Reviews
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The Strain of Reality: Reset by Ellen Pao
A woman is simultaneously too many things and not enough at all, forcing her vibrancy to smudge into an opaque blur.
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Both Outsider and Participant: Thousand Star Hotel by Bao Phi
In Thousand Star Hotel, the bilingual writer’s struggle with expressing himself in English becomes a metaphor for the immigrant’s struggle with navigating the host nation’s hostile-yet-lucrative social terrain.
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The Universal Tether of Identity: Caca Dolce by Chelsea Martin
At its core, the collection is recollected through a loose chronology of memoir essays, all of which will appeal to readers’ younger selves: who were we when we were teenagers and who are we now?
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Playing with Genre: Beth Ann Fennelly’s Heating & Cooling
Whether you read it as poetry or memoir, this collection will invite you into the delicate balance between the challenging, sometimes squalid, human condition and the beauty and sadness of the transcendent.
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Mothers and Marginalization: Cherise Wolas’s The Resurrection of Joan Ashby
Writing, art, and creation are elevated and pure, the book seems to say, spiritual acts separated from the dross of everyday life.
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A Deeply Human Act: Don’t Call Us Dead by Danez Smith
What is so extraordinary about this collection is its lyricism, its humanity, and its urgency.
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An Investigation into Fate and Freedom: Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan
Everyone, no matter how strong or independent, is subject to forces like war, or time, or the claims of family.
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Reclamation and Redemption: Villain Songs by Tammy Robacker
Robacker’s language, steeped in religion and myth, creates an avenue for her own salvation while invoking a timelessness that gives voice to all whose song has been suppressed.
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Between Autonomy and Powerlessness: Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
Women’s bodies signify so much, both to ourselves and others, that inhabiting them and having ownership over them often feel like two different states of being.
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Both Companion and Guide: Jeannine Hall Gailey’s Field Guide to the End of the World
I recommend you pull over now. Better yet, I recommend you call in sick and turn your car around. You’re going to want to read this book in one solitary burst…
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You’re in the Hands of a Pro: The Goat Fish and the Lover’s Knot by Jack Driscoll
The characters in this collection frequently daydream about time. Children and teens want to speed it up so life can start. Grown-ups ask time to slow, or rewind to get some of it back.
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Imagination Is Like Grace: Meghan O’Rourke’s Sun in Days
A poem doesn’t bring the dead back to life, but a memory has a touch of immortality: it’s a sort of recompense—forever isn’t exactly a lie, even if it’s not completely true.