How to Get Back to the Forest by Sofia Samatar

Don't forget to brush.

There are some graphic scenes in How to Get Back to the Forest by Sofia Samatar involving a toothbrush and a gag-reflex test, so if you're a bit squeamish, this story might not be your jam. But if you can push through that bit, you will discover a surprisingly solid dystopian coming-of-age story that is much more interested in the characters than in any science-fiction elements. Honestly, if this hadn’t appeared in "The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2015" anthology edited by Joe Hill, I’m not sure I would’ve labeled it sci-fi at all.

The story follows the narrator as she reflects on her time at a mandatory summer camp. Here, children learn "Life Skills" before re-integrating back into society. Her best friend, Cee, is the resident rule-breaker, refusing to toe the line and constantly challenging the system. The narrator, caught between conformity and rebellion, gets swept up in Cee’s unpredictable orbit, and the fallout is both tragic and emotionally resonant. Her unresolved grief forms the emotional center-piece of the story.

I reviewed a piece of flash-fiction last year by the same author called "The Huntress", which was a tiny-sample size of her literary talents.  After finishing this story, I still can’t quite decide how I feel about her work overall. There’s certainly a lot to appreciate here: the tight storytelling, a complex emotional arc, impressive nuance, but something about this particular story just didn’t fully land for me. Still, I get the sense that if I keep reading her stuff, I’ll eventually stumble onto a piece that really knocks it out of the park.