Everything is Awful and You're a Terrible Person by Daniel Zomparelli

Refreshingly original and sardonic short fiction. 
 
A YouTube star becomes famous after he documents his breakup online. An anxious, lactose-intolerant office worker obsesses over a stranger who says "Nice shorts, bro" to him in passing. A couple wants to open up their relationship to a ghost. A monster just wants to find love in his human skin. 
 
In these unconventional, interconnected stories--the first work of fiction by acclaimed poet Daniel Zomparelli, editor-in-chief of Poetry Is Deadmagazine--gay men look for love in any way possible. From social media, to finding someone within a dream, the ways in which these characters search for joy becomes both limitless and overwhelming. With wry abandon and a beguiling heart, Everything Is Awful is a deadpan, tragicomic exploration of love, desire, and dysfunction in the twenty-first century.
 
-----
 
"Filled with ghosts and lovers, grief and beer, funerals and bad dates, Everything is Awful and You're a Terrible Person is about the lies we tell to comfort ourselves and everybody else, the identities we create and then destroy, and the moments when human longing pushes us toward honesty. Crystal clear, cynical, and incisive, Daniel Zomparelli's stories will take up permanent residence in your head." - Jen Sookfong Lee
 
"Written in flat, earnest prose reminiscent of the 'Alt-Lit' movement, Zomparelli's stories pull humor from the banalities of lives devoted to anonymous sex, cellphone apps and social media." - New York Times