[1] In nine sections, the book's poems tackle a wide variety of subjects and inhabit a similar diversity of poetic forms.

In a starred review, Publishers Weekly called the book "brilliant" and said it "brims with social critique and the linguistic play for which the poet is known, while also being suggestive of a writer and artist eager to situate his multifaceted work in the context of a collapsing society."

The reviewer also observed its interplay between satire and outrage, a combination that spun a moral, political argument.

The reviewer observed the narrator as being "painfully human and contradictory, at times waxing nostalgic, philosophical, artistic, self-deprecating, enraged, hyperbolic, obscene, and politically critical" with regard to his "immigrant lament" but also his "rearranged call for acceptance.

"[4] On the Seawall said the book contained multitudes and appreciated the question of whether the book was "an intentionally constructed work made up of bricks of primarily surrealistic poems in many forms—or if it is more like a collection of whimsical, provisional pieces that Yau collected precisely because they don’t fit together cozily.