue us, effortlessly, with their first sentences. Take the opening of "Be Good": "I left after slicing off the top of my finger in my parents' barbecue restaurant. On the same day that I got my stitches pulled out, I shaved my head in the front seat of my car, bent over a plastic bag in the green light of a gas station." How can we not read on? McGhee's stories achieve John Gardner's requirement of good fiction--the reader is immersed in a vivid, continuous dream. McGhee is a rising talent who deserves to be widely read, and I can't wait to see what she does next.
July 8, 2025
I made it to about 60% and called it quits. I feel really bad 🥲 Thankfully this book seems to have found its audience for the most part.
I was mostly enjoying it at first. The better stories are at the beginning for me. Then I was increasingly bored and increasingly pushing my way through. So I’m done!
The stories I didn’t like were dull to me. Made me shrug. Whatever they were doing I was not seeing or understanding, so I was left feeling like I’d wasted my time.
I *did* enjoy Sympathy for Wild Girls, Throwing Up in a Gated Community (just now caught the play on words!), and Even Here There I Am.
I was mostly enjoying it at first. The better stories are at the beginning for me. Then I was increasingly bored and increasingly pushing my way through. So I’m done!
The stories I didn’t like were dull to me. Made me shrug. Whatever they were doing I was not seeing or understanding, so I was left feeling like I’d wasted my time.
I *did* enjoy Sympathy for Wild Girls, Throwing Up in a Gated Community (just now caught the play on words!), and Even Here There I Am.
June 11, 2025
WOW! I loved this debut collection of short stories from Demtee McGhee. It lingers on the uncomfortable parts of growing up as a Black woman in America, leaning into the gross, the misshapen and the just plain ugly and rendering it tender and haunting and beautiful. the characters in these stories are for sure strange people, but they are also human and alive and McGhee captures that tension between voueryism and honest self reflection well.
April 23, 2025
This is the kind of stuff that makes one glad they're alive. Demree is a master at making sentences that stick with you and characters that will break your heart. Surely the start of a long and illustrious career.
April 4, 2026
4.5 stars - this is so criminally under-read. i feel like a ton of people would like these sets of stories if they knew about them, so now it's going to be my mission to spread my love for this book as much as i can. the women at the center of these stories are exactly the kind of women i love reading about - alienated from themselves, their bodies, and other people, they struggle to feel and identify their emotions, to exist in the world without self-imposed barriers, and to connect to others outside of strange, often codependent relationships. religion plays a factor in a number of these stories, with the gift of prophecy being prominent. strained relationships with overbearing mothers is another key element, as well as a heavy focus on gayness and relationships with other women.
the stories grow to be more speculative and strange as the book goes on, with a couple being outright horror-focused. I enjoyed these horror stories the most, but also greatly enjoyed the ones that focused purely on characters and their relationships to each other. McGhee is a master at building out characters in a short number of pages, and I found myself wanting to exist among these women for longer (especially the story Scratching - I rarely ask for a short story to be longer as I value the skill in writing concisely, but I would love to read a novella or a full book about Crystal and the bizarre relationship she builds with Gertie).
for individual stories, i really enjoyed ‘Be Good’ (a woman running away from home agrees to live with a group of white women who make christian content for youtube, just really good character work in this one, felt like it could easily have been a movie), ‘Valerie’ (a woman who struggles to orgasm with a partner seeks out help from a “sex expert”- one of the most overtly horror-themed stories), ‘Exchange’ (woman shoplifts with her boyfriend and they end up forming a throuple with an employee who has seen them shoplifting. more great character work in such a short amount of pages) and ‘Even Here, There I Am’ (woman returns to her hometown after graduating college to find her high school best friend is now a prophet. explores their somewhat codependent relationship and how it’s changed now that they’re adults).
you don't get "satisfying" answers for a lot of these, the endings can be inconclusive and left up to interpretation which i think makes them that much more interesting. it can be difficult to parse what's real and what isn't, and it creates a wonderful atmosphere of strangeness that carries from story to story. this book has a "vibe" that i've seen a lot of popular authors try to pull off recently so it's baffling to me that this collection has fallen through the cracks when it does that much better than so many other heavily marketed books i've read. i hesitate to label this as "weird girl fiction" as i feel that label flattens the complexity at the heart of the works of women writers, but i do think a lot of people who enjoy those kinds of books could resonate with this one.
if you enjoy slightly speculative, odd stories that focus on women and their relationships with other women, i highly, highly encourage you to pick this one up!
the stories grow to be more speculative and strange as the book goes on, with a couple being outright horror-focused. I enjoyed these horror stories the most, but also greatly enjoyed the ones that focused purely on characters and their relationships to each other. McGhee is a master at building out characters in a short number of pages, and I found myself wanting to exist among these women for longer (especially the story Scratching - I rarely ask for a short story to be longer as I value the skill in writing concisely, but I would love to read a novella or a full book about Crystal and the bizarre relationship she builds with Gertie).
