Emily Vance Brown

Recent Posts

  • Love in a F*cked-Up World

    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…

  • “Boot Theory”

    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…

  • The Book of Love

    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. …

  • “Toward a City That Sings”

    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…

  • Great Big Beautiful Life

    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,…

  • “Ovid in Tears”

    by Jack Gilbert Love is like a garden in the heart, he said.They asked him what he meant by garden.He explained about gardens. “In the cities,”he said, “there are places walled off where colorand decorum are magnified into a civilization.Like a beautiful woman,” he said. How likea woman, they asked. He remembered their wivesand said garden was just a figure of speech,then called for drinks all around. Two rounds laterhe was crying. Talking about how Charlemagne couldn’t read but still made a world. About HagiaSophia and putting a round dome on a squarebase after nine hundred years of failure. The hand holding…

  • Cloud Cuckoo Land

    by Anthony Doerr 5/5 To me, this book is flawless. I recently read it for the third time (well, technically, I listened to the audiobook, which I would recommend for a re-reading, although not for a first read). Doerr’s characters are desperately clinging to life, empathetic even in their glaring flaws, and courageous in their own, occasionally misguided, ways. Their worlds are fully fleshed out and whole. With every scene change, I feel like I’ve been transported to the world of the given character. From ancient Constantinople to the prison camps of the Korean War, the book’s settings feel tangible…

  • “Instructions for Traveling West”

    by Joy Sullivan First, you must realize you’re homesick for all the livesyou’re not living. Then, you must commit to the roadand the rising loneliness. To the sincere thrill of comingapart. Divorce yourself from routine and control. Instead,find a desert and fall in. Take the trail that promises a view.Get lost. Break your toes. Bruise your knees. Keep going.Watch a purple meadow quiver. Get still. Pet trail dogs.Buy the hat. Run out of gas. Befriend strangers.Knight yourself every morning for your newborn courage. Give grief her own lullaby. Drink whisky besidea hundred-year-old cactus. Honor everything. Prayto something unnameable. Fall for someone…