RaveLos Angeles Review of BooksDespite Gazmarian’s exploration of and consequent qualms about certain facets of the church, her memoir reads as a testimonial to the enduring power of faith ... The book offers bracing truths about the limitations a condition like bipolar disorder can impose on an individual’s personal trajectory ... Gazmarian has done us all a service with the way she has shaped her memoir.
Noreen Masud
RaveThe Washington PostReaders who have voyeuristically come to expect detailed revelations made for Instagram may find themselves bored by Masud’s hazy retelling, but she is doing something vital by selectively withholding intimate recollections of the violence she experienced ... Masud weaves in poems and excerpts from English literature to tie the disparate strands of her life together and ground the story in history. Initially, this braiding feels fragmented, as if she were trying to fit together pieces from different puzzles. But though these three strands are not necessarily compatible, they do prove complementary ... By its end, Masud has become a master of juxtaposition.
Dorthe Nors tr. Caroline Waight
RaveThe Washington PostThe resulting travelogue captures a side to Denmark that few will find familiar — the literal and figurative opposite of the country’s cosmopolitan capital, Copenhagen ... Though these memorable historical tidbits are among the most visceral details in her work, A Line in the World is as much an appraisal of this troublingly beautiful landscape as it is an exploration of Nors’s identity. In her attempt to understand the shapeshifting Danish peninsula, combing over the history, traditions and myths of the region, she is making sense of this world and her place within it ... In that sense, this is no tourist’s guide to Denmark’s relatively barren coastline. Instead of dwelling on overfamiliar marketing concepts like hygge or references to Nobu, as writers fresh to Denmark often do, Nors reflects on the vital specificity of a place not often frequented by visitors, as well as its impact on the psyche ... Such details provide rare insight into a region where daily life is often spent in monotonous solitude and where tourists and new residents alike can find it difficult to break through the tough facades; where the slower tempo of life is driven by the sea and its moods, the rhythms tethered to a predictable yet finicky tide ... one of the first books to capture the unique region in English. In prose that is as sparse and quiet as the marshy Jutland peninsula itself, the book provides a snapshot of life in a location that is full of history and at the same time ever-shifting, its future uncertain.
