Beyond all reasonable doubt, Jesus is alive! Stories

Lozada-Oliva (Candelaria) shines in this scintillating collection of stories about young women navigating desperate situations. The layered title entry, set on the wedding day of narrator Andy's friend Laura, kicks off when Andy hears the news that their third grade teacher, Mr. Greco, has been sentenced to a 30-year prison term for belonging to a child porn ring. As Laura puts on her wedding dress, Andy confesses that she recently had sex with Mr. Greco, expressing guilt and regret. Andy's family was excommunicated from their church after her parents divorced, and she admits to Laura that Mr. Greco charmed her with his irreverent comments about an evangelical hotline advertised on a billboard. "Tails" centers on a young food service worker in a hospital, where she unexpectedly encounters her step-aunt, who was admitted after accidentally swallowing a pin, and who offers her a vial that will purportedly remove all her body hair and replace it with a tail. In "Heiress," a wealthy Colombian student is targeted by kidnappers who mistakenly abduct her tutor instead. Lozada-Oliva effectively uses body horror and the uncanny to spotlight the monstrous forms her characters' insecurities can take. Readers will be enthralled. (Sept.)

Ten tales of alienation and yearning. Though the stories in Lozada-Oliva's dazzling collection are not explicitly linked, they are unmistakably of a piece, each a candid confessional rendered with Lynchian flair. Extraterrestrials may be invading, but the protagonist of "Pobrecito" is nevertheless determined to finish telling his distracted audience about the tragedy he witnessed en route to a quinceañera. "Heads" sees a teenager courageously square off against the enormous monster that's been beheading neighborhood pets, only to quail at the notion of visiting her incarcerated father, while "Tails" is about a hospital worker who finds romance and a sense of self after her stepaunt curses her with a sentient, 3-foot-long tail. In the wistful, elegiac "Dream Man," a government agent from the past falls in love with a doctor from the future whose prophetic dreams he's been hired to monitor. "Pool House" is an exercise in experimental horror, a coming-of-age story that unfolds with the menacing surreality of a fever-fueled nightmare. Lozada-Oliva explores liminal spaces both literal and figurative in "Community Hole," a novella hazily narrated by a disgraced musician who flees New York to hide from the world in a Boston punk house that she believes to be haunted. Intimate and unsettling, Lozada-Oliva's writing examines the longing and loneliness inherent to the human condition while maintaining a wry sense of humor. Evocative prose at once conjures imagery, conveys emotion, and develops character: "When she finally arrived in New Jersey at four in the morning, two flimsy blue masks over her face, eyes darting all around with anxiety, we knew she couldn't travel alone anymore." The author's rich, economical worldbuilding and character development give this slim volume more punch than most collections of similar size-. Powerful short fiction that lingers. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.