Read the full review at the California Review of Books.

Image blurb:
“Short story writers must get to the emotional core of a story quickly, showing the reader what’s at stake, unresolved or troubling. Even though some of these stories are no more than a few pages long, Alison Gadsby succeeds in getting to the heart of the matter….No happy endings or easy resolutions here. The pool may seem inviting and safe, but in Alison Gadsby’s world, the water isn’t necessarily so. There’s no lifeguard on duty. Swim at your own risk.”

“This debut takes my breath away. Characters driven to torment themselves and others. Gut-kick dialogue, funny and heartbreaking and real. Fierce love mixes with histories of damage, ongoing damage. Several of the nineteen stories have speculative elements, such as humanoids that (who?) continually seek more—power, intimacy, agency—as their wily owners struggle to defeat them.”

Read more from Laura Rock-Gaughan.

Wendy J. Fox writes: “In this linked collection of speculative fiction, an accountant who is learning to swim is interrogated by her humanoid companion; a woman is unanchored in time and cannot remember giving birth to her daughter or even who she is; and in the title story, a couple argues incessantly and from such deep unhappiness the woman dreams hopefully of contracting a fatal tumor. Gadsby’s stories have simmering resentment, the cruelty of children, and the terror of never belonging as characters right alongside her unhappy people, threaded together with recurring themes. The effect is a glittering collection with high emotional tension.“

Especially that my name sits alongside Hollay Ghadery and Kim Fu… like what the actual?? If you know how much I have read Kim’s book, for a greater understanding of domestic horror, for her gift of dark characters doing impressively fucked up things, you will know why she’s one of go-to short story writers!

Breathing is How Some People Stay Alive as chosen as a Spring 2026 title on CBC Books Canadian Fiction list!!!

“Breathing Is How Some People Stay Alive is a collection of short stories brimming with elements of psychological realism, horror and speculative fiction, all tied together by the different types of life-altering love.”