RaveForeword ReviewsA piercing novel about death, grief, and the lengths people will go to escape them, Ella Baxter’s New Animal is not for the faint of heart ... Baxter’s prose is a living thing, wild and snarling, its jagged claws and honed teeth unforgiving and relentless. Amelia stokes empathy as a woman seeking absolution down dead ends. Her codependency and repression are addressed in frank terms...and every beat of dark comedy is paired with an empathetic wince as Amelia forces herself past her limits. New Animal is at turns graphic, disturbing, and tender—in other words: human.
Elissa Washuta
RaveForeword ReviewsWhite Magic is a delight and a challenge ... Elissa Washuta is a refreshing narrator, her prose poetic and sparse ... Such open admissions of confusion and searching cultivate an intimacy throughout the text, evoking the sense of peeling open a letter from an estranged friend; Washuta’s voice haunts by admitting to being haunted ... A poignant work by a rising essayist, White Magic speaks to the ongoing work of recovery that is anything but magic.
Diane Wilson
PositiveForeword ReviewsTold through the voices of strong, albeit fractured, women across generations, The Seed Keeper is a novel about legacies, generational trauma, and the inescapable call of one’s roots ... With a focus on women who carry the scars of the past alongside hope for the future, The Seed Keeper is a profound novel about resilience and rebirth.
Fariha Róisín
PositiveForeword ReviewsRóisín’s novel sings of building joy within sorrow and spins a gossamer reverie that clings to the consciousness ... Taylia is a frank narrator, and the novel crafts poetry from her candid observations and unadorned dialogue ... With its profound testaments to the love of found families and the courage involved in daring to open a cracked heart, Like a Bird is an unforgettable novel.
Tracy O'Neill
PositiveForeword ReviewReferences to real-world events, including the London terrorist bombings, help to track the timeline of the couple’s life together, offering tangible touchstones within the book’s gossamer language. Stirring similes...meld with lines that hitch the breath ... Probing the shifting nature of love and family in a time where nothing can be hidden, but when all have something to hide, Quotients is a novel that lingers in the consciousness long after the final page.
Andre Perry
RaveForeword ReviewsUtilizing prose, film excerpts, and fanciful talk-show interactions, Perry paints a broad-strokes portrait of coming of age as a black artist, searching for identity and belonging in often hostile environments ... The contradictory nature of navigating diaspora is drawn in sharp relief as Perry struggles to balance embracing and challenging expectations and stereotypes ... his blunt observations [are] both refreshing and discomfiting ... While blistering cultural critique is a prominent force within the essays, there are also tender moments ... With his frank, empathetic tone and no-nonsense prose, Andre Perry is a fresh American voice that demands to be heard.
Gavin Evans
RaveForeword ReviewsGive it up for Gavin Evans’s thorough and timely teardown of racial myths ... triumphant ... A hefty notes section is broken down by chapter for easy reference, listing the hundreds of sources used in the careful crafting of the text, and the final chapters provide both a warning and a call to action as race science is poised to make a comeback in these polarizing times. The best defense against misinformation is knowledge, and Skin Deep is an invaluable tool to add to your arsenal.
George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott, Illus. by Harmony Becker
PositiveForeword ReviewA stirring call to learn from history we do not wish to repeat, George Takei’s graphic memoir They Called Us Enemy relays a story not easily forgotten, but too often ignored. The soft lines and subtle gray textures of the black-and-white illustrations sit at odds with the harrowing details they convey as Takei recounts his childhood spent as one of the 120,000 Japanese Americans held in American concentration camps during World War II ... A cogent reminder that liberty and justice is not always for all, They Called Us Enemy explores a dark episode of America’s past as it dives into the heart of a pop culture icon.
Sarah Rose Etter
PositiveForeword ReviewsA literary foray into the macabre madness of womanhood,...captures the innocent joys and creeping horrors of a young girl’s trek into adulthood ... Though the novel’s setting is at times fantastical, the trials of its characters are rooted in familiar realities ... With poetic prose and haunting honesty, The Book of X cuts clean to the tangled heart of femininity, unwinding one woman’s story to reflect a familiar self.
