"A bold collection that explores how we might break free from or reimagine ourselves and our places in the universe." —Kirkus, starred review

“Sam Cohen's stories re-wire the brain. Enter into this multiverse of Sarahs you didn't know you knew, and you'll come out the other end thinking only in Sarahs, only of Sarahs. Sarahland is satisfyingly queer, dirty, insightful, disarmingly generous, astonishing in its craftsmanship and so funny. Easily one of my favorite collections of short fiction ever!" Andrea Lawlor

"SARAHLAND is an ambitious work, to be sure, but the structural leaps it takes are more than earned, and Cohen’s prose is something to be celebrated all on its own. —Vogue

“I loved Sarahland. Like the best fiction, it both articulated and deepened what were for me previously unspeakable, but urgent mysteries, including why feminine and/or feminist utopias are always half-beautiful, half-grotesque; how the world ends; and where American class aspiration and the quest for freedom meet, which is to say, what a Jewish girl from the suburbs who wants out is chasing, what she’s fleeing, and how far she can really get.” —LA Review of Books

Reading SARAHLAND is pure pleasure - what a voice! What a constant flow of funny and vulnerable and distinct awarenesses! Sam Cohen's writing is joyously itself and places its own keen, insightful gaze on the ways we relate to ourselves and to others." —Aimee Bender

"[E]ccentrically inventive...what really unites these wondrous pieces is Cohen's prose, as vibrant and unruly as lipstick smeared after a wild night out." —Oprah Magazine

"The tilted, weird world of SARAHLAND is nothing short of revolutionary. Cohen gives a polyphonic voice and a kaleidoscopic face to the exuberant possibilities of modern identity. Hilarious and groundbreaking, I felt bereft when I finished reading, sad to leave the sealed brilliance of Cohen's whirring brain. Every story in SARAHLAND is outrageously smart, every line of prose unabashed, surprising, and blistering with style." —Kimberly King Parsons

"Sarahland is weird, wonderful, and unforgettable." —The Advocate

“I'm deeply struck by the emotional wisdom, the cultural smarts, the literary vulnerability and serious skills happening in SARAHLAND. Rarely do I feel so seen by a book. I gobbled this work up with feverish excitement and gratitude, and weeks later feel like I am carrying these stories around in my head and in my heart.” —Michelle Tea

“SARAHLAND illuminates, in bright neon, the pain and challenge and joy and triumph of forming and reforming identity and community. I felt every moment of this book deeply.”—Jac Jemc,

"Sam Cohen’s SARAHLAND is a potent revelation. Reading these stories feels like the ground shifting, the world cracking open, and viewing this magical transformation with brand-new eyes. This is a gift that that only brilliant writers like Cohen can give us; fiction that shines a bright light on how we live but, more important, how we could, if only someone would illuminate how.” —Dana Johnson

“Ludic, provocative, and endlessly surprising. . .Cohen challenges preconceived ideas of how we become the people we are, what it means to define ourselves, and how it is possible, and preferable, to break free from the compromises we make to fit into a world that wants to label us without really seeing us." —Refinery29

"“Sarahland is still just a ton of fun to read—at turns thought-provoking, funny, strange and exhilarating. With Sarahland, Cohen has asserted herself as a worthy contemporary of Ottessa Moshfegh, Elif Batuman and Carmen Maria Machado.” —PureWow

"Each Sarah is a revitalization of how stories are told and how our stories as humans shape us. Cohen showcases how unbelievably unique and talented she is. ” —Debutiful

"Cohen’s collection is a unique, special experience, like being queer and speaking to a queer person for the first time in your life. Exciting, intimidating, and overwhelming, Sarahland is a book that makes you happy because it exists.” —Paperback Paris

FINALIST FOR THE GOLDEN POPPY AWARD FOR FICTION 

NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2021 BY THE MILLIONS * OPRAH MAGAZINE * LAMBDA LITERARY * ELECTRIC LITERATURE * REFINERY29 * COSMO * THE ADVOCATE * ALMA * PAPERBACK PARIS * WRITE OR DIE TRIBE * READS RAINBOW

In Sarahland, Sam Cohen brilliantly and often hilariously explores the ways in which traditional stories have failed us, both demanding and thrillingly providing for its cast of Sarahs new origin stories, new ways to love the planet and those inhabiting it, and new possibilities for life itself. In one story, a Jewish college Sarah passively consents to a form-life in pursuit of an MRS degree and is swept into a culture of normalized sexual violence. Another reveals a version of Sarah finding pleasure—and a new set of problems—by playing dead for a wealthy necrophiliac. A Buffy-loving Sarah uses fan fiction to work through romantic obsession. As the collection progresses, Cohen explodes this search for self, insisting that we have more to resist and repair than our own personal narratives. Readers witness as the ever-evolving "Sarah" gets recast: as a bible-era trans woman, an aging lesbian literally growing roots, a being who transcends the earth as we know it. While Cohen presents a world that will clearly someday end, "Sarah" will continue.

In each Sarah's refusal to adhere to a single narrative, she potentially builds a better home for us all, a place to live that demands no fixity of self, no plague of consumerism, no bodily compromise, a place called Sarahland.

LA Review of Books: “both articulated and deepened what were for me previously unspeakable, but urgent mysteries, including why feminine and/or feminist utopias are always half-beautiful, half-grotesque; how the world ends; and where American class aspiration and the quest for freedom meet.”

Chicago Review of Books: “The stories themselves push the expectations of storytelling, venturing into the fantastical. Cohen embraces the bizarre, and often leverages it against the ordinary.”

Michigan Quarterly Review: “Cohen breaks the coming-of-age mold in her unique de-emphasis on individuation. Sarahs…see other people as mirrors but also as portals.”

Kirkus: “the stories are bound together as well by a deep thematic interest in the multidimensionality of the self—especially the queer, Jewish, nonmale self—and the sometimes overwhelming number of possibilities of how a person or a life might be transformed.”

Publishers Weekly: “Wonderfully bizarre…surprises and excites.”

Jewish Book Council: "Sub­ver­sive and pow­er­ful, nar­rat­ing new, urgent stories…Becoming Trees is the parable of our time.”

FF2 Media: “the Sarahs and not-Sarahs in this book often find themselves in communion with—even becoming—more-than-human people: horses, trees, cat women, crows, life-sized Barbie doll sorority girls, creatures from earth’s multi-million-year future, even Mother Nature herself, and God, too.”

PureWow: ‘Sarahland’ Is a Trippy Collection of Short Stories Unlike Anything You’ve Ever Read

Spectrum Culture: “Phantasmagorical dream weaving”