If you distill the most quintessential parts of summer and turn it into ink, the book that ink would write would look a lot like Christine Lynn Herman’s latest novel, The Drowning Summer.
Tag Archives: Would talk about at a party
‘How to Be Eaten’ A Fairy-Tale Feast
Although most of the stories don’t involve talking furniture or little, burger-scented men falling from air vents, seeing stories about strangers warping and reshaping around us in ways that may or may not be true is a fact of daily life.
‘Build Your House’ Rewards Patience
There are no twists of the traditional sort in Violet Kupersmith’s debut novel, Build Your House Around My Body, but there are a stack of stories that weave themselves around each other before ultimately tying a knot that can only truly be appreciated on the reread.
‘Spear’ Hits Its Mark
If you have the least bit of interest in swords or knights or daring deeds, you can’t miss with Spear.
‘Gentrifier’ Asks Tough Questions Wrapped in Cozy Experiences
Whether she is the gentrifier or isn’t, the perception stubbornly remains that the presence of “[her] whiteness” is linked to upward mobility for the neighborhood by many.
‘Wives’ a Strange Tale of Love and Sea Monsters
Our Wives Under the Sea is a fantastical, but uncomfortably grounded, metaphor of what happens when things don’t go as planned.
Banter in ‘Rivals’ Brings Sparks and Magic
The back-cover copy of a book is supposed to give a reader an idea of what’s in store. To set a few expectations early on. To whet the appetite. In the case of Rebecca Ross’s latest novel, Divine Rivals, the blurb on the cover does nothing to set expectations. If anything, it obscures just howContinue reading “Banter in ‘Rivals’ Brings Sparks and Magic”
‘Archive’ Alternates Between Magical and Heartbreaking
The Archive is a novel, but its parts, while interconnected, are fit together in such a way that they can be separated from each other. But all of these parts, though excellent on their own, come together to make a whole far grander than their sum.
‘Until Proven Safe’ a Timely Tour of Quarantine Past and Present
Manaugh and Twilley have not provided an exhaustive look at all types of quarantine, but it is comprehensive and cohesive enough to fascinate, or squick out, anyone at a cocktail party who makes the mistake of asking what you’re reading these days.
‘Babel’ a Fascinating Course in Linguistics and Labor
Although Babel takes place in the first half of the nineteenth century, the message about colonialism and a supposed superiority of one country or race is one for today. So is the eventual turn toward solidarity among the outcasts and the working class.