Big Time is a laugh-out-loud short sto­ry col­lec­tion that, in the words of Van­i­ty Fair, ​“dials its mod­ern sub­jects up to 11…and then blows up the amp.” The sto­ries fea­ture Aabride so des­per­ate to get in shape for her wed­ding that she enrolls in a new kind of work­out pro­gram that promis­es the moon but costs more than she bar­gained for. A snow­man who, on the wish of a child, comes to life in a decid­ed­ly less savory way than the child­hood clas­sic. And in the title sto­ry, a time-hop­ping 1940s star­let tries to claw her way to the top in mod­ern-day Hol­ly­wood, despite being ridicu­lous­ly unwoke.

In this uproar­i­ous, addic­tive debut, Jen Spyra takes a cul­ture that seems almost beyond par­o­dy and holds it up to a fun­house mir­ror, immers­ing the read­er in a world of pre­his­toric influ­encers, wood­land crea­tures plagued by mil­len­ni­al neu­roses, and an all-out birth­day bash deter­mined to be the most lav­ish cel­e­bra­tion of all time, by any means necessary.