Stories like these are good for Kate Baker, because she can act the world-weary/downtrodden part quite well.
I didn't care for the "but I didn't" callouts in the story either, especially because, at the end, she explodes into happiness instead of letting go of her constantly-tamped-down anger. If she'd just started screaming at her mother or screaming at Mel for FINALLY getting around to asking, instead of asking years ago, I would've found the character to be more realistic.
The commentary on desert islands, as well as the food itself, was very interesting to me, as was the ability for fat people to make themselves thin via technology. I'm not sure Mel's choice was quite adequately explained, however. I also LOVED the commentary on "old people just won't DIE!"
Sharing a dreamscape? Cool idea, but I like my dreams because my id can do what it wants. I don't want my wife seeing EVERYTHING my id wants. I did, however, like that the MC didn't have easily-interpretable dreams; they really were just random images only tangentially related to what was happening in her life.
As you can guess, I thought the world was cool, but the story itself seemed more a prop to show us the world than vice versa. I believe it should be the other way around, which is why this story probably didn't really resonate with me.