for individual stories, i really enjoyed ‘Be Good’ (a woman running away from home agrees to live with a group of white women who make christian content for youtube, just really good character work in this one, felt like it could easily have been a movie), ‘Valerie’ (a woman who struggles to orgasm with a partner seeks out help from a “sex expert”- one of the most overtly horror-themed stories), ‘Exchange’ (woman shoplifts with her boyfriend and they end up forming a throuple with an employee who has seen them shoplifting. more great character work in such a short amount of pages) and ‘Even Here, There I Am’ (woman returns to her hometown after graduating college to find her high school best friend is now a prophet. explores their somewhat codependent relationship and how it’s changed now that they’re adults).
you don't get "satisfying" answers for a lot of these, the endings can be inconclusive and left up to interpretation which i think makes them that much more interesting. it can be difficult to parse what's real and what isn't, and it creates a wonderful atmosphere of strangeness that carries from story to story. this book has a "vibe" that i've seen a lot of popular authors try to pull off recently so it's baffling to me that this collection has fallen through the cracks when it does that much better than so many other heavily marketed books i've read. i hesitate to label this as "weird girl fiction" as i feel that label flattens the complexity at the heart of the works of women writers, but i do think a lot of people who enjoy those kinds of books could resonate with this one.
if you enjoy slightly speculative, odd stories that focus on women and their relationships with other women, i highly, highly encourage you to pick this one up!
April 7, 2026
I really loved the writing style and vibe of this collection.
“THROUGH THE SLURRED lisp of her words, Daisy's mother whispers to her about dead girls. It starts off as a trickle of informa-tion, gossipy fascination over the feral, triggered by a story on the news or something that her mother heard on the radio while driving. But before Daisy can stop it, her mother bombards her with these stories every time she sees her, as if the presence of Daisy incites death. Normally Daisy can forget her mother's words.
They're usually able to fall between her fingers and dry off in the light of day like water, but these words stick to her like sweetgum barbs, becoming more entangled in her hair and clothes as she struggles to pull them out.”
“Do you know any drug dealers? I didn't really. I had only ever smelled the skin of smoke at night as it haloed a stranger's bowed head on their shadowy balcony. But I didn't know if that counted or not, so I told her yes.”
“Any wind that cut through the curtain of heat was hot enough to cure my throat dry as I huffed in the sun-choked air. The sidewalk crumbled away beneath my step, and the sun seemed to take up the entire sky-glaring the endless stretches of yellow grass into panes of light, with only the thin strips of road splitting them apart.”
“I I HAD BEEN wasting my time and money at an expensive gym for eight months before she started working there. An adolescence's worth of marinating in the internet told me that I should feel guilty for wanting to be thinner, so I convinced myself that my main reason for working out was to feel strong again.”
“I had friends could probably call, who would have been nice enough to let me stay over—but they were all living these new, shining lives I felt I wasn't allowed to touch.”
“Slutty, I guess. But what was slutty anyway? She had looked the word up online and found porn. "The first time I saw it I felt like throwing up. Not because they were naked or anything, but because all the women looked like they were being killed or something."”
“Kissing girls felt like catching a ghost I could see, could touch. A ghost I haunted, not the other way around.
Boys were different. They didn't keep anything secret. They called out my name in the street and in the school hall like they were trying to summon something within me-some dirty vision for themselves. I liked to pretend with them. It gave me a break from being myself, when I could split my body open and do my best impression of their desire.”
“THROUGH THE SLURRED lisp of her words, Daisy's mother whispers to her about dead girls. It starts off as a trickle of informa-tion, gossipy fascination over the feral, triggered by a story on the news or something that her mother heard on the radio while driving. But before Daisy can stop it, her mother bombards her with these stories every time she sees her, as if the presence of Daisy incites death. Normally Daisy can forget her mother's words.
They're usually able to fall between her fingers and dry off in the light of day like water, but these words stick to her like sweetgum barbs, becoming more entangled in her hair and clothes as she struggles to pull them out.”
“Do you know any drug dealers? I didn't really. I had only ever smelled the skin of smoke at night as it haloed a stranger's bowed head on their shadowy balcony. But I didn't know if that counted or not, so I told her yes.”
“Any wind that cut through the curtain of heat was hot enough to cure my throat dry as I huffed in the sun-choked air. The sidewalk crumbled away beneath my step, and the sun seemed to take up the entire sky-glaring the endless stretches of yellow grass into panes of light, with only the thin strips of road splitting them apart.”
“I I HAD BEEN wasting my time and money at an expensive gym for eight months before she started working there. An adolescence's worth of marinating in the internet told me that I should feel guilty for wanting to be thinner, so I convinced myself that my main reason for working out was to feel strong again.”
“I had friends could probably call, who would have been nice enough to let me stay over—but they were all living these new, shining lives I felt I wasn't allowed to touch.”
“Slutty, I guess. But what was slutty anyway? She had looked the word up online and found porn. "The first time I saw it I felt like throwing up. Not because they were naked or anything, but because all the women looked like they were being killed or something."”
“Kissing girls felt like catching a ghost I could see, could touch. A ghost I haunted, not the other way around.
Boys were different. They didn't keep anything secret. They called out my name in the street and in the school hall like they were trying to summon something within me-some dirty vision for themselves. I liked to pretend with them. It gave me a break from being myself, when I could split my body open and do my best impression of their desire.”
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