Engaging, elegant…Masad's wise novel is a restrained, gentle reflection on the nature of 'truth' versus memory with an elegiac and satisfying ending.

Angela Lashbrook, New York Times Book Review

[BEINGS] make[s] the strange familiar, and the familiar strange, a fitting literary trick for our jittery age.

Kate Tuttle, Boston Globe

The beauty of Beings is that, rather than tying everything up with a definitive ending, it leaves space for many interpretations without feeling incomplete.

Sara Polsky, Brooklyn Rail

Cultural and literary critic Masad writes with shrewd sensitivity to her characters' humanity. Beings is a tender examination of reciprocal trust and of how conviction allows us to form both connection and identity…Beings reminds us that narrative requires suspension of our disbelief. So, too, does human connection.

Heather Scott Partington, Alta Journey

With Beings Ilana has become a writer of literary sci-fi who reminds me of Margaret Atwood at her peak…Ilana writes in a space where emotional truth matters so much more than the factual one as much as we all Want To Believe, and it's in this space where storytelling gets to be both playful and profound.

Maris Kriezman, The Maris Review

Compelling, thought-provoking…Masad's dual narratives tackle several of life's great themes: loneliness and community, exclusion and belonging, and the importance of feeling seen…using words that describe nothing extraterrestrial or impossible, Masad manages to create a sense of simultaneous unease and wonder…In Beings, Masad has deftly interwoven reality and potential to create a beautiful tapestry of a sci-fi novel.

Mariko Hewer, Washington Independent Review of Books