HOOD of
BONE REVIEW
A CHANCE FOR YOUR OWN PLASTIC BABY: A REVIEW OF THE COMPUTER ROOM BY EMMA ENSLEY
Reviewed by Taffy Quinn Faraday
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"I wish the library was like the babynames.com website, where I could be thirty-one if I needed to be."
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The Computer Room
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Something special lives in the art that patterns itself after daily life; art that mimics the quietness of so much of our existence to remind us that the everyday is as beautiful and poignant as the "big stuff." Emma Ensley's debut is a charming and sweetly short collection set out to explore the growing pains of childhood crushes, wellness instability, and parental shadows. Spanning thirteen slice-of-life vignettes that lift the spirits while still managing to cut deep, easily consumed in a hungry afternoon. The Computer Room happens quickly, but the impressions last.
The opening story— titled "Thick Fish"— is a portrait of a young girl's first crush, painted in the third-person. It focuses on Daisy, and her summer spent pining for her friend's older brother: a greasy-haired "suburban Jesus" who hides from life in his room. The first pangs of unspoken, unrequited love and a curiosity around unattainability. This is a theme that Ensley carries like a torch from beginning to end; that the love of or fascination we have for others based on proximity is as affecting as love rooted in something deeper.
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There is a lightness found in each of these stories, like a soft cushion after a slow-motion fall, that leaves the reader unharmed but not unscathed. "Thick Fish" is no exception. As the brief narrative draws to a close, we realize just how blind Daisy's fascination really is. She wants to be noticed, but is overwhelmed completely by her fear of rejection: of enjoying the right things or even being enough. Her fear even overwhelms the very belief that being loved for who you are is enough. Though often that's how young love presents itself— meek and innocent, refusing to be bold enough to experience anything beyond the desire to know more about the other person.
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Ensley doesn't settle for childhood crushes, especially evident in the story Babyland. Following multiple individuals, each who have vastly different opinions and experiences surrounding the hospital where Cabbage Patch Dolls are "born" and placed in the arms of child-parents. We are reminded that wanting (or not wanting) something does not necessarily shut us off from being able to understand the other side. By the end of the story, we see one man sacrifice his own comfort to bring elated joy to a crowd of children, a woman who rejects the concept of motherhood empathize with a woman who yearns for a family, and, finally, a childless mother hanging onto the one thing that infuses her with a love like parenting. Babyland itself, which is a real thing (a fact I had to look up as I had never heard of such a place), serves as a symbol for this figure, Nurse Vicki. "Natural" motherhood she never achieved, but she gets to live out something like it through the eyes of the children who wait in line for a chance at their own plastic baby. The image of Nurse Vicki cuddling her Cabbage Patch Doll is one that persisted long past reading those final moments. Her counterparts— the childless Emilio and the almost-not-childless Blair— have their own reasons for eschewing the traditional path that Nurse Vicki desperately longs for, though we see their attitudes change drastically over the course of fifteen pages. Bitterness gives way to empathy and sacrifice, even if the sacrifice is as simple as plastering on a painful, fake smile so as not to spoil anyone else's magic.
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The eponymous "computer room" itself appears in two vignettes (one titular, the other "is any1 a christian???") Though these computer rooms belong to different times and places, the lives taking place in them harken to some of my most core memories. The Sims reference alone was enough to transport me all the way back to a time when I spent my summer days the same way. In embarrassing retrospect, I also recall attempting to perform a séance at a Spice Girls themed sleepover populated by church-goers, only to be promptly halted by the mother of the house when she was alerted to the fact that I was attempting to connect my future college dormmate with her long-lost grandfather. I was in the fifth grade, I believe. The next morning, I walked my secular self downstairs and sang an acapella rendition of "Amazing Grace" to make up for the imaginary hex I'd placed on their house. Thus is the beauty of Ensley's own computer room: the connections made from fiction to reality, the nearly indescribable familiarity of her character's lives even when they appear far away from where we are.
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The Computer Room evokes the kind of nostalgia that settles into the deepest recesses of our minds: the kind of sun-spotted memories that flicker in and out of view as we scrub the dishes or fold the laundry, like snapshots from the collective unconscious. Ensley explores more than just the simple moments. Body dysmorphia, parental expectations, familial connection, and gender identity are all at play, and all are handled with extreme care and eloquence. Ensley's grasp of the human experience shines through every story and serves as a gorgeously touching examination of love, friendship, and growing up— transporting us into all of those little worlds with incredible ease.
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The Computer Room. By Emma Ensley. Asheville: Loblolly Press, 2025. 129pp. $20.00.
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