Category: Reviews & Criticism

A Woman Is a Woman Until She Is a Mother, an essay collection by Anna Prushinskaya, reviewed by Vivian Wagner

Anna Prushinskaya’s collection of essays, A Woman Is a Woman Until She Is a Mother, interrogates the meaning and experience of womanhood and motherhood. She looks at the blurry, liminal boundary between these two states and tries to come to terms with the fact that there’s no simple, reliable definition for either one. Prushinskaya is,…
The Garbage Times/White Ibis, a double novella by Sam Pink, reviewed by Vivian Wells

Writing about a book that I have creased pages with constant re-readings is a daunting task. Even now the fraying of the pages and bending of the spine speak volumes to the level of brilliance the book professes. My thoughts on the exploits of Pink as the character are almost as scattered and beautiful as…
Like a Champion, stories by Vincent Chu, reviewed by Rebekah Daniel

Like a Champion, by Vincent Chu, is a collection of short stories that could be written about your next-door neighbor. So when you peek through the blinds and glance at the house across the street, Fred—who works in finance, who just wants a drink at happy hour with Glen—could be living there. And next time…
Clara at the Edge, a novel by Maryl Jo Fox, reviewed by Laura-Gray Lovelace

The story of Clara Breckenridge is the story of a woman who uproots her whole life, moving her house to Jackpot, Nevada, in an effort to reunite with an emotionally distant son, Frank, and to come to terms with the loss of her husband and daughter, after years of cordoning it off in her brain.…
“Are We Ready to Read Cris Mazza Yet?”: Marianna Nash Reviews Cris Mazza’s Charlatan: New and Selected Stories

Many of the women Cris Mazza writes are unpleasant. That’s as it should be: Many people are unpleasant, and women are people. Mazza’s latest collection, Charlatan, showcases thirty years of work that explores, in nearly as many ways, what happens when you write women as people. More than two decades after she co-edited the Chick…
Playing with Dynamite, a memoir by Sharon Harrigan, reviewed by Robert Young

What hooks you about Sharon Harrigan’s potent memoir Playing with Dynamite is just how true the story is. The book is reminiscent of the quest narrative: a woman going on a journey into the forgotten, suppressed, and painful parts of her past to discover more about herself. Under the surface, the memoir marinates in the…
Glory Days, a novel in stories by Melissa Fraterrigo, reviewed by Asha Talib

Melissa Fraterrigo weaves together an intricate tale of loss, failure, greed, cruelty, hurt and comfort in her work Glory Days. At the heart of her story is the land of Ingleside, Nebraska, and the experiences it encounters through the tales of six individuals. The most notable story, of Luann and her father Teensy after losing…
“Master of the Concise”: Jesi Buell Reviews J. Bradley’s flash fiction collection Neil and Other Stories

Neil and Other Stories is a prepossessing examination of a parent’s influence on the internal life of their child. At first, the reader approaches what seems to be disparate scenes, but as the stories progress, a singular interlinking story begins to form. Neil and Other Stories is a predominantly a collection of flash fiction pieces that culminates…
Kiss Kiss, a flash fiction collection by Paul Beckman, reviewed by Brad Rose

Whenever I read Paul Beckman’s flash fiction, I feel like I’m benefitting from a humorous, avuncular neighbor who is comfortably narrating what are, by turns, realistic and surrealistic tales that highlight both the humor and sadness inherent in the human predicament. The brief, seemingly effortless, stories in Beckman’s newest collection, Kiss Kiss, explore a range…