And while she is not afraid to call out humanity’s failings and wrongdoings, something else reigns over the story: joy. Despite this eclectic chorus backing her up, Ross’s voice sings out loud and pure throughout the entire novel.

I was also reminded of the fairy tale realism of Helen Oyeyemi and the ecological surrealism of Jeff VanderMeer. I saw all of those influences swirling in the deep waters of this book. In interviews, Ross has added Stephen King, Anaïs Nin, Sherwood Anderson and Roald Dahl, among others. Critics have spotted the influence of Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie, Gabriel García Márquez and Junot Díaz in Ross’s work. Ross’s lyrical, rhythmic writing is something to be savored. Even as Ross is dazzling and shocking us, she’s also steadily questioning who holds the power and whether they are worthy of it. Women’s complicated relationship with their own sexuality is similarly detached, set free, seen anew. With it separated from ourselves, we are able to observe its fragility, its strangeness and terrible power. Addiction becomes a dusty, thrumming moth that we can hold in the palm of our hand. In such a way, Ross works her own magic, transforming humanity’s worn-out suffering into something new and astonishing. The book is often bawdy and unexpectedly funny. ubiquitous throughout the novel is sex, in all of its beautiful and frightening forms.

No one will persuade me that this bold, iridescent butterfly of a story could have landed on anyone’s shoulder but Ross’s.

Popisho book review