Emily Vance Brown

Recent Posts

  • One Last Stop

    by Casey McQuiston 4/5 I’m a few weeks late posting my review for this one! I read One Last Stop at the beginning of summer, about a month before I left Austin for New York. This book is a romance, time travel novel, and love letter to the NYC public transportation system all in one, and its heavy-handed over-romanticization of the subway system is just what I needed before my big move.  I always prefer a romance with a non-romantic primary plot, and the time travel elements of One Last Stop did not disappoint. Jane’s trapped existence on the Q…

  • Flowers for Jordan

    The shop smells like cut stems and lemon-scented Lysol. It’s one of the few places in the city that stays the same, year after year, even as the lifespan of its patrons shortens and the yellowish haze outside grows thicker. “Six pink carnations, six white daisies,” she says to the florist, hesitates a moment, then adds: “And some green, if you have it.” With the middle-aged woman distracted, she browses the half-empty rows of overpriced plants. She detaches the arm of a miniature succulent and pinches a yellow pothos stem from the vine with her fingernails. A scrawny lemon tree…

  • “Prospective Immigrants Please Note”

    by Adrienne Rich Either you willgo through this dooror you will not go through. If you go throughthere is always the riskof remembering your name. Things look at you doublyand you must look backand let them happen. If you do not go throughit is possibleto live worthily to maintain your attitudesto hold your positionto die bravely but much will blind you,much will evade you,at what cost who knows? The door itselfmakes no promises.It is only a door.

  • Oh Pure and Radiant Heart

    by Lydia Millet 3/5? I think? I read Oh Pure and Radiant Heart back in February and managed to put off writing the review for several months. I’m glad I did—this was one of the most perplexing things I’ve ever read, and I feel like six months was the minimum amount of time I needed to stew on it. When I first finished it, it left a sour taste in my mouth, but the further out I get, the more I seem to remember it with fondness. I still don’t know whether I would say I actually liked it, but…

  • “Nonsense”

    I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the concept of forgiveness. Who we forgive, and why, and maybe more importantly, how. If I say out loud that I forgive my father for his absence or my mother for only ever wanting a mother herself, does that make it true? Does forgiveness have to be felt to be envisioned?  Mostly, when I think about forgiveness, I think about August 2023: a sticky summer night, sweating over hibiscus ginger mocktails at a table at Radio Coffee. I have always run hot, I told her, and she made us switch seats so I…

  • “there will be singing in the morning”

    by ire’ne lara silva and singing in the night singing in the daysof want and singing in the days of plentysinging alone and singing with ghostssinging old songs and singing new songs wewill remember songs we haven’t heard yetsongs that haven’t been dreamt yet songs noone has found the words for songs sung onthe road and songs sung in bed songs sungwhile weeping and songs sung while waitingsongs for breath and sun and light and moon and earth and water songs for sustenance we will sing impossible songs indecipherable songs songs that cannot be heard and songs that cannot be shared we will sing songs…

  • The Final Strife series

    by Saara El-Arifi I just finished reading a Young Adult trilogy called Ending Fire. It was pretty far outside of my comfort zone and will probably be the only YA I read for some time now, but I thought the worldbuilding was incredible, and I hope to read more of the author’s work in the future. The trilogy consists of three books: The Final Strife, The Battle Drum, and The Ending Fire. The entire series is fantasy, but the first one leans more towards the romance genre and incorporates traditional romance tropes, such as enemies to lovers and a love…

  • Susannah

    “There is a spot for you in Heaven, but only if you’re willing to open your heart like a door to Him,” Pastor Samuel had said that morning in his East Texas drawl, leaning on his podium. “Open your heart and let Him in.”  Susannah was trying. She wanted to be close to Him. She saw the joy in her friends’ eyes when they spoke of their journeys. “I was afraid to let Him in,” Isabella told her, “but when I did, it was like I turned into this whole new person. A whole new me.”  Sarah, Susannah’s best friend…

  • “Memoir”

    by Vijay Seshadri Orwell says somewhere that no one ever writes the real story of their life.The real story of a life is the story of its humiliations.If I wrote that story now—radioactive to the end of time—people, I swear, your eyes would fall out, you couldn’t peelthe gloves fast enoughfrom your hands scorched by the firestorms of that shame.Your poor hands. Your poor eyesto see me weeping in my roomor boring the tall blonde to death.Once I accused the innocent.Once I bowed and prayed to the guilty.I still wince at what I once said to the devastated widow.And one…

  • Housemates

    by Emma Copley Eisenberg 2/5 I wanted to like Housemates so badly. It was recommended by several people, and it sounds like exactly the type of thing I would usually love. A queer roadtrip? Yes, please! Unfortunately, this book missed the mark for me.  To start, the narration style was nonsensical, chaotic, and inconsistent. It’s seemingly told by a mythical elder lesbian artist who is sometimes omniscient, sometimes not. If you haven’t read this book and think this sounds cool, I promise, it’s not. It’s incredibly distracting and feels voyeuristic in a deeply unsexy and uncomfortable way—one of the worst…