Tao Lin’s absorbing writing style matches a minimalist prose with a lyric sensibility, poignant compassion with a hysterical sense of humor, bitter reality with enchanting fantasy, and youthful outlandishness with a gentle, mature perceptiveness—all in shaped stories that are a tribute to the form.

In a series of pinpoint portrayals, Lin’s tales depict young people in a surreal place between irresponsible youth and workaday adulthood, wanting to reject both cultures in order to craft something different. But such rebellion is harder than ever in a culture dominated by outrageousness, and Lin sensitively portrays the struggle in a way that is highly entertaining, impressively smart, and ultimately moving.

It will leave some cheering the war against a dumbed-down culture, others laughing at the tactics, and all concerned feeling like they’ve got a new champion in Tao Lin.

'Tao Lin’s territory is the rich, neglected space between the bigger things we thought we already knew. Only in his hands everything becomes strange—a little warped, a little sad, and a whole lot more intriguing. With understated lyricism, he reminds us that if we can’t fix things, then at least we can try to see them with perfect clarity.' —Todd Hasak-Lowy, author of The Task of This Translator