PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewIn cosmetic terms, Huang’s plot needs some light blotting: The novel’s turn into horror feels inevitable and yet still jarring ... Her talents... harmonize most seamlessly when she writes about music, managing the near-impossible feat of crafting descriptions of the compositions that are as airy and adroit as the melodies themselves. And she is at her best when she skewers the narcissistic, corrosive version of self-care that can be mistaken for empowerment.
Ed. by R.O. Kwon and Garth Greenwell
PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewA tweet that’s haunted me (and there are many) is one that reads, \'Most of sex is committing to the bit\' ... I thought of that tweet often while reading Kink ... At times reading Kink felt like having a mirror turned on me. In my reading, I kept thinking: \'What is kink, anyway? Do I participate?\' I put down the book, texted friends, revisited memories. Ultimately, this seems to be the collection’s point: to prompt a revisitation of the transgressive, a consideration, or insertion, of the self ... Some stories, like handcuffs, are sturdier than others. Many are flimsy and ineffective, relying too much on an obvious exchange of power, or keeping the concept of kink on too short a leash. Other people’s dreams are rarely interesting to hear; the same holds true for listening to other people’s kinks, at least in this collection ... Still, stories by Roxane Gay and Brandon Taylor each stayed with me after reading.
Raven Leilani
RaveThe New York Times Book ReviewRaven Leilani’s first novel reads like summer: sentences like ice that crackle or melt into a languorous drip; plot suddenly, wildly flying forward like a bike down a hill ... Leilani has a ruthless knack for the somatic, rendering flesh on paper as alluring and unidealized as it is right next to you ... Strangely, Leilani’s heightened rendering of the tangle that can be one’s early 20s...is what actually lends the novel its acidic verisimilitude ... The relationship between Edie and Rebecca is a living thing with its own heartbeat, and it is here that Leilani is at her most nimble, her writing sinewy and sharp ... it is Edie’s hunger for recognition—more than her desire for self-improvement or the humiliation of heterosexuality or her attempts to wrestle her life into something worth the pain—that colors the novel.
