One of the most visceral, profane, and distinctive reading experiences of the 21st century, The Orange Eats Creeps was praised as "beautiful and deranged" by Bookforum, while Shelley Jackson said it is "like something you read on the underside of a freeway overpass in a fever dream. Visionary, pervy, unhinged. It will mess you up."

A girl with drug-induced ESP and an eerie connection to Patty Reed (a young member of the Donner Party who credited her survival to her relationship with a hidden wooden doll), searches for her disappeared foster sister along "The Highway That Eats People," stalked by a conflation of Twin Peaks' "Bob" and the Green River Killer, known as Dactyl.

Named a best book of the year by NPR and a finalist for The Believer Book Award, The Orange Eats Creeps also earned Krilanovich a "5 Under 35" distinction from the National Book Foundation.