There is a ‘stream of consciousness’ style to many of the stories (somewhat reminiscent of Max Porter’s books) which allowed me to feel like I was inhabiting that character - travelling along inside their head for a short time. All in all an engaging, sensitively written collection of stories which centre the female experience amid the horrors - but also joys - of modern life. When I was 24, there was a comedy forum that devoted hundreds of pages to being incredibly rude about me, my body, and who I was,” she says. Long showcases these heightened feelings almost to an extreme point, and while they can be exciting, deranged and cringey to read about, you do have to ask yourself - What would happen if we did let the intrusive thoughts win? There are issues of identity, and memories, including a boy's troubled relationship with his father, a forgotten memory surfaces of his abusive father from when he was a toddler.

Each of them is dealing with their own issues and tensions, and I found it fascinating to read about them, even if only briefly. Josie Long is my favourite comedian and when reading these stories, all the cynicism I’ve acquired gets replaced by the enthusiasm I felt the first time I saw her live.I think thething that unites all of the narrators is a kind of intensity of feeling and perhaps an overthinking quality. And this is from someone who doesn’t tend to be a fan of short stories - ten “unnecessary” pages of context and detail is absolutely my bag! I don’t feel like the diagnosis takes away from the beauty of the good parts, and the fast, unusual connections my brain makes”. Others were quite hard to follow and just as you were getting into the swing of the story, it finished. It was going to be about my romantic experiences, then the more I wrote it became everything I had to offer.

There are stories here that are experimental and cutting, and a little more of that would be welcome. While Vanhoenacker takes us on fascinating journeys to Brasília and Cape Town, Liverpool and Jeddah, this is not just a travelogue of the cities in which he lands.I ended up having to ration myself out with the stories, to give each one a bit of breathing room and space to percolate in my head, because given the short story form it was easy for some of the ideas to just dissipate immediately after reading. Everyone has experienced loss, unrequited love, a bully, and more importantly their own internal doubt - perhaps not in excess as the poor characters involved in Long's short stories.

I've never entirely bought into the stereotype of Josie Long as relentlessly chirpy, not least because of that incident where she threw popcorn at me after a disagreement on which Joanna Newsom album was best. More than a few of the characters and stories here could have be expanded into full on big books… and I guess that’s the sign of a good story, leaving you wanting more.the collection's standout story for me, follows the survivor of an abusive relationship after her abuser moves into her neighbourhood almost two decades later. As is always the case with a collection of stories, I connected more with some than others but I truly enjoyed reading them all - which is quite rare for me.