RaveThe Huffington PostThis wildly original novel careens from one crisp scene to another, combining dry wit, narrative verve, and an abiding melancholy. It’s hard to believe such an entertaining, enjoyable novel bears the \'literary fiction\' stamp of highbrow approval. We need more of these ... While the plot is a roller-coaster, one of the great delights of The Family Fang is the language, where wit crackles in every sentence ... Beneath the layers of comedy, of zany set pieces that range from Caleb and Camille setting themselves on fire, to their entering Buster in a beauty pageant dressed as a girl, is a story with universal resonance.
Cheryl Strayed
PositiveThe Globe and MailIn the end, the journey does transform Strayed – and a central strength of Wild is that the reader viscerally experiences this transformation along with her. A memoir that is by turns harrowing, lyrical and funny, Wild may benefit from Strayed\'s distance from the material. Now in her early 40s, she is more often gently wry about her 26-year-old self than emotionally overwrought. Her restraint makes the tragic moments all the more heart-rending ... Strayed is ultimately a writer for whom symbolism is essential, and she confers upon her backbreaking ordeal the metaphysical trappings of a quest story ... So beneath – or perhaps above – a gritty account of physical hardship is the age-old story of a hero who enters the depths of the woods, endures many trials there, and emerges at last with a light to give to the world. In this particular case, that light is this book.
Sofia Samatar
RaveThe Los Angeles Review of BooksSamatar’s fiction embodies a beauty and complexity reminiscent of Ursula K. Le Guin and Angela Carter. Similarly, she uses diverse genre elements — drawing upon science fiction, myth, and the fantastic — as a means to explore ideas and offer deeper layers of stylistic intricacy ... Because the stories are so layered with ideas, a close reading can be an intensely cerebral experience; to skim the surface is to miss the story ... Samatar’s visions of the future, though diverse, are almost uniformly horrifying ... A relentless, challenging, and hypnotic collection, Sofia Samatar’s Tender transports the reader to myriad worlds, periods of history, and monstrous futures yet to be born. It can be a difficult text, demanding a high level of engagement with multiple layers and themes. At the same time, its subtle yet wrenching emotions have a way of getting under your skin.
Helen Oyeyemi
PositiveThe Los Angeles Review of BooksWhether you enjoy the collection will depend on how much emotional engagement you look for, how much depth of insight — and how enthralled you are by Oyeyemi’s style, here distilled to its purest essence. Riffs do not lend themselves to emotional engagement or insight, but in Oyeyemi’s hands they leave indelible, shifting images behind your eyelids like the workings of a kaleidoscope.
