PositiveBookPage... rich ... moving ... offers a memorable portrait of a country that has long been divided between a Christian south and a Muslim north. The vividly rendered wedding weekend is split as well ... The novel is pure sterling when describing the traditional Nigerian celebration ... The climactic wedding in the novel\'s final pages delivers just what readers hope for in terms of surprises, and it\'s well worth the wait. There are no fiddlers on roofs, but old traditions bounce and jolt along to great energy and expense, eventually falling away to herald new traditions as well as a new Destiny.
Rachel Barenbaum
PositiveBookPageAt times, the novel is experimental ... The story could’ve easily been told in graphic form (and indeed, comics play a large part in the story) and would make quite a film ... Atomic Anna ultimately offers a utopian vision of salvation, but it does require slow and careful reading to get there. Big chunks of the novel fit together and then split apart. Hold on tight, as the space-time ride is challenging ... Just as the romance of epic literature is timeless, Atomic Anna’s demonstration of what may be learned about the human heart is also outside of time, and certainly beyond the ordinary.
Xavier Navarro Aquino
PositiveBookPageIn his experimentally structured debut novel, Velorio, Xavier Navarro Aquino makes important points about Puerto Rico, its history as a commonwealth of the United States and the catastrophic aftereffects of Hurricane Maria, which decimated the island in September 2017 ... Velorio is far from immobile, taking readers on a painful journey across the devastated island. Aquino addresses the situation using a wide range of voices and narrative styles. Drama is high as survivors fight to rebuild what they can salvage from the fury of nature and the incompetence of the powers that be ... Amid scenes of carnage and dialogue that incorporates Spanish idioms and Puerto Rican slang, the novel includes large swaths of poetry written by a visionary secondary character named Cheo. Some of the poems are only drafts, unfinished and abandoned. \'It’s my poetry and that’s what keeps us alive,\' he tells the younger gang members. In this way, Velorio pays homage to Nobel Prize-winning Caribbean author Derek Walcott.
