capsule reviews

elaine castillo, edith wharton

yes i cropped out edith wharton in favor of her dogs it’s what she would have wanted

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Moderation (Elaine Castillo, 2025)

I had a moment recently where I thought to myself: if I don’t read something that’s not science fiction, no matter how good that science fiction is, my brain will start oozing out my ears. You just gotta switch things up. So I picked up Moderation, which was one of my books I’d pre-ordered this month.¹

However, if you’re at all familiar with the VR tech that exists right now, or had the chance to stick one of those headsets on your face, it has to be said: Moderation, with its technology that achieves perfect one-to-one translation into VR of not only touch, but tastes and smells, is… not not science fiction. The big shock, though, was that despite that Ottessa Mosfegh–core cover, the novel’s Vegas setting, and its protagonist having one of the worst jobs that actually exists (online content moderation, i.e., filtering out child porn),…