PanElectric Literature\"Wolitzer is clearly interested in puncturing the idealized definition of a mentor? but falls short of questioning the innate flaws of this very model of mentorship ... what the novel doesn’t ask is if Greer might have succeeded in spite of Faith, rather than because of her. If it were up to Faith, Greer would not have struck out on her own. She would still be working in her morally compromised job on projects further and further removed from the mission of helping women that initially inspired her ... The Female Persuasion falls disappointingly short of upsetting these outdated power structures; instead, it further invests in a future bound by the same roles that have been so limiting to its characters.\
Hanya Yanagihara
RaveElectric Literature... unsparing ... There is a fairy tale quality to the wealth and fame these men achieve, but like all fairy tales there is an underlying darkness ... Jude is a character that calls into question the redemptive narrative arc we too often expect from stories of trauma. Yanagihara would argue that this isn’t a story about trauma but about life. Either way, she asks the tough questions: how do we live, and why?
Sarah Hepola
PositiveElectric LiteratureWith this memoir, Hepola, now many years sober, conducts a fierce moral inventory of her life, an unblinking examination of the insecurities, the vanity, and the wounds that made her drink. Blackout is not without flaws. Hepola’s guilelessness means there will be no artistry in her prose, and too many pages are spent on her childhood in Dallas, where she experienced the usual feelings on preteen alienation and developed a preternatural taste for beer. Her life experiences may not be remarkable in that they are shared by many, but her hard-earned self-awareness is.
