RaveThe Guardian (UK)The dual perspectives elegantly enact themes of transition and relationality. Bellies is a novel about feeling seen ... The hotness quotient is one of many aspects that make Bellies such a juicy read ... As deep as it is chic, propelled by the good intentions dropped between different wavelengths, a sensitive study of the challenge of moving past judgment towards perception.
Andrew Holleran
PositiveThe Guardian (UK)Out of this obstinate ennui, Holleran renders an elegiac and very funny contemplation of not just ageing but an age ... Holleran is a perspicacious writer of place, and of mundanity; the first pages detail how the construction of two freeways and an overpass have made a cruisey video store on Highway 301 inconvenient ... Holleran – or is it his narrator? – is erudite yet often repetitive; the uncontested colonisation of Earl’s spare bathroom by dying cockroaches is one topic brought up incessantly. But eternal recurrence doesn’t dim Holleran’s incandescence. The rambling is tonal ... a small-scale study of America at twilight.
