About Book Marks
Recent Reviews
Kate Hope Day
Positive The Chicago Review of Books ... has the narrative propulsion of a television show, which makes sense because Kate Hope Day is a producer at HBO. In fact, it’s hard to read this book and think of anything but TV. The story is compact and experimental, like the recent Netflix show Russian Doll, and playful in its approach to character, like The Good Place. It features talented, intelligent and (one could imagine) good-looking characters with personal problems, like Grey’s Anatomy — the comparisons could go on and on. If/Then feels fresh for the genre ... Day’s characters are thinly drawn, but her choice to showcase them across multiple realities ultimately fills each one out without sacrificing pace. And, again, this is a book that moves at a steady clip ... Day’s prose is squeaky clean. The sparse style has nothing extra — practically nothing that just adds texture or sets a scene. Ultimately, Day’s goal doesn’t seem to be human drama at all, she sidesteps that tension to favor headier topics like philosophy, aesthetics, and self-actualization. Coupled with the narrative speed, If/Then is a whirlwind of a story that somehow sticks with you.
Samantha Hunt
Rave The Chicago Review of Books If you love strange fiction — Kelly Link, Aimee Bender, Karen Joy Fowler, Karen Russell, Twin Peaks, Stranger Things — Samantha Hunt’s The Dark Dark is a must-read title. This little powerhouse of a story collection is not just a rehashing of the literary weirdness we’ve all come to love, there’s something special about the way it’s put together ... Hunt veers from mundane to odd to unlikely to very improbable so deftly that when the truly impossible finally strikes — in a few but not all of her stories — the reader gets a flash of what the characters might feel: fear and wonder. Intelligent and literary, the collection is so grounded in character and emotion that every level of uncanniness feels organic ... The Dark Dark is a story collection with an organic literary strangeness that is a unique and excellent read.
Bob Proehl
Positive The Chicago Review of Books Proehl’s comic book savvy shines bright. Short, single-scene chapters with playful titles give the story a fun, popcorn vibe. Point-of-view shifts between chapters are seamless as Proehl sticks to third-person. Time moves between chapters like the space between panels in a comic book ... If you’re not already familiar with the comics industry, these references can be a little distracting ... a heartwarming, thought-provoking piece of fiction.
Margaret Wappler
Positive The Chicago Review of Books Thus Wappler uses the spaceship to demonstrate how each family member deals with their frustration and anger. It pulls them apart and brings them together. At times, it’s like Wappler is asking: wouldn’t it be nice to have something physical, sitting in your backyard, that you could blame all your problems on? Cynthia’s illness takes center stage in the second half of the book, and you begin to forget that spaceships aren’t something that actually existed in the 1990s. And although the premise may seem lighthearted and fun at the onset, Wappler doesn’t pull any emotional punches. In the end, it’s a thoughtful, unusual, and challenging family drama.