We Are All Completely Fine is a 2014 horror novel by Daryl Gregory. It was first published by Tachyon Publications. The book won the 2015 World Fantasy Award—Novella and the 2014 Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novella.
Synopsis At a support group for people who have survived supernatural horror, the members' worst fears are confirmed.
Reception
Reviews Publishers Weekly described it as "complex" and "scathingly funny, [and] horrific yet oddly inspiring", and lauded Gregory's use of "beautiful imagery and metaphors".We Are All Completely Fine, at Publishers Weekly; published June 16, 2014; retrieved October 13, 2022
At Strange Horizons, Carmen Maria Machado judged the novella as "slight", saying that it "skims a little too lightly over its own plot" and gives insufficient attention to the characters' lives, in particular noting that Harrison and Martin's stories felt incomplete, and observing that Stan, "though his personal story is horrific in detail, seem[ed] to function mostly as comic relief". Machado did, however, praise Gregory's use of "the collective first person—we, us" to begin each chapter, calling it a "pleasurable stylistic gesture [that] serves a fascinating purpose—creating a group mind that throbs and thinks above all of [its members]" while also "speak[ing] to a larger point about group therapy." Ultimately, Machado concluded that the book would have benefited from being a full-length novel.We Are All Completely Fine, by Daryl Gregory; reviewed by Carmen Maria Machado; at Strange Horizons; published November 10, 2014; retrieved October 13, 2022
Tor.com's Lee Mandelo similarly "want[ed] more than [the] novella (...) delivered", and judged that "once the plot began to thicken and the supernatural action got afoot, the interesting character dynamics and development more or less just stopped," faulting it for not sustaining the tension introduced by its "strong" premise, and finding the revelation about Jan's identity to be "pretty familiar and easy to see coming."Short and to the Point: We Are All Completely Fine by Daryl Gregory, reviewed by Lee Mandelo; at Tor.com; published August 20, 2014; retrieved October 13, 2022
Awards +Awards for We Are All Completely FineYearAwardResultRef.2014Nebula Award for Best Novella Finalist2014Shirley Jackson Award: Best NovellaWinner2015Locus Award for Best NovellaFinalist2015Theodore Sturgeon Memorial AwardFinalist2015World Fantasy Award—NovellaWinner
Prequel In 2015, Gregory released Harrison Squared, a young adult novel about the early life of one of the characters from We Are All Completely Fine.Horror-Comedy Harrison Squared Proves Daryl Gregory Is A Writer To Watch, by Chris Hsiang; at Gizmodo; published March 26, 2015; retrieved October 13, 2022
References