Tokyo Weekender, A Most Anticipated Title
“‘Reality affects what we can write, and then we read books about that reality, which changes our current reality in turn,’ explains Ayase. The effectiveness of The Forest Brims Over lies precisely in Ayase’s thorough awareness of this power of fiction: While we may never grow forests out of our bodies, Ayase has enabled us to experience in her words how doing so might just change society for the brighter.” —Eric Margolis, The Japan Times
“Maru Ayase takes on gender roles and women’s agency in surreal and magical prose.” —Ms.
“The Forest Brims Over is worth reading as a fable gone feral, and a framing of ideas important to the way people feel and interact with each other.” —Daily Kos
“Beautifully unsettling and ultimately redemptive, this novel shines an unflinching light on the dysfunctional gender standards in publishing.” —Mara Lynn Luther, The Ravalli Republic
“A terrific, dreamlike page-turner.” —J. R. Ramakrishnan, Words Without Borders
“A layered exploration of what it means to create, and the gendered labor that goes into sustaining artistic creation.” —Jaeyeon Yoo, Electric Literature
“This surrealist story mixes botanist wonder, compelling characters, a bitter, ironic humor, and a wild, untamable feminine anger that together make the book a thought-provoking and quick read.” —Booklist
“A sprightly, compelling tale with magical realist flair in which a novelist’s muse takes charge of her own story.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Ayase’s inventive English-language debut offers a fantastical account of the gendered power dynamics between a writer and his muse . . . This smart and dreamy story will leave English-language readers wanting more from Ayase.” —Publishers Weekly
“The Forest Brims Over fascinates with its surrealistic and yet all-too-familiar tale of female agency subsumed under male ambition. Again and again the prose shifts registers and morphs, a feat that Ayase and Trowell pull off beautifully.” ––YZ Chin, author of Edge Case
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