RaveA.V. ClubWhite Magic touches on both addiction and trauma narratives as part of her descent. But it doesn’t live in them. Nor does it live in the critique of cultural appropriation that leads the book’s back cover copy. Instead, Washuta breaks down and reassembles these threads in a series of connected essays, interweaving them with history as well as pop culture artifacts ... That second part is accomplished through a bit of sleight of hand. Although she does describe a handful of candle spells and one useful four-card tarot spread—all love magic, of course—White Magic is not a how-to manual. It’s too liminal for that ... This sense of place and connection to the natural world comes across vividly in White Magic, whether Washuta is describing the verdant forests of the Pacific Northwest or the dust-choked air in Pennsylvania coal country ... But perhaps her most cunning witchery comes in the way Washuta exposes the bones of her writing, teasing the reader with coy notes about the importance of rising action and denouement in the opening paragraphs of essays that subvert those same rules. There’s also the startling clarity of her prose.
Liz Phair
PositiveThe AV Club... structured around the moments of anxiety, discomfort, indecision, humiliation, and regret that have defined Phair as a person, illuminating specific memories with the vivid flashbulb of her famous wit. Perhaps it’s for this reason that the book only tangentially mentions Phair’s scrappy early years as an unknown singer-songwriter in Chicago’s once hip Wicker Park neighborhood; as she says in the lead-up to a story about visiting her grandmother in a nursing home around that time, things were going well for her. Not a lot of psychic manure to compost into hard-won wisdom there ... less a complete chronicle of Phair’s life than a road map to her vulnerabilities ... Phair approaches the #MeToo movement with clearer eyes and a more compassionate attitude than some of the women in the generation before her ... But while Phair’s Horror Stories are often painfully relatable, the combination of blunt emotional truth and lyrical prose doesn’t always meld. Sometimes her poetic musings are downright profound...Other times, her dry humor doesn’t translate to the page ... Still, Phair’s been everywhere and done everything, including some things she’s not very proud of. If she wants to indulge herself a little, now that she’s looking back on all of it, well, she’s earned it.
Shaun Hamill
PositiveThe A.V. ClubThe first few chapters of Shaun Hamill’s debut novel may be slightly concerning to those suffering from H.P. Lovecraft fatigue, an understandable condition given how pervasive Lovecraft’s influence has been on the horror genre for the past, oh, century or so. But stick with it...takes the basic idea of ancient monsters from mind-shattering dimensions to some unique and empathetic places. (Hamill also lightly pokes fun at Lovecraft’s pompous writing style, which is refreshing) ... although the tall, hairy creature with the glowing orange eyes and long black cloak who becomes Noah’s best friend and magical mentor lurks around the margins of the story, the book’s supernatural sequences are crisp and concise, startling blips in the overall rhythm of a family life that’s not exactly ordinary, but still firmly rooted in reality. In this way, the book is an object lesson in truly effective horror storytelling, proving that the best way to make you afraid for a character is to make you care about them first.
Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff
PositiveThe A.V. ClubAlthough it’s organized around quotes from the podcast...the chapter titles in Stay Sexy & Don’t Get Murdered are often only tangentially related to the content of said chapters. In fact, it’s almost humorous when the book does come back around to true crime toward the end, the kind of \'Oh, right, what were we talking about again?\' moment you might have with a friend when you realize the conversation has gone way off topic ... The book is at its best in earnest passages...whether that comes in the form of a detailed 10-step breakdown of what to expect when going to therapy for the first time or a devastating personal anecdote about a close call with a predatory stranger ... Stay Sexy & Don’t Get Murdered is written like a conversation between best friends, complete with sidebars, and both women’s personalities translate very strongly (and warmly and charmingly) to the page through their first-person stream-of-consciousness writing styles. If occasionally the jokey bits that punctuate the heartfelt confessions come across as slightly distancing, well, they warned you a few pages earlier they had a shared neurotic impulse to fill awkward silences with nervous chatter ... their biggest strength...is radical vulnerability. Hardstark’s and Kilgariff’s different personalities and life experiences complement each other quite nicely in this regard ... What makes this advice effective is the tone with which it’s conveyed ... Lots of people will tell you that there are no real shortcuts to happiness, that if you don’t believe in yourself no one will, and so on. But Hardstark and Kilgariff do so with such specificity and openness that you actually believe them.
John Waters
RaveThe A.V. ClubWaters talks about Hollywood and the film business with the candid attitude of someone who truly does not give a shit if his phone ever rings again, and Waters speaks with the same frankness on subjects ranging from \'teen tragedy\' novelty records to the racial politics of the Yippie movement in his new book, Mr. Know-It-All. Like most of Waters’ books, Mr. Know-It-All is composed of freestanding chapters that are part memoir, part personal essay, and part stand-up comedy routine. They’re a lot like his live shows, which Waters brags he’s done so many times that he can let his mind wander while his mouth keeps moving onstage ... With great clarity of vision, Waters outlines his personal tastes as well as his rules to live by ... Waters’ candid love of what some might call \'sin\' also keeps the chapters of Mr. Know-It-All that essentially read like transcribed stand-up comedy routines from veering into Jerry Seinfeld territory ... Hardcore fans may recognize some of his stories, particularly in the memoir chapters, from earlier interviews, and he admits to holding back other anecdotes for the book. And although on a line-by-line basis, the book always sparkles, Waters relies heavily on rhetorical questions as framing devices, particularly in the chapter about his experience taking LSD at 70. Still, it’s practically a dare; you’re going to ding John fucking Waters, who counts William Castle among his many idols, for indulging in a little showbiz artifice?
Mallory O'Meara
PanThe AV Club\"O’Meara’s personality shines through...and honestly, she seems like a lovely person. She’s empathetic, she’s humble but not a pushover, and she speaks very highly of the many friends she mentions throughout the book. But that doesn’t change the fact that, if you’re looking for a book about Milicent Patrick, this isn’t really that. In fact, for much of its 350 pages, it’s a book about Mallory O’Meara ... O’Meara’s first-person chronicling of her thought process while writing the book [is] a technique that outbalances actual information about Patrick’s life for the first 200 pages ... This storytelling crutch also makes the factual substance of the book difficult to follow, as O’Meara’s charting of her process doesn’t always fit in neatly with the arc of Patrick’s life, and the former usually ends up outshining the latter when the two diverge ... The Lady From The Black Lagoon is an engrossing read when we finally get down to the subjects of special-effects movie makeup and the behind-the-scenes power struggles that led to Patrick’s name being erased from the historical record for so many years.\
