Sarah Rose Etter’s The Book of X belongs to a literary conversation about the grotesque and surreal. Shaped like a prose sculpture, her debut novel juxtaposes the surrealism of youth with the realities of capitalism; it is the story of being raised in a rural area, and disappearing into a city. Sarah Rose Etter discusses life as loose ends, not something tied up with a pretty bow, and creating a novel not in search of resolve, redemption, or everything becoming better. The Book of X has a fresh vision that makes it a strange book in strange times.