In this collection of short stories, Carmen Maria Machado gives us a range of genre-twisting stories that include elements of fairy tales, fantasy, comedy, horror, and psychological realism. A woman shares her experience about surviving an apocalyptic plague by telling us about her sexual encounters. Another refuses to let her husband remove a mysterious green ribbon tied around her neck. Her Body and Other Parties is a masterclass in genre-bending storytelling.

For me, Her Body and Other Parties was a lesson in what a talented writer could do with genre. The collection embraces its genre influences, regarding them with an eye that is sometimes loving and sometimes critical, but always fascinated. Machado’s stories are adventurous in both form and content—“Especially Heinous” is told through a series of imagined Law & Order SVU episodes, while “Inventory” grants us glimpses of an unfolding apocalypse through the narrator’s descriptions of her sexual encounters—and each offers its own unique angle on themes of identity, intimacy, and violence.