RaveNew City Lit\"The author eschews self-pity and sentimentality in favor of straightforward self-examination and illuminating remembrance. In lucent prose, she maintains a tone both elegiac and confiding, which calls to mind Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking ... In mourning her husband and memorializing their life together, Brooks has offered readers a deeply affecting book, at once personal and expansive.\
Chelsey Johnson
PositiveThe New York Times Book Review[H]ow clearly Johnson delineates the psychosexual dualities and prejudices of our culture, how effortlessly she instructs even as she entertains ... Stray City makes an expansive canvas, diverse and colorful, for a vibrant portrait of a woman coming into her own, in a city also coming into its own, brimming with music, art and beauty. Johnson’s debut is a thoughtful and joyous literary experience, one that celebrates its characters and liberally rewards its readers.
