"Tearing herself free with screams, taunts, and something very much like poetry, Meshchaninova has given us an obscenely private text as frightening as the novels of Stephen King and as sharply formed as the tragedies of Racine... it's not every year that a voice so pure and powerful emerges in Russian literature." –Galina Yuzefovich, Meduza
"Meshchaninova's scenarios are skin torn to blood, pink glasses discarded as unnecessary, truth uncomfortable for the inhabitants of parallel reality." –Elena Tanakova, Gallerix
"It is not often that people are ready to open up, and only the willingness to open up distinguishes real literature." –Aglaya Kurnosenko
"The author, in general, is not trying to shock, she is simply not afraid to say. But this simultaneous openness and ruthlessness strikes with unexpected force and long action. Leads the reader out of their comfort zone. Makes him an involuntary and seemingly guilty observer." –Elena Makeenko, Gorky Media
"This story is not about disaster, but about what happens to the survivors... This is the new Russian prose."– Vladimir Pankratov
Winner of a 2020 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant
2018 NatsBest nominee
Longlisted for the NOS(E) Award