Moderation

Thirty-something Girlie Delmundo works a day job as a content moderator, flagging and removing the very worst that makes it on to the internet. She's one of the best at it, too - dispassionate, unflinching, maybe because she learned by necessity to wall off all her emotions when she was still a kid - so it's no surprise to anyone when the social-media company for which she works offers her a big salary rise and an office to start moderating its new venture: virtual-reality theme parks, lush and near-perfect simulations of civilizations long since dead.

"Castillo's flinty satire of the tech industry [transforms] into a sultry romance novel. As we watch Girlie's defenses melt, the book shows a woman slowly surrendering to human experiences that can't be controlled."
--The Atlantic

"Fantastically, and terrifyingly, human."
--The Observer"A story made fresh by a vivid and dexterous narrative voice, a voice that is by turns sardonically attentive to the specificities of each world and alive to the interfaces between them. A voice that lays worlds open for us to read."
--Locus"A love story for those who love Severance (both Ling Ma's book and the unaffiliated Apple TV+ series), Moderation is ambitious, challenging, and brilliant."
--Elle"Elaine Castillo returns with piercing insights in her second novel."
--Alta Journal