MixedThe New York Times Book ReviewI honestly can’t make up my mind if the Covid-19-ness of this novel holds it back or gives it a hook. Reunion, after all, offers an engaging story ... Even as I tried to extend the same generosity that the story grants its characters, I found myself nitpicking their behavior in a way I associate with social media, not novels. Could this be a side effect of Reunion being so true to life, set in a world with not only the same pandemic we experienced, but also the same algorithmic feeds we scrolled? ... I’m not sure how much power Covid holds as a source of narrative tension in 2024. Perhaps as novelists we need a few more years before we’re able to reflect, invent and make that period our own.
Carolyn Ferrell
RaveNew York Times Book Review... stunning and innovative ... The ripped-from-the-headlines premise might seem sensational, but Dear Miss Metropolitan is not horror or thriller, but a literary novel, experimental in style, that asks readers to immerse themselves in the psyches of the deeply traumatized. This is an artful text: an intricate mosaic of shifting viewpoints, black-and-white photographs and fragmented, unreliable narration. The novel is not easy, but how could it be? ... Humming with specificity, Dear Miss Metropolitan rejects easy caricatures of suffering ... Ferrell resists clichés, allowing the girls’ inner lives to diverge ... The premise of Dear Miss Metropolitan is reminiscent of Emma Donoghue’s Room, though Ferrell’s novel feels more expansive in scope and richer in its exploration of trauma. Ferrell writes with no illusions that this kind of violence can be contained; neither causation nor blame is neatly assigned ... Through all this darkness, Ferrell writes with a steady, empathetic hand. She leaves space for tenderness ... Yes, Dear Miss Metropolitan is devastating, but it shouldn’t be summed up as such. This is a blistering contribution to the cohort of contemporary literature focused on sexual violence. It is a novel that reads like a labyrinth, as complex as the trauma it depicts.
