RaveThe Washington PostAn unflinching examination of power and privilege ... A compelling and beautiful homage to this overlooked artist and an uncompromising indictment of a White-centered, male-dominated establishment that silences some voices while elevating others.
Sequoia Nagamatsu
RaveSan Francisco ChronicleThough it includes elements of sci-fi, fantasy and speculative fiction, the book hits close to home because of its parallels to our current struggles in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic ... Nagamatsu deftly explores \'the many ways we are changed by loss,\' and his stories offer an intimate portrait of grief and mourning ... Through his characters and their unique attitudes toward death, the author shows us how interconnected we are, reminding us that loss, no matter how personal, is still universal. This is a real strength in the book, and it serves as a reminder that over these past two years, although each of us has had our own experience of COVID-19, we are all connected ... That Asians and Asian Americans are centered in this novel is another strength ... readers should know that there is a lot of death in these pages, especially of children, and the horrors the book suggests a pandemic can bring may hit close to home. Also, the tone can be relentlessly bleak and disturbing and might prove too emotionally taxing for some ... But despite its heavy doses of tragedy and graphic depictions of death, there is in this novel a celebration of the resilience of the human spirit and glimmers of hope. It offers us a glimpse of how we might navigate the future despite our collective trauma, how compassion for each other and caring for our communities can see us through.
Jaquira Diaz
PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewThere’s nothing ordinary about Jaquira Díaz’s debut memoir ... Díaz is so focused on the madness in her life that she glosses over the process of how she eventually breaks free from it. We know, by virtue of her writing and publishing this book, and by the few flash-forward details she provides, that she not only survives but thrives: graduating from college, becoming a journalist and a writing teacher. But we never learn when the turning point occurs ... she does save herself, though we don’t get to see her in her moments of greatest triumph ... A skilled writer, Díaz is meticulous in her craft, and on page after page her writing truly sings. Her temporal leaps and switches in tense and point of view make the overall delivery both powerful and complex, although at times the writing feels a little too crafty, her technique underscored, keeping the reader constantly aware of the writer’s presence. Some flash-forwards are jarring and confusing, others feel gratuitous, and keeping track of the chronology becomes a struggle. But perhaps disorientation is necessary to convey the life of this ordinary girl who was forced to grow up too quickly and fend for herself ... This brutally honest coming-of-age story is a painful yet illuminating memoir, a testament to resilience in the face of scarcity, a broken family, substance abuse, sexual assault, mental illness, suicide and violence. It takes courage to write a book like Ordinary Girls, and Díaz does not shy away from her deepest, most troubling truths. She jumps into the writing of her story and gets her hands dirty, her heart broken, her spirit bruised.
