PositiveFull StopThrough Emily, Shapiro demonstrates a person that resides within us all, somewhere. A person who — in this world — it is frighteningly easy to feel the force of ... an entangled and continuous flow of thought that builds and builds and never really reaches climax. Never attains resolution. And it is through this methodological recoiling, and through Emily, that Deborah Shapiro is able to ask questions. The kinds that swell inside people. The kinds that become unwritten through languages of avoidance. But questions that, every so often, refuse suppression. That burn ... Shapiro seems more concerned with the actual practice of asking. These questions, left unanswered — as well as the conversations and actions of the characters, and the characters themselves — reverberate inside the novel. Which becomes, like summer, a container: full of busy yet static energy, moving in various directions, struggling to settle and waiting to be released ... feels like an arousal of urgency.
Juliet Escoria
RaveFull Stop[Escoria\'s] writing of these things has never been romantic or representative, avoiding the all too common fatality of parodying pain as untouchable. Nor has her writing ever fetishized mental health struggles and teenage rebellion. Not one of her books caters for the fragility and passivity of others. Instead, within each, Escoria slices open her past, present, and future, writing with a remorseless and unwavering sense of the real i.e. feeling. But Juliet the Maniac is the first book in which Escoria’s presence is more than an impression ... In general, the format of the novel is inconsistent — as is the fragmentary nature of remembering or recalling...However, there is never a sense of things being \'out of order.\' Indeed, Escoria does a wonderful job of creating a sense of linearity. The stories flow, but like dreams: you’re not sure how you got to where you are but it feels right all the same ... Escoria’s use of recollection as methodology lends a complex multiplicity to this book ... This book is Juliet Escoria’s story being set free. And like how Juliet finds recognition through the lives of others, I too found myself within this heart-wrenching novel.
