A review by usedtotheweather
Sarahland by Sam Cohen

adventurous emotional funny inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.0

A friend lent this to me and said of the stories "They start out a little bit normal but then get weirder--in a good way!" This is an accurate description. The stories in the second half I liked more and more.  While each story stands on its own, the threads of "Sarah" life weave together, iterations of Sarah making not a singularity but a multiplicity of life, and also sketching out an epochal course of life from barely teen to post apocalyptic, by which I mean: after the end of this world as we know it.  Throughout, the strangeness of relationships with other people who both are and aren't like oneself, who both do and don't fit some idea of who we want to be in relation with, and the uncertainty of identity --deftly handled, with sensitivity to the characters--make this an enjoyable series of stories.  

My favorite standalone stories: The First Sarah, and Becoming Trees.