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by Alexandra Tanner 2/5 This book was interesting and well-written—it just wasn’t really my thing. It follows two sisters in New York City as they navigate situationships, new jobs, and the complexities of mental health. This would be great for fans of novels like Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation. Worry is more character-driven than plot-driven (it doesn’t have a defined plot at all), which I sometimes enjoy, but it just didn’t work for me this time. I found the main character to be whiny, self-involved, and mean. She did not grow or change in any recognizable way by…
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“Does your mother know you drive like that?” You were angry and I was mortified. He was younger than I am now, blonde, in a black leather jacket some student would scavenge for seven bucks at the thrift store ten years later, skid marks and all. In my memory, he smirks, or maybe that was you. I like to think of you, still, as the foreteller of men’s stupidity, shaking your head while you speak as if you know the decision is already set. Any support to the opposition is merely a matter of liability. You asked for his name, remember?You told him you knew his mother (you didn’t) and she would…
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by Mary Oliver When death comeslike the hungry bear in autumn;when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;when death comeslike the measle-pox; when death comeslike an iceberg between the shoulder blades, I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness? And therefore I look upon everythingas a brotherhood and a sisterhood,and I look upon time as no more than an idea,and I consider eternity as another possibility, and I think of each life as a flower,…
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by Adam Ehrlich Sachs 5/5 Here is the whimsy I have been looking for! Gretel and the Great War has one of the most unique structures I’ve ever come across. The stories are organized from A to Z, with each story centering on a character whose title corresponds with the story’s letter (A is about the architect, C is about the choreographer, etc.). The way the stories connect with one another—ambiguously, at first, then more and more clearly with every new character that’s introduced—is brilliant. It makes the novel feel more like a puzzle than a book. I feel like…
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by Emily Jungmin Yoon First, there was the horse. Imagine creatures as majestic,standing. All their lives they stand, withholding. Imagine being tamed. Learning to be still,to be speed. Imagine birds as large as horses. We would be flying, grabbinga majestic creature by its collar. In cylinders of metal, we are four-leggedbeast-lives of liminal spaces. One time I was so tired of flying I wonderedif I will spend all my life packing then unpacking. A complaint of privilege. We are such spendingcreatures. And when I say we are beasts, is that a metaphor? Metaphor, according to Papastergiadis,is also transportation, between absence…
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by Dean Spade 4/5 I haven’t read books in the self-help genre in a long time, and to be honest, I’m not sure I would have picked this one up in the first place if I’d realized that’s how it was classified. Love in a F*cked Up World addresses the flaws within the self-help genre head-on, specifically calling out the damage that’s been done by the self-help books in regards to relationships and sex. The subtitle and back cover description are ambiguous to the point of being misleading, and, shockingly, I actually like that. Whether intentional or not, focusing the…
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by Richard Siken A man walks into a bar and says: Take my wife–please. So you do. You take her out into the rain and you fall in love with her and she leaves you and you’re desolate.You’re on your back in your undershirt, a broken man on an ugly bedspread, staring at the water stains on the ceiling. And you can hear the man in the apartment above you taking off his shoes.You hear the first boot hit the floor and you’re looking up, you’re waiting because you thought it would follow, you thought there would be some logic, perhaps, something to pull it all together but here we are in…
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by Kelly Link 3/5 I read The Book of Love at the recommendation of a friend, and although my review leans towards the more negative side, I’m still glad I did. The novel’s plot is incredible—three teenagers come back from the dead under mysterious circumstances (after an even more mysterious disappearance) and are tasked with completing a series of challenges to remain in the mortal world. What I liked: I’m a huge fan of magical realism, and this story revolved around a fascinating premise. It has its own universe with its own lore, and I loved piecing together the details. …
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by June Jordan Into the topaz the crystalline signalsof Manhattanthe nightplane lowers my bodyscintillate with longing to lie positivebesidethe electric waters of your fleshandI will never tell you the meaning of this poem:Just say, “She wrote it and I recognizethe reference.” Pleaselet it go at that. Althoughit is all the willingness you lendthe worldas when you picked it upthe garbage scattering the coolformalities of Madison Avenueafter midnight (where we walkedfor miles as though we knew the woodswell enough to ignore the darkness)although it is all the willingness you lendthe worldthat makes me wantto clean up everythingin sight(myself included) for your…
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by Emily Henry 1/5 Let me preface by saying this: I am not usually a romance reader. I’ll read them occassionally, especially if recommended by a friend, but it’s not a genre I seek out on my own. That being said, while I was impressed with the non-romantic subplot of Great Big Beautiful Life, I thought the romance was incredibly underwhelming. This is the first book I’ve read by Emily Henry, and unfortunately, I did not find that her writing lived up to the hype. If I have to read one more sentence about knees knocking together under the table,…
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Emily Vance Brown 