RaveLos Angeles Review of BooksThere’s Always This Year arrives as a masterful trick play draped in love and sincerity, with the poet and essayist using basketball as a conduit to pen a dedication to the place that he’s from, an ode to the sport and city that raised and loved him, and an examination of what it means to “make it” from somewhere ... Embarking upon a dizzying mix of genres within the same work sometimes results in wandering focus and formal meanderings that lead the reader astray into Abdurraqib’s dreamlike musings ... But it’s the vast stretches that he pulls off marrying the tenets of memoir, biography, and criticism with evocative kindness and incisive precision that make it feel as though this was the book that Abdurraqib was destined to write ... Abdurraqib also offers a nuanced line of thought that forces the reader to recontextualize their definition of success in the face of insurmountable pressure ... It hits as though you’re listening to someone you love ramble about the only thing that matters to them ... There’s a large part of you that wants him to stay on this path until he runs out of ink.
Sly Stone
PositiveLos Angeles Review of BooksAn unabashed—and often uneven and frustrating—look at each dark detail and celebratory instance that [Stone] has ever been a part of. Stone’s incredulous retelling of almost every happy accident and dangerous coincidence can make his musings feel like star-studded lucid dreams. But when he turns his lens inward, there comes an intense clarity, with his meditations on his motivations and creative visions manifesting in sustained moments of linguistic brilliance.
