RavePloughsharesHjorth does not pretend to offer a reliable narrator telling the facts exactly as they happened—memory overwhelms the present, fact and fiction blur, and we can sense the past closing in on Johanna just as she closes in on her mother ... Hjorth has masterfully written a family drama where no reunion takes place and a thriller where no blood is shed. Hjorth’s prose keeps us on edge, puncturing breathless sentences that stretch to half a page with four-word questions that undercut everything she previously said. There is a sense of inescapable claustrophobia ... leaves the reader so fully enveloped in Johanna’s mind that it is as if we are there, shivering in the Norwegian winter with her. I found myself calling my mom when I finished the last page, asking for a recipe she used to make when I was growing up, a recipe I was suddenly craving.
Erin Swan
PositivePloughsharesEven through the lens of one family line, Swan’s novel is an ambitious undertaking—the end of our world and the creation of a new one—and it felt, at times, like Swan had to rush to fit it in under four hundred pages. The frequent time jumps were often jarring: as soon as I found my bearings in one chapter, we were jolted into the next, with new people to care about and new rules to follow ... And yet, Swan creates characters so fully lived in, with such detail and heart, that I would have read more if given the chance. As it is, I read the entire book in three days, gripped by the story.
Jennifer Niesslein
PositiveBroad Street Review... candid and thoughtful ... I appreciate Niesslein’s candor and willingness to take on such deeply rooted American problems, but her commentary at times falls short of revelatory ... In \'Mighty White of Me,\' she admits to her past complacency and ends her commentary with a list of the ways she is now engaged in the fight against white supremacy. It’s reminiscent of a confessional Facebook post, or the shallow calls to wear a \'pink pussy\' hat in protest of Trump’s election—well-meaning, yet performative. But the true strength of Niesslein’s collection does not lie in her racial or political commentary, but rather in her deeply personal and lovingly written ruminations on her own memories.
