Status Updates From The Best American Short Sto...

Read Nicole Krauss’s fascinating “Switzerland,” which explores the vulnerabilities of young women who are just beginning to explore their sexuality and agency. Krauss does an excellent job of leaning into painful and frightening ambiguities, although she does veer toward moments of being a bit too much on the nose.

Read Jamil Jan Kochai’s incredibly powerful, hallucinatory “Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain”

Read Brandon Hobson’s “Escape from the Dysphesiac People,” an achingly hypnotic tale of a young Native man who’s forcibly removed from his home.

Read Jenzo Duque’s bracingly personal portrait of second-generation Latino young men finding their way.

Read Rita Chang-Eppig’s intriguing but uneven “The Miracle Girl,” which finds fresh ways to interrogate missionaries’ racist work; and Vanessa Cuti’s “Our Children,” which features one of the most effectively shocking, upsetting turns I’ve ever read in a short story.

Read Gabriel Bump’s “To Buffalo Eastward,” which authentically captures a heartbroken young man’s compulsive behavior on a long road trip.

(little beast - 5) no by all means ms. zhang, don’t hold back

(biology - 4.5) oh kevin you’ve done it again

(palaver - 3) kind of interesting but a little too distant to be truly enjoyable

(you are my dear friend - 4) crafty and witty and ominous—this is such a Story

(haguillory - 2.5) what! is the obsession with dead pets in this collection… jesmyn explain

(a way with bea - 3) dull!

(love story - 2) like if a commencement address at a midsize liberal arts college were a short story

(in this sort of world, the asshole wins - 5) holy shit