RaveBookPageThis wise, deeply felt work delves into profound grief and emerges with meaning.
RaveBookPageWhile her peers’ work may be politically relevant, irreverent, highbrow and entertaining, Cash takes things one step further: Lost Lambs has all those qualities, and also a heart.
RaveBookPageWashington has again proven himself to be a genius of feeling, a writer who resuscitates our hearts with every word.
RaveBookPageTold primarily through the perspectives of Priscilla and Diamond. Giving these two voices the main stage allows Citchens to reveal not only the subjugation of women under patriarchy but also the seductive power of masculinity when it is bound up in holiness.
RaveBookPageBoggs’ descriptions of Baldwin and his life are beautiful and incisive ... Suggests that we can endure suffering and bear witness to the pain of our world because Baldwin lived and wrote and loved.
RaveBookPageAn exciting entry into the internet novel lineage, one that succeeds in replicating the feeling of living, loving and majorly losing online ... The perfect conceit for a novel ... The success of Hot Girls With Balls comes from the delicate yet hilarious ways in which Nguyen deals with contemporary issues ... If this sounds like a heavy premise to some readers, they’ll be happy to find that Nguyen’s internet slang-laden prose inverts all of this pressure, highlighting the absurdity of societal biases and making fun of those who hate while secretly fetishizing the people they claim to loathe ... The heart of this novel is a love story that shows the humanity behind the image.
PositiveBookPageThe most engaging part of Gabriele is the Berests’ prose: Early on, the authors note that they will be telling the story in the present tense, to capture the feeling and energy of their great-grandmother. The result is a historical novel unlike any other.
RaveBookPageBrilliant, mind-blowing ... Peters’ vision is one where gender roles are never stagnant, and the world is made new by queerness.
PositiveBookPageAs Cherry struggles to be a true artist and find love, Arnett’s prose perfectly blends the tragedy and humor of life, leaving readers alternately gut-punched with grief and bursting with laughter.
RaveBookPage\"a brilliant, envelope-pushing memoir that explores how we have sex and why. The answer? It’s fun and feels good! ... To any White superfan (which this reviewer is), The Loves of My Life is a must-read. To those not inducted, this rousing memoir still provides intriguing, fresh ideas about how we connect. Ultimately, pleasure reigns supreme.\
Kate Young
PositiveBookPageA wholehearted, fun exploration of dating and love in the 21st century ... Young’s charming British English pairs with a young millennial’s quirky, anxious interiority for a fun, surprisingly profound read.
Jennine Capó Crucet
PositiveBookPageThere is something quixotic in watching Izzy spin himself and those around him into remakes of culture, but this, too, is true about the immigrant experience, which Capó Crucet details with breathtaking precision ... [Capó Crucet] also has a rare knack for metanarrative, a skill that allows readers to think about Izzy’s story as a story without ruining its intimacy.
Amor Towles
PositiveBookPageEngaging, artful ... Towles forces the reader and his characters to address these questions, and the answers you find in this book will move you.
Isabel Waidner
RaveBookPage\"The plot toes the line of ridiculousness in a truly masterful way, never ceasing to surprise, and Waidner’s ultramodern language, a mix of the Queen’s English and Tumblr-speak, results in some strangely beautiful sentences. All the while, the characters are developed in subtle, touching ways. For example, in a socially awkward, quintessentially millennial moment of tenderness, Corey expresses that they would be utterly lost without Drew, who has stood by them throughout their flailing career as a writer. Corey Fah Does Social Mobility is a flashy, punchy whirlwind: Waidner has caught lightning in a bottle.\
Hisham Matar
RaveBookPageThis scintillating novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author is filled with equal parts history and fiction ... Flows quickly and vividly ... Readers are sure to be touched, coming to a deeper understanding of friendship, nation and home.
Justin Torres
RaveBookPageBrings together several strands of both Latin American and queer literature, making for a moving metatextual conversation ... Manner is something like a way of being and acting, a way of holding memory, and Blackouts limns it intimately, in all its cultural and geographical insanity. Juan and nene see each other, they come together and they bring us with them.
Novuyo Rosa Tshuma
PositiveBookPageTshuma writes beautifully about the stars and the people who watch them, mixing poetic prose with tangibly emotional descriptions ... Allows readers to uncover new ideas and emotions well into the book. Between Athandwa’s desire to follow her father, the rejection she faces from American society and the distressing backdrop of a war-torn Zimbabwe, this book re-creates an intricate web of immigrant life. Tshuma traces multiple stories of family, immigration and self-discovery into a thrilling and beautiful constellation.
Héctor Tobar
RaveBookPagesing both his own personal narrative and testimonies from a rainbow of people of color (not just Latinx folks), Tobar manages to capture the breadth of Latinidad (i.e., the diaspora of Latinx peoples) in the United States and beyond. With moving passages about triumph in the face of adversity, tragic stories of those lost to brutality and a scathing critique of U.S. immigration policy, this book is a call to action, the first step in a redefinition of that elusive word, Latino, and an important piece in a more complete picture of humanity.
Edmund White
RaveBookPageAn outrageous, tender novel that complicates contemporary ideas of what traditional, \'appropriate\' desires and relationships look like ... White forces readers to become intimate with what they might otherwise denounce ... White keeps his journey engaging, hilarious and moving throughout ... This novel is as mischievous as it is thought-provoking. It is Edmund White at his very best.
Esther Yi
RaveBookPageYi speaks to some of the most pressing ideas in today’s culture with wit and grace ... Yi explores how gender discrimination and racism (particularly fetishization) can be the outcome of such constructed realities, as characters repeat Korean stereotypes and parrot a culture they have no real link to ... Y/N is one of the most daring novels of the year. Yi has set a new standard for internet-influenced literature by showing that online and literary narratives exist hand in hand, creating the world with every word.
