“Charming and sad, mysterious and memorable, Hair Hat is a truly original book, unlike any other I’ve read, a gentle reminder that life is made up of moments, a single one of which might just change everything.”
— Diane Schoemperlen, author of Forms of Devotion

“This magical book explores the eruption of mystery into our lives. Hair Hat is funny, luminous and wise.”
— Lesley Krueger, author of The Corner Garden

“Hooray for Hair Hat! It’s difficult to find fault with a book wearing its heart so bravely on its head.”
— Heather Birrell, Quill & Quire, January, 2004

“The prose is unadorned, yet rich with precision and compression. Snyder’s small epiphanies grow naturally from her fluid blend of insight and expression. The shivery weirdness of Snyder’s central image is sure to trigger a range of personal responses.”
— Jim Bartley, The Globe and Mail, March 6, 2004

“A potent work of original imagination.”
— Margaret Macpherson, The Edmonton Journal, February 15, 2004

“Truly original. Throughout [Hair Hat], Snyder shows herself gifted at investing familiar scenes with a first-time sharpness. On finishing the last story in this book, I did something very few short-story collections have ever prompted me to do: I turned back to the beginning and started reading again.”
— Ian McGillis, The Montreal Gazette, March 20, 2004

“The narrative structure of the book is as confident as the prose. Like the movie Pulp Fiction, the seemingly discrete stories eventually turn out to be interlocking and recursive. With its sharp-edged prose and daring plot turns, Hair Hat is an unusual first book. Snyder made a genuine gamble with this book and it pays off.”
— Jeet Heer, National Post, June 3, 2004

“Snyder’s imagination is broad, but her prose has the precision of a laser. One character, for example, muses, ‘I was pretty, but I was not smart enough. I needed to be two inches smarter.’ Read Hair Hat and you’ll feel two inches smarter.”
— Bonnie Schiedel, Chatelaine, June, 2004

“There is a peculiarly challenging and, finally, moving bathos in these stories, an equivocal irony and earnestness. I look forward to reading [Snyder's first novel].”
— Sara O’Leary, The Vancouver Sun, March 20, 2004

“Snyder’s collection of stories is remarkable for its calm craftsmanship and her ability to infuse deep personal meaning into seemingly ordinary objects and events. The stories are replete with colourful images from everyday life which take on a magical aspect under the lens of her sharply focussed writing.”
— Nathan Stark, Echo Weekly (Waterloo, Ontario), February 19-25, 2004

“Full of mystery and subtle quirkiness, [Hair Hat] is a perfect read for an afternoon spent relaxing in the garden.”
— Peggy Chapman, Hamilton Magazine, April, 2004

"An exciting new voice in Canadian fiction: Carrie Snyder."
— Mary Hartling, The Intelligencer (Belleville, Ontario), May 22, 2004

"Carrie Snyder's first collection of short stories is a compelling examination of the knots and ruptures in the everyday."
— Robert McGill, Idea&s: the arts and science review, University of Toronto, Autumn, 2004.

"In this collection of linked short stories, Carrie Snyder writes with powerful subtlety."
— Catherine Hunter, Journal of Mennonite Studies, Volume 23, 2005.