I was a bit slow reading through these short stories because the first story, Fighting Words, sets a sort of uncomfortable tone. I'm not sure if it flew over my head but the meaning seemed to be something the adults of the story should have already known.
After this, it was almost non-stop fantastic short stories,
The stories themselves had a sort of Black Mirror feel (especially Transition) even if they weren't all tech based. I found myself unable to 'binge' read the book in the same way I cannot binge Black Mirror. Some of the stories resonated with me more than others and I imagine someone else would have different favourites.

I'll be looking for more from Matthew Baker.

Well written but these stories were too bizarre and offbeat for me in terms of subject matter and themes. Perhaps satirical stories are not for me!

The stories to be found in "Why Visit America" are odd. Not in a bad way, if you let yourself use them as food for thought, but they're still pretty weird. Partly, I think, it's because they feel like tasters for larger stories. There are no neatly tied up endings, but many questions left unanswered. Usually this annoys me, but it works well here. The writing and imagination are to be applauded, and a few of the stories will keep my mind tied up in knots for quite some time.

My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an advance copy to review. This review is entirely my own, unbiased, opinion.

I really enjoyed this collection of short stories. They are all set in the not so distant future, or a slightly alternate world, often where some magical technology gives people the chance to live differently. Some of them read like thought experiments, some were creepy but all were memorable. I especially liked a man sentenced to life for an unnamed crime, but the sentence was to have the memories of his life removed. He returns to his family a changed man, and had to decide if it is week knowing what he did.

I must admit I was worried after reading the first story in this collection. I just didn't like the writing style / voice of the main characters. However this was the only story I struggled with.

Like any short story collection there were some that I liked more than others (my favourites being A Bad Day in Utopia and Lost Souls).

The stories take us to an America that is not quite as we know it, but not different enough to be complete fantasy. This makes the stories believable and in some ways terrifying, touching on themes of masculinity, trans phobia, fertility, capitalism etc. Even though some of the topics were heavy they were written in such a way that it never got difficult to read, This may be because each story had it's own personality and there was humour in places.

I really enjoyed these poignant and thought provoking stories and will definitely read them again.

A delightful collection of stories in worlds not quite like our own. Some only mildly removed from the world we live in (such as a tale centred around a man whose job is to make up new words) whereas others are significantly more distant (the story of someone transitioning to a purely digital existence). In both cases and all inbetween, Matthew Baker has a way of making the world feel real and present. The stories focus on people, and the clever tweaks to their surroundings feel just one step removed from our own everyday. Although a number of the short stories tackle difficult themes (the disillusionment that drove a town to secede, the government taking over child rearing due to strong evidence that violence in adulthood links back to various forms of child abuse, the prison system) this is by no means a heavy book, the novelty of the scenarios and the authors wonderfully weird narratives bring out the deep unifying humanity of it all. The prose across each story is slightly different, seemingly tied to the personality of the narrator, and builds each world deftly and without overbearing description.

I wholeheartedly enjoyed these poignant stories, and was often reluctant to let the story go once it finished. This book has left me with many things to think about, and particularly with the troubling times we're currently in.

I absolutely recommend it to anyone looking for a thought-provoking read which maintains it's humour and humanity throughout.