writer
Longer by Michael Blumlein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Longer is a strange and fascinating little book with a shadow of a plot underneath many bright starbursts of philosophy. The science fiction setting serves as the backdrop for what is really a four-person drama about the ethics of mortality and what we determine the word “living” to mean. Thought-provoking and uneasy, as much of the best sci-fi happens to be.
View all my reviews
The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Water Cure is a parable that defies pinning down in terms of its historical and geographical setting, certainly intentionally so. It is a violent tale with sparse and evocative prose, and it bristles with rage at the harm that women have absorbed throughout Western history. Taking that gigantic, cascading multi-generational hurt and distilling it into two precise individual voices is Mackintosh’s immense achievement in this frightening and propulsive read.
View all my reviews
Before and After the Book Deal: A Writer’s Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting, and Surviving Your First Book by Courtney Maum
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Courtney Maum’s guide is information-packed and delightfully balanced, with heaping helpings of snark and empathy both. What outsiders imagine about the life of a published author is completely different from the insider’s reality, and this book helps translate expectations for the well-meaning and wide-eyed debut novelist.
View all my reviews
Dark Age by Pierce Brown
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
As the title suggests, Dark Age plunges us into the darkest waters yet seen in the Red Rising saga. Humor and hope are both at their leanest portions, and in their place brutality and desperation are served. The worlds tear themselves apart in this one. Pierce Brown delivers his normal labyrinthine entanglement of alliances, betrayals, secret, and sieges, this time through an ambitious five perspectives. (Virginia’s perspective was the most rewarding, in my opinion.) Whereas the first trilogy of the saga is about the journey of one man, more than ever the series tips toward the journey of an entire political movement, one that spans nine planets and seems to doom everyone in one way or another. After five books with Darrow, loyal readers can’t help but invest emotionally in these unforgettable characters and feel their losses along with them–some of them, this time, were particularly hard. But I admire how Brown was brave enough to go all the way into the dark with this installment, and to create an absolute powder keg setup that book six will no doubt set off within its first few pages. Looking forward to the next ride.
View all my reviews
Oceanic by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s collection Oceanic is specifically personal and intentionally global at the same time, and in that contrast it builds a welcoming entry point for many different readers. The marine motifs disappear and return throughout, but Nezhukumatathil’s clear voice is the sea in which these poems scuttle and breathe. Many surprises to find.
My favorite poems in this volume:
*Self-Portrait as Scallop
*End-of-Summer Haibun
*The Two Times I Loved You Most on a Farm
*Letter to the Northern Lights
*The Psyche poems
*First Time on the Funicular
View all my reviews
Descender, Vol. 1: Tin Stars by Jeff Lemire
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
[This review is for Volumes One and Two.]
Come for the art, stay for the story. The imagery and color that Dustin Nguyen uses to create this science fiction world are absolutely stunning. These volumes manage to be disturbing in a beautiful way, with the cute and the grotesque coexisting in harmony. The story by Lemire is slower to start, but really gears up in Volume Two with plenty of surprises and enjoyable suspense. Well-trodden AI vs. human and “lost child” tropes are employed, but it’s a comic, so am I really upset about that? I came for a sense of escape and visual delight, and on that front Descender certainly delivers.
View all my reviews
Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This novella is filled with old magic and new. Sometimes it is so enjoyable to reach for a story that is quietly lush, immersive, and simple, and that is what Emily Tesh delivers here. A beautiful fantasy tale (with queer characters!) that feels as weathered and inviting as an old leather-bound tome.
View all my reviews
Soft Science by Franny Choi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Choi’s poetry is innovative, unafraid, and visceral in so many surprising ways in her collection Soft Science. The unifying concept is a fusion of science and soul, technology and body, as she uses poems crafted around the Turing Test as a frame for the different sections of the book. As detached as the poems can intentionally be, often self-referencing as a “cyborg,” they are also deeply personal. Choi’s work lives in a place that is foreign but familiar, human but more (or less). The structure in many of these poems carries a particular kind of cool.
My favorites in this collection:
*All six “Turing Test” poems
*Making Of
*On the Night of the Election
*A Brief History of Cyborgs
*Afterlife
*I Swiped Right on the Borg
*Solitude
and especially
*Perihelion: A History of Touch
*Introduction to Quantum Theory
View all my reviews
Lord of the Butterflies by Andrea Gibson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Andrea Gibson is an extraordinarily powerful poet. I was so lucky to see Andrea perform in Green Bay about a year ago, and revisiting the poems on the page brings back the memory of that fire. This collection approaches gender, violence, and humanity with a voice that is tender in both its passion and its rage. It is a voice that is honest and disruptive, but always in the service of love. While I am so happy to have this volume on paper, it does not compare to experiencing the collection in performance–Andrea’s delivery is an essential ingredient in experiencing these poems in their full power.
My favorites from this collection:
Ivy
Tincture
Radio
Living Proof
First Love
View all my reviews
What’s a Hostess to Do? by Susan Spungen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Does your inner 1950’s housewife really miss your grandma (an actual 1950’s housewife) telling you what to do in terms of the proper way to create, display, and serve a proper meal on a gorgeous table? This book will fill that void. Susan Spungen makes it her job to be flawless and to help the flawed among us be that way, too. At once a deeply practical and ludicrously formal guide, this is a resource to help us make new magic in our entertaining life and push beyond lazy parties grounded by pizzas and potato chips. Spungen will inspire you to get the good dishware out of the back of the cabinet and actually plan a menu. I’ve always been a big believer in showing a deep respect for guests through artistry and small comforts, and this book was a fascinating look into the many, many ways one can accomplish that. The dinner party is becoming a lost art and I salute Spungen’s old school commitment to resurrecting it. I know I’ll treasure–and use–this handbook for many, many years to come.
View all my reviews