Casual - by Koji A Dae (Paperback)

About the Book

"Valya's neural implant is amazing. Its game-like app, CASUAL, has managed her depression and anxiety, stabilized her mood, and helped the infertile Valya get pregnant. But new laws forbid her from using the device when she's sole caregiver for her infant. Her gaslighting ex won't help her, and she can't afford a nanny, so her obstetrician insists that Valya wean off CASUAL before giving birth. Despite a will to quit and a supportive new love interest in her birthing class, disabling CASUAL turns Valya's anxiety into full-blown panic attacks. Her psychiatrist offers to enroll her in a controversial clinical trial that would place a tandem implant in the baby and allow Valya to keep hers active. Valya must decide whether she should attempt parenting without CASUAL or install a minimally tested device in her vulnerable child."--Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

Valya's neural implant is amazing. Its game-like app, CASUAL, has managed her depression and anxiety, stabilized her mood, and helped the infertile Valya get pregnant. But new laws forbid her from using the device when she's sole caregiver for her infant. Her gaslighting ex won't help her, and she can't afford a nanny, so her obstetrician insists that Valya wean off CASUAL before giving birth. Despite a will to quit and a supportive new love interest in her birthing class, disabling CASUAL turns Valya's anxiety into full-blown panic attacks. Her psychiatrist offers to enroll her in a controversial clinical trial that would place a tandem implant in the baby and allow Valya to keep hers active. Valya must decide whether she should attempt parenting without CASUAL or install a minimally tested device in her vulnerable child. Casual is a stark and cutting glance at a near future that looks uncannily like our present, exploring themes of bodily autonomy and the struggle for mental health in a world increasingly divided.

Review Quotes

"Up there with Atwood, Bradbury, Dick, and Gibson. Dae's novel seems both inevitable and horrifying. A must-read for the moment."

• Literary Hub, The Most Anticipated Books of 2025

"A stunningly written story about class, mental health, women's autonomy and all the ways a society can seek to control these, in a future so real I could almost touch it."

• Ed Crocker, FanFiAddict

"Complex, compelling, and incredibly imagined. Akin to classic dystopian literature like 1984 and Brave New World. It left me reeling."

• Ivy Grimes, author of Glass Stories

About the Author

A born drifter with plenty of dark stories, childbirth is the closest thing to eldritch Koji A. Dae has experienced. Now she finds herself strangely settled in Bulgaria with two kids, a cat, and a whole lot of responsibility. She writes about things mothers see from the corner of their hearts and all varieties of human relationships- with each other, with technology, and with the greater universe.