However, in Ceilings, Ema’s unsteady grasp on reality reads more like an opportunity for Brabcová to explore new formal possibilities; the book is written by someone who seems to believe that the boundaries between “dream and reality, fact and fiction” are already thin. Ema’s illness may be a plot device, but it is also a way to dissolve the architecture we conventionally associate with the novel, making Ceilings a space for ontological play.

— Garrett Biggs, Asymptote

Ema’s dilemma, her inability to successfully integrate her internal and external reality, reflecting a lifetime of emotional and mental health challenges mediated by substance abuse, is the driving force of this intense, vulnerable, and moving novel, one that draws on Brabacová’s own experiences, [...] Its raw, unapologetic narrative slips seamlessly between voice and perspective, continually cross-referencing itself, to create a world—one woman’s world, past and present—that for all its surreal elements is cohesive, sympathetic and real.

— roughghosts

The prose is hypnotic and often very beautiful, but the narrative is fragmented; that, of course, is deliberate, to replicate the state of Ema’s mind as she undergoes her detox, with her mental state often spiralling out of control. The surreal imagery, the shifts of location, the fluidity of her identity are all brilliantly rendered by Brabcova, and the result is an exhilarating and sometimes dizzying work which leaves you a bit stunned.

— Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings

Ceilings is a crazy, delirious read, one that explores the complexities of being human and ruminates on how we assemble ourselves from what has happened to us, who
we know, what we would like to happen and who we would
like to meet.

— Rupert Loydell, International Times

The ceiling that forms the horizon of someone lying in a hospital bed becomes a metaphor for the mingling of the past with the present, of phantasmagoria with the real. It is the very ceiling of reality, with a hole yawning with hallucinatory visions and memories, passage through which only leads to the next, ultimate ceiling of the self.

— iLiteratura.cz

Zuzana Brabcová's novel is a literary event, an extreme work, exceptional in its concision and poetry.

— Petr A. Bílek Respekt