The Hypothetical Girl

In the fifteen stories of her first story collection, poet and memoirist Elizabeth Cohen depicts a group of people who meet their love interests online and can barely conceive of meeting people any other way. In one story, a man asks a woman out in a park, and she has to caution herself: Do not be prejudiced against real-world men for having three dimensions. Cohen uses poetic precision and lyrical prose and, best of all, a tart sense of humor to create needy, hopeful, flawed, deeply sympathetic middle-aged people looking for romance. It’s obvious that she loves these characters, and the reader can’t help loving them too.