Another hilarious entry from Marie-Helene Bertino!

These stories are small miracles. Bertino is entirely at home in the short story form--all the wildness of her novels compressed into a story, over and over again. I loved living in all these worlds. I need another collection ASAP.

Thanks to the publisher for the e-galley.

Marie-Helene Bertino has done it again. "Exit Zero" is an absolute delight to read, and in true Bertino fashion each story is weirder than the next.
She is a master of the fabulist genre and this collection is not exception. It's definitely a must read.

As a huge fan of Marie-Helene Bertino’s *Beautyland*, I was excited to read her latest collection of short stories, *Exit Zero*.

Like her previous work, Bertino’s writing is both inventive and emotional. She skillfully blends observations of everyday life with elements of magic and humor, all while exploring themes of human relationships and personal identity.

The twelve stories in this collection are whimsical and lyrical, featuring relatable characters. Bertino experiments with various storytelling forms, highlighting the weirdness and beauty of humanity and our connections with one another.

I highly recommend these creative, emotional, and humorous stories. Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux, as well as NetGalley, for providing this advance review copy.

My all time favorite author. Uncanny, eerie, genre defying, heartfelt, bizarre, laugh out loud funny. These stories scratch an itch I can’t reach—so satisfying and luminous.

WOW. This short story collection is so digestible and full of wonder. Each story left me wanting a little bit more from it, but also satisfied with how it had ended. My favorite was the titular story, Exit Zero, but they are all wonderfully written. I like the call back to the first story in In the Basement of Saint John the Divine. Just stunning prose. I am very grateful to have been gifted an e-ARC of this by FSG! I will definitely be buying a physical copy for my shelves!

This is another winner by Marie-Helene Bertino. I enjoy her work so much; there is a surreal vibe that she does so well. This collection manages to be eerie and also funny - a smart and entertaining combination. I especially appreciate how she links characters together and highlights the interconnectedness of humanity.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance e-galley; all opinions in my review are 100% my own.

Each tale rivals the next in this collection of short stories! Masterfully written sentences describe heartbreaking yet beautiful life moments, with a dose of the peculiar: mythical creatures, haunted objects, unnamed forces. But of course those oddities *make* these stories… each the perfect metaphor for the situation.

I wanted to stretch this out so I could savor it a bit longer. Maybe, like me, you’ll find yourself wishing for a lengthier commute or just a few more minutes before having to go to bed so you can keep reading. But I will add the length of each story was the perfect "sit down and read a banger" if you are short on time :)

A definite one to cherish! I know I will return to Exit Zero to laugh and cry and be entertained and, above all, to feel.