I liked a lot the poetry and the story about the sex doll. I wish there was a more diverse selection of stories.

Stunning collection, as usual. Freeman is such a brilliant literary curator, I wish this ‘series’ would go on, and on, indefinitely. But I think this might be the last issue? Sayaka Murata’s + Mieko Kawakami’s short stories were so lush. But a wildly inaccurate term to describe them to be fair. If you’re already acquainted with their work — you would know that both writers are extremely faithful to their ‘creepy’ but kind of ‘cute’ vibes). I would certainly give both 5*s but of course this is a mixed collection, so I took away a star as there are definitely some that I didn’t like enough. Honourable mentions : the ones by Holleran and Batasic. Please continue or at least start a new 'series'. Would appreciate that tremendously.

I have previously read 3 volumes in this collection coordinated by John Freeman: Arrival (3 stars - book 1), Family (4 stars - book 2) and The future of new writing (3 stars - book 4). So I was excited to see a new volume called Conclusions and sad to find out that this will be the end of the series.

My favourite pieces of writing were:
I like all colours - a short story about an old lady and her mystery, with an open ending
Conclusions - an essay about trauma, climate change and global issues
Serene talking - a story about a woman who gets attached to a talking sex doll
The endlings - what would happen if we would have Neanderthal people among us in the present
and the absolute favourite: Transmogrification, a story about a woman coming back to work in a restaurant who starts noticing some weird behaviours and personalities in the next generation

While I enjoyed these stories, there are others that were just ok and most probably forgettable. I think the main idea of this collection was to have innovative, exciting writing, that will leave an impression on the reader, but I was pretty underwhelmed by this volume. The selection of the authors is not very daring, there are only a few translated works (which is fine, but not my ideal choice) and I cannot say that I noticed a common thread along the stories, they felt as different pieces, put in the same collection.

To conclude, this would be a 2 stars book for me, an OK one, didn't hate it, didn't love it.

Thanks, Grove Press and Netgalley for providing me with an e-book in exchange for a honest review.