Book Review
“Through Nell, Idlewild assures the reader that while it might not be okay at present, someday it can be. It can be. Being queer is being queer enough.” On the blog, Lucy Curtis reviews James Frankie Thomas’ Idlewild (Overlook Press, 2023).
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“When We Were Sisters is a remarkable story about sisterhood, trauma, and grief. To turn its pages is like turning the whole ocean apart, finding pieces of itself in the debris.” On the blog, Harsimran Kaur reviews Fatimah Asghar’s When We Were Sisters (Penguin Random House, 2022).
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“Levin has a knack for writing characters I would despise if I met them at a party but whose pursuits in this novel I followed attentively.” On the blog, Sophie Allen reviews Adam Levin’s Mount Chicago (Doubleday Books, 2022).
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“The lasting connections forged between strangers is a recurring theme of Life Among the Terranauts, a running thread that binds the brief narratives of everyday life.” On the blog, Eliza Browning reviews Caitlin Horrock’s Life Among the Terranauts (Little, Brown, 2021).
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“Since the U.S. fails to live up to its ideals as described in songs — the land of the free, a country that welcomes all and celebrates diversity — Lima writes her own poems into song.” On the blog, Esther Sun reviews Ananda Lima’s Mother/land (Black Lawrence Press, 2021).
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“Marlowe Granados uses the city of New York as a sewing needle; through the eye of the neo-flapper of the 21st century, she pulls a thread of interesting and wide selection of characters and quietly sews them in and out of the story, embroidering a mirrored painting of the hollow and deceitful society of New York.” On the blog, Zeynep Bashak reviews Marlowe Granados’ Happy Hour (Verso Books, 2021).
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“‘The plot of this is not and will not be obvious.’ So begins Eley Williams’ debut short story collection Attrib. and Other Stories, out today (Anchor Books, May 18, 2021), a declaration that grows increasingly self-referential as the collection unfurls, each of its sixteen stories a successive petal in the work’s burgeoning eccentricity, sensitivity, and wit.” On the blog, Sarah M. Zhou reviews Eley Williams’ Attrib. and Other Stories (Anchor Books, 2021).
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“The unnamed ‘man of two minds’ from Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Sympathizer returns in The Committed (Grove Atlantic, 2021), now entangled in the criminal side streets of France. No longer a spy or a sleeper, but most certainly a spook, our two-minded narrator is tormented by contradiction, infinitely dialectical in his ability to sympathize with conflicting perspectives.” On the blog, Jonathan Paul reviews Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Committed (Grove Atlantic, 2021).
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“Joyce grapples with themes of isolation, disillusionment, and cultural confusion in the post-war era, adding a sinister tinge to a story that seeks to establish itself as something more than just ‘touching.’” On the blog, Simone Gulliver reviews Rachel Joyce’s Miss Benson’s Beetle (Penguin Random House, 2020).
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“In case you haven’t already heard of Taco Bell Quarterly, I’ll include a quick rundown: it’s the ultimate amalgamation of art and (you guessed it) Taco Bell, the most glorious home that a piece of Taco Bell writing and its Taco Bell writer could ever dream of.”
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“Poignant, tender, and surprisingly humorous all at once, The Son of Good Fortune is a coming-of-age story that reflects on the often untold Filipinx immigrant experience shared by both Excel and his mother Maxima.” On the blog, Noreen Ocampo reviews Lysley Tenorio’s The Son of Good Fortune (Ecco, 2020).
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“Aguila Labra’s candid writing meticulously portrays the extent of the speaker’s layered emotional experience, with the difficulty of moving forward predominating the beginning sections of ‘Natalie.’” On the blog, Noreen Ocampo reviews Keana Aguila Labra’s Natalie (Nightingale & Sparrow Press, 2020).
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“Throughout Conjure Women’s five parts, Atakora transports readers throughout the women’s lives before and after the Civil War, offering portraits of both the mundane and otherworldly, the joyful and heart-wrenching.” On the blog, Noreen Ocampo reviews Afia Atakora’s Conjure Women (Random House, 2020).
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“Say Mother, Say Hand, is not quite an anti-memoir, but it’s not a traditional memoir, either. It is a visually alive, painful deconstructed recollection of Conlan’s life and the lives of her mother and grandmother… it explores her legacy of deeply flawed women who were, themselves, learning how to survive in a world that often seemed out to punish them.” Sophie Allen and Sarah Feng review Marie Conlan’s Say Mother, Say Hand (Half-Mystic Press, 2020).
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“Above all else, Frying Plantain is a coming-of-age story in which Reid-Benta carefully unfolds an abundance of themes, such as growth, connection, belonging and the lack thereof, that will undoubtedly hit home for readers of all backgrounds.” On the blog, Noreen Ocampo reviews Zalika Reid-Benta’s Frying Plantain (House of Anansi Press, 2019).
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“Flynn effectively encourages sympathy for all of her characters, leaving the reader both in awe and horror at the history she writes—the history that feels more emotional than artificial, more lifelike than fiction.” On the blog, Noreen Ocampo reviews Katie Flynn’s The Companions (Scout/Gallery Press, 2020).
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“Downing has constructed a world in which the role we occupy in other people’s minds and hearts is not only predetermined but actively stifling and painful.” Sophie Allen and Sarah Feng review Sammie Downing’s The Family That Carried Their House on Their Backs (Half-Mystic Press, 2019).
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