RaveFiction Writers ReviewIt’s goddamn great ... As in canon. As in, we should all be reading this novel now, because it’s going to be a classic ... You know a novel is great when it gets stuck in your head like a song ... That’s the thing about Vuong’s novel, the sticky quality that makes the story latch on and take hold in your mind: it feels real, intimate as a conversation between close friends. Part of this realness comes from Vuong’s undeniable eye for detail ... And there’s also voice. Darting between lyricism and chattiness, Little Dog’s voice is like the voice so many writers I know, elegant and hilarious and utterly undeniable ... You know a novel is good when you forget it’s fiction. So much in Briefly Gorgeous possesses this feeling of rightness. Its take on the world today, the world that those of us in Vuong’s generation grew up in, is deeply, often painfully, accurate ... I feel evangelical. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous will hurt you, but it will also make you feel seen.
Nicole Rivas
RaveFiction Writers Review...Nicole Rivas\' beautiful book... is all about violations, devastating in their ordinariness. To read this book is to be cut by it ... Rivas’ stories are compact, tender, and razor-sharp. They combine the fairytale dread of Carmen Maria Machado with the dream-scape disorientation of Kelly Link ... Dagger’s striking prose is especially suited to the stories narrated by teenagers. These stories are so recognizable and honest, perfectly capturing the feeling of being a young girl in a world that both scorns and fetishes you. Every detail works ... Rivas’ collection is beautiful and necessary, heartbreaking and healing ... In this world, we need more books like A Bright and Pleading Dagger.
Deborah Willis
RaveFiction Writers ReviewWhen I try to describe The Dark and Other Love Stories, the word I keep coming back to is spacious. There is so much room in these stories … Willis can take a well-worn premise or character—a lonely writer; teenage girls looking for trouble; an animal that is also a symbol—and make it feel newly personal and wrenching … Suffice it to say that Willis’ writing is funny and heartbreaking, deeply generous and insightful.
