RavePop MattersThrough its women\'s language, the novel is a sumptuous feast of Vietnamese folklore and proverbs which chuckle with grim humor of a people forged by joy in the face of struggle ... Through her characters\' voices, Mai\'s is direct and urgent in her anti-war beliefs ... It could be said that The Mountains Sing\'s single flaw is that Grandmother Dieu Lan is just too perfect. However, this misunderstands the novel\'s mode as part family saga, part eulogy. The granddaughter\'s veneration of her grandmother is culturally bound ... True, Mai\'s novel lacks the intrigue and the restless struggle for identity that makes Viet Than Nguyen\'s works so page-grippingly tumultuous. But Mai\'s work offers us something equally significant. Despite the famines, the bombings, and executions, The Mountains Sing maintains a sense of the sublime on every page. Mai\'s gentle prose always comes back to Grandma Dieu Lan\'s enduring harmony with the land, her history, and all of humankind.
Alison McGhee
MixedPopMattersThough Mallie is able to wrest herself away from a dour William T., the narrative isn\'t. McGhee weds herself unnecessarily to chapters alternating between Mallie and William T., despite his blandness. The character is difficult to enjoy because of his lack of definition outside of his relationship with Mallie. To get over obsessing with Mallie\'s unexpected recovery and subsequent flight, William T. develops a hobby; but these repetitive scenes read out-of-character ... repeated phrases...[make] the book\'s music skip like a scratched disc. The choice to have William T.\'s moniker repeated each time he\'s mentioned by every character is further evidence of this. As is particularly true with the \'dark bird\' motif, the recurring visuals become opaque with overuse. Finally, the narrative\'s efforts at suspense rely too heavily on the author withholding information. Consequently, the characters are unrealistically reticent ... the withholding of information—particularly in the opening third— exasperates a reader\'s patience. Despite these issues, The Opposite of Fate is a timely work and not only because abortion rights, even in instances of rape, are under national threat. The novel feels bleak in the ways one expects small communities across America to feel in our zeitgeist, the broken bonds of family and societal fallout leading to odd congealing of friendships where people find belonging and significance.
Jeanine Cummins
PositivePopMattersGuided by her imagination and voluminous research, Cummins\' steely prose delivers humanizing depictions of the major players involved: the members of Mexico\'s shrinking bourgeois, the campesinos, the coyote, the low-level narco, la migra, the gawking gringos, borderland vigilantes, and even the drug lord at the root of the problem ... While media outlets and politicians caricaturize or overlook members of these groups, Cummins uncovers complexities in her characters and fathoms the unfathomable devastation they endure while questing for a better life on American soil ... Even when lyrical, Cummins sentences are quick, effective, and pregnant with meaning ... Critics target the obvious: Cummins\' ethnicity ... Though her perspective is sweeping, it\'s worth noting that Cummins is just one novelist. She can\'t be expected to capture each heart-rendering story in a continental migration. The teeth-gnashing that has come out against American Dirt has an important truth behind it that should be heeded by publishers and readers. A panoply of writers is needed to capture the many facets of this current event of Central American migration—a dark diamond that can reflect the best and worst of humanity.
Ta-Nehisi Coates
PositivePopMatters... an accessible, intelligent work ... Coates builds upon recent and traditional African American literature while succeeding in mixing genre. He stays loyal to his characters and through evocative language, utilizes genre elements to elevate his key themes ... Coates uses a poet\'s prowess to invent a lexicon of proper nouns that recast the slave narrative ... These terms not only delineate Coates\' universe in a memorable way; they are pregnant with thematic meaning and reinvigorate a discourse that has become familiar, and perhaps evening tiring, to some Americans ... Compared with other contemporary novelists who use alternative forms and multiple points of view, Coates\' toolbox might seem small. But through Hiram and his adventures, Coates uncovers an uncomfortably clear looking glass for America\'s history and current time ... Coates doesn\'t preach or condemn, but entertains and informs, illuminating the African folklore that shaped early African American life in which culture proliferated despite bondage ... lacks Morrison\'s inventive leaps in time that keeps us riveted, as if we\'re watching a piece of performance art. Coates writes long, giving us play by plays of Hiram\'s days where a more seasoned novelist might have summarized or omitted some of the over 400-page narrative. In addition, the characters all seem to know Hiram is the main character; they offer him unsolicited advice or information and confirm things he was just thinking, rendering portions of the dialogue to read more like a roleplaying game. But whereas Morrison\'s Song of Solomon core image is doomed flight, The Water Dancer soars as a triumph as readers piece together Hiram\'s lost memories and discover how he learns to dance.
