Ben Nash’s Reviews > Hopeful Monsters: Stories > Status Update

All Possible Moments - 3/5 - I didn't get the story. I wonder if knowing what a card catalog is would make it more or less understandable, or have no bearing. I like how it captures a summer day in an old library.

Hopeful Monsters - 4/5 - Goto gets into the horrors of pregnancy and motherhood quite well (I say this as a male). This one is about being different while being the same, and trying to find a place.

Camp Americana - 5/5 - Another creepy one. Delves into the mind of a critical old man quite well. His fears are realized.

Home Stay - 4/5 - A man struggles to deal with life after divorce, living with his ex-in-laws. Strange and creepy, filled with memories. Deals a bit with immigrant issues, as many of these stories do.

Drift - 4/5 - With this story, I think I'm starting to get a little more into what Goto is doing. These feel less like stories and more like snapshots, though there certainly is story here. A daughter trying to relate to her mother, taking her to hot-springs.

Tales from the Breast - 4/5 - visceral account of difficult breast feeding with a funny ending.

Tilting - 3/5 - I missed a transition at the end of the story, I think. Of course, the transitional paragraph is the source of the title, so I probably need to think about it more. "And I was think­ing that maybe the ground was try­ing to tell me some­thing. That I couldn’t just land and feel right at home. That there was a pe­riod of tran­si­tion or some­thing to go through."

Osmosis - 3/5 - Confused by the story. On one level, there's a person with insecurities finding comfort in the night, in the water, becoming one with it. But there's also the watcher. Who is it? What is it? What's 'kappa'?