Carmen Maria Machado

“Her Body and Other Parties, by Carmen Maria Machado, is a love letter to an obstinate genre that won’t be gentrified. It’s a wild thing, this book, covered in sequins and scales, blazing with the influence of fabulists from Angela Carter to Kelly Link and Helen Oyeyemi, and borrowing from science fiction, queer theory and horror. . . . Not since Karen Russell’s St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, in 2006, has a debut collection of short stories from a relatively unknown author garnered such attention, or deserved it more.” ― Parul Sehgal, The New York Times

“[This] imaginative and enjoyable collection... charts dark territory with enormous style, wit and storytelling panache... a true original.” ― John Powers, Fresh Air

“Carmen Maria Machado has managed to have readers, critics and everyone in-between sitting on the edge of their seats for the chance to read her debut story collection. . . . Part science fiction, part fantasy and all fun, Machado’s stories deal with the sometimes unbelievable reality of being a woman in a way you won’t see coming; in a way that is entirely her own.” ― NBC's The Today Show

“[Her Body and Other Parties is] written in prose so textured that you want to rub her phrases between your fingertips. . . . A muscular strain of feminism runs through this book, whose contemplation of the female body is bound up in sex, power, pleasure, pain, and the fitful struggle against self-loathing. Rarely is a writer as skilled as Machado at evoking corporeality: the myriad sensations of inhabiting flesh and bone, with all its messiness and ecstasies. . . . [Machado] blend[s] disparate, jostling elements to achieve a ferocious alchemy.” — The Boston Globe

“[Her Body and Other Parties] is that hallowed thing: an example of almost preposterous talent that also encapsulates something vital but previously diffuse about the moment. . . . Machado is a master of such pointed formal play, of queering genre and the supposed laws of reality to present alternative possibilities. . . . Machado reveals just how original, subversive, proud and joyful it can be to write from deep in the gut, even — especially — if the gut has been bruised.” — Los Angeles Times

“With Machado, everything feels razed and built anew. . . . [Her Body and Other Parties] feels determined to live well beyond annual prize-giving cycles, to become that classic misfit survivor that readers and writers keep returning to.” — Star Tribune

“Three weeks before Her Body hit the shelves it was long-listed for the National Book Award (it’s since made it to the shortlist, too) and it’s easy to see why. With her first book Machado has already emerged a master of several beloved genres. . . . [the] stories here. . . .possess a courageous and indelible originality.” — The Village Voice

“With supernatural flair, an engaging pop culture awareness . . . and an intimate, unrelenting style that grabs you by the throat and sinks its perfectly-polished nails in, Machado explores “femaleness” in a way that makes women who evaporate or telepathically hear the thoughts of porn stars feel eerily, impossibly, like long-lost friends.” — Harper’s Bazaar

“Between its covers, we find ourselves inside a gorgeously warped reflection of the world in which we actually live. It’s recognizable as our own, but everything is a little more lurid, a little more queer, a little more violent, a little more magical than what we’re used to.” — NYLON

“She writes with a sincerity I didn’t realize I was missing until I found it in these pages; it’s rare to encounter an articulation of feminist themes that isn’t self-conscious of them. . . . Machado’s work, like her characters, is accessible and nuanced, textured without being overwrought.” — Lauren Kane, The Paris Review Staff Picks

“Her Body and Other Parties is an artful powerhouse. . . .fearsome and fearless. It is a book that won’t be forgotten.” — LA Review of Books

“Machado is a revolution. She is at once a funny, dark, terrifying, uplifting anti-Lovecraft... Her Body and Other Parties is fiery, mischievous, and elusive. Like the worlds Machado glimpses: brutal and yet life-affirming.” — World Literature Today

“This could be a book that changes how you look at the world, but that’s not necessarily Machado’s goal. Really, it’s for the ones who already look at the world with mistrust. For them, these stories say: I believe you.” — Fiction Unbound

“Machado melds folklore and fabulist images with the raw realities of love, sex, queerness and alienation, forging a poetic sensibility that's full and alive with possibilities in a way that narrower realism could never match. . . . Machado pulls everything together with bravura. . . . [Her Body and Other Parties] demonstrates that literature, when forthright and brave, can simultaneously dig deep within the self and reframe the greater world.” — Shelf Awareness

“The writing is always lyrical, the narration refreshingly direct, and the sex abundant, and although the supernatural elements are not overt, every story is terrifying. These weird tales present a slightly askew version of the world as we know it and force us, no matter our gender, to reconsider our current life choices and relationships.” — Booklist, starred review

“Electrifying. . . . Machado moves from the surreal to the real and back again with incredible ease. This spellbinding collection marks the arrival of an impressive new writer.” — BookPage

“Machado creates eerie, inventive worlds shimmering with supernatural swerves in this engrossing debut collection. . . . Machado builds entire interior lives through sparse and minor details, turning even litanies of refrigerator contents and free-association on the coming of autumn into memorable meditations on identity and female disempowerment. . . . Machado’s slightly slanted world echoes our own in ways that will entertain, challenge, and move readers.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Machado’s debut collection brings together eight stories that showcase her fluency in the bizarre, magical, and sharply frightening depths of the imagination. . . . The fierceness and abundance of sex and desire in these stories, the way emotion is inextricably connected with the concerns of the body, makes even the most outlandish imaginings strangely familiar. Machado writes with furious grace. She plays with form and expectation in ways that are both funny and elegant but never obscure. . . . An exceptional and pungently inventive first book.” — Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“The world of Carmen Maria Machado is bright and bizarre, full of magic and haunted places.” — Hazlitt

“The collection unpacks queerness, the female body, feminism, and the fantastic with a surrealism that will leave you aching.” — Philadelphia Weekly

"Remember all of the scary stories from your preteen days and then add every gory movie you have watched since then and sift this into the brain of a masterful young writer.  Machado’s writing is full of repressed physical energy and the raw juice of annihilating female fury.  The body is the subject, the culprit, the innocent.  Standard accessories like ribbons become frightful.  She does unimaginable things with a prom dress.  But these stories are also funny—which really made me uneasy—because I could hear in my laugh that same squawk a tiny dog makes in moments of duress." — Louise Erdrich, The Millions

“Carmen Maria Machado’s stories build and build until they surround and ensnare and at the end you’re always glad to be all tangled up.” — NPR

“Machado tells the stories that are hidden just beneath the stories you think you know. The stories you’ve been waiting for without knowing it… She reveals new shapes, new forms, what’s been hidden right there all along: pain, joy, pleasure, horror.” — The Butter

“A quiet triumph.” — Longreads

“Like [Angela] Carter before her, Machado combines humor and horror to an evocative and disturbing effect.” — The Rumpus

“Incredible… hilarious and disturbing.” — Flavorwire

“Machado’s work doesn’t just have form, it takes form. Hers is a greedy oeuvre… in [her] stories, form is uncanny, sly, a pool of raindrops, a slightly skewed face in the mirror. We’ve seen it all before, but never quite like this.” — Los Angeles Review of Books

“Funny, disturbing, canny, and inventive.” — The Huffington Post

“Brilliant.” — io9

“Heartbreaking and inventive… a gut punch.” — Tor.com

"Stunning." — Longreads