RaveShelf AwarenessLaPointe delivers a cutting, artful thrashing of settler colonialism and a sensitive exploration of ways of healing and forging space for community and connection through storytelling ... Via written word and grounded journeys, she honors ancestors who have modeled ways to heal, love, preserve stories and language and leave legacies ... LaPointe\'s intimate prose is introspective, raging and funny. Vivid details mark salient memories of falling in love, navigating conflict and asserting value ... reducing Red Paint to a story of resilience does a disservice to LaPointe\'s nuanced offering: meditations on self and legacy, thoughts on the urgency of listening and representation, and a model for creating space to connect across communities inherited and created.
Ly Tran
RaveShelf Awareness... phenomenal ... [Tran\'s] vivid, unadorned narration yields a painful but powerful exploration of the struggle to find a sense of self within a family at the cross-section of cultures, and Tran\'s story is impossible to forget ... is itself like an altar--a tribute, built piece by painful piece, cloaked in love ... At its core, House of Sticks is a tribute to her parents, an exercise in mercy, powerfully wrought. Tran\'s courageous telling offers a vision of the myriad fragile and beautiful ways one can build a sense of home and belonging with love as a foundation--one that is, despite the way it might look or feel at times, sturdy.
Marcus J. Moore
RaveShelf Awareness... a thoroughly engaging, enlightening portrait not just of celebrated rapper Kendrick Lamar\'s life and music...but more broadly of Lamar\'s indelible stamp on contemporary musical landscapes and popular culture ... Ultimately, The Butterfly Effect is more than an interesting biography: it\'s an investigation into what art can encapsulate and what kinds of change it can effect. And as Moore himself skillfully demonstrates, Lamar\'s contribution is worth celebrating, worth study, worth the flowers now.
Susannah Cahalan
RaveShelf Awareness... a fascinating, nuanced and engrossing journey to better understand the study that led so many in a field to question whether it really understood itself. Cahalan researched The Great Pretender over the course of five years, but the pages practically turn themselves. It\'s absorbing, sometimes sobering, sometimes seriously funny. Cahalan\'s narration makes the reading great fun, with an urgency occasionally akin to a thriller ... a multifaceted portrait of a study that, no matter its complications, fundamentally shook the foundations of psychiatry ... She raises more questions than answers, but along the way Cahalan helps us learn how to ask better questions about what madness is, how we should name it and how we might better care for those it afflicts.
Boris Fishman
PositiveShelf AwarenessIt\'s easy to feel at home in Fishman\'s writing; it\'s warm, reflective and frequently funny. His relationships with his grandfather Arkady, and Arkady\'s Ukranian home aide Oksana, are particularly compelling ... Food anchors the memoir, but the recipes are the proverbial icing on the cake. The real meat of this story is its characters and the love that binds them ... This rich, memorable exploration of immigrant identity, culture clash and Soviet cuisine will linger long after the book has been closed or the last of the dishes within have been served.
Blythe Roberson
RaveShelf AwarenessIn this collection of musings, quips and reflections, Roberson invites readers into an inner monologue, much of which could pull double duty as a stand-up routine ... it\'s hilarious ... it\'s not surprising that How to Date Men When You Hate Men is both funny and smart ... Roberson offers more of her original takes on love and her own forays into it than actual instructions for a successful dating life--but the instructions that she does sprinkle throughout make for great fun ... Ultimately, it might not make readers more equipped for dating, but Roberson will certainly make them laugh—and think.
Ann Hood
PositiveShelf AwarenessEnter a new classic ... Hood\'s prose packs a wallop ... should appeal to fans of M.F.K. Fisher, with essays and recipes for readers seeking nourishment both culinary and literary ... So many moments and meals in Kitchen Yarns shine [.]
Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall
RaveShelf AwarenessFans of Mary Roach will delight in Bishop-Stall\'s similar knack for collecting stories and anecdotes from a quirky cast of experts, as well as his similar proclivity for fascinating tangents ... a world tour of a party ... Reading Hungover is akin to watching The Hangover, a film Bishop-Stall mentions often. His sense of adventure and one-liners make for a similarly uproarious ride. His exploits are, not surprisingly, funnier observed than experienced. Bishop-Stall spent the better part of a decade on Hungover, and it shows; the work is expansive, beautifully wrought, occasionally sensitive and, at times, unwieldy. Yet it works. It\'s long, but it\'s an engaging journey that comes with the option to take a sip and a break instead of jumping in all the way. It might most responsibly be enjoyed with a tall glass of water, but, more fittingly, a martini--shaken.
Michael Diamond
RaveShelf Awareness\"Here, Michael \'Mike D\' Diamond and Adam \'AD-ROCK\' Horovitz construct a monster compendium more akin to a work of art than a memoir: colorful essays penned by Diamond and Horovitz, heaps of photos, illustrations, lyrics, a graphic novel, playlists upon playlists and much more ... Humor and humility suffuse the collection ... Beastie Boys Book is a fitting tribute to Yauch and to a band that even after decades still looms larger than life.\
Lidia Matticchio Bastianich
RaveShelf Awareness\"In her inspiring, vividly detailed memoir My American Dream: A Life of Love, Family, and Food, Bastianich explores how that came to be ... Her legions of fans know her as warm and effusive, and My American Dream is no different. Wisdom peppers her reflections on her life, infused with deep love for family and country--and food, too.\
