Telling the Future Off

Poetry. Stephanie Young's long awaited debut, TELLING THE FUTURE OFF, ensnares the reader in a loop of theatrical-sets, filtered through the obsessive-compulsive call and response of self-help tag-lines. It's 3:30 at the office and the landscape is all twisted up in the bedsheets, littered with car radios, eyeshadow and circuit training. In the distance, the internet drones. TELLING THE FUTURE OFF is built of the poetry of Today, of realism colliding with the dream-state. In it, Young questions and she answers but never does she waver. When she asks, "Am I tough enough?" the unanimous answer is Yes.