PositiveThe Washington PostThere is much to admire in the way Dektar delves headlong into this delayed adolescence ... It’s a riveting thing, desire; The Absolutes asks you to consider what matters more: the moment the stone is dropped into the pool or the ripples that spread across the surface long after the stone has sunk out of sight. Either answer could be right.
K Patrick
RaveThe New York Times Book Review\"In Mrs. S, the debut novel by the Glasgow author K. Patrick, bodies exist as a site of ongoing construction. Perhaps this is because our protagonist does not know how she feels about the particular body that she inhabits. And the questions that crop up because of that unknowing make for an entirely captivating read ... In due course the novel offers a steamy love story, and Patrick proves to be a deft hand at the erotic ... I could wax on about the sensuality of Patrick’s narrative, how sometimes loneliness means gazing deeply into the well of your own self, wondering at the stranger who’s reflected back. But I’d rather leave it with the unanswered question. Change comes for us all, and that’s a beautiful, awesome thing. Save the knowledge for later.\
Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
RaveThe New York Times Book Review... language, when wielded in expert hands, can thrive in mystery, outside of linearity ... There is much to love here. The pacing of the work, with its often fragmentary form, allows readers to sit with poignant moments for a beat, unpacking a sentence only to return later to unpack it again. Other sections slide past more quickly, thoughts rubbing up against one another in wild streams of consciousness. The larger, denser segments allow uninterrupted access to Sycamore’s thoughts as she navigates the complex (and occasionally conflicting) intimacies that construct her life: connections to illness, to art, to gender, to friends and lovers ... Sycamore moves fluidly through timelines ... A rich tapestry of images, tethered by rigorous self-examinations ... There are no questions answered in this book. Instead, questions create further questions, further attempts at rediscovery and at blurring boundaries. Hers is a welcome blurring and, in a culture of relentless demarcation, a necessary one.
