With a lucid and tender pen, the author portrays damaged characters, hungry for affection and meaning, confronted with the paradoxes of an era in which we ‘swipe’ more than we bond.

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Through a series of powerful short stories, Maya Sourati brings to life these digital encounters where love, sex and loneliness intertwine. Her characters are neither heroes nor monsters, but everyday men and women torn between desire and unease, craving recognition in a world saturated with images. […] Each short story tackles a blind spot of contemporary desire. […] Maya Sourati's language is nervous and syncopated, mirroring the agitated thoughts of her tormented narrators. But this raw, oral style is counterbalanced by a lyrical and poetic register that punctuates the flow of long interior monologues with evocative images and touching phrases. […] The reader feels moved, embarrassed and amused by the absurd situations in which the narrators find themselves entangled.

Beyond social criticism, Maya Sourati explores the existential contradictions of humanity: the fear of difference, the comfort provided by the mask of cynicism, the desperate need for recognition. She gives a voice to those whom Eva Illouz calls the “losers of love,” those individuals who are ostracised from the romantic market. […] In this respect, Maya Sourati follows a literary tradition that seeks not to seduce but to understand, to lay bare what lies behind the screen. A salutary undertaking, and, for the reader, a disturbing one.

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