“This tenuousness practically sings in the book’s latter half, as a trip meant to reunite Sarah with an old friend drives home for her the quintessential alienation humans feel, as if the title could be a sentence uttered either by Sarah or her Russian acquaintances. No spoilers, here, don’t worry — but it wouldn’t make any difference if they were present, because the surprise of reading this book is in how closely it might remind you of what life is like, as you live it, all by yourself.”