About Book Marks
Recent Reviews
Leslie Jamison
Rave Cleveland Review of Books The purposeful gaps and Jamison’s withholding give each anecdote its punch. And for Jamison, destruction coexists with beauty. A certain kind of glamor resides not just in possessing a void like the great emptiness—which lends the person who holds it an air of depth, impenetrability, and mystery—but in one’s reaching for destructive, impulsive, or obsessive remedies to fill that void ... The great emptiness inside might be Jamison’s stated fixation, but the fullness outside—observations, contradictions, human nature—compels her in equal measure.
Hilary Mantel
Positive The Cleveland Review of Books What entraps the reader is the deceptive depth of Mantel’s sentences. They might look unassuming, approachable, but don’t take them for granted.
Melissa Chadburn
Rave Bookforum Harrowing debut ... One could very well start a review at the novel’s beginning, mid-femicide, steeped in detritus and death. Or one might start with the novel’s mythological elements. But either approach could risk downplaying the fact that much of the novel dwells in small moments ... The narrative follows a distinctly downward spiral, dizzying and unrelenting ... Chadburn’s descriptions repeat and accumulate, a nauseating thrum of glazed eyes, needles, scabs, and rape—a wrecking numbness of people muddling through, sinking, and suffering.
Mariana Leky tr. Tess Lewis
Positive The Arts Fuse ... warmhearted ... Leky is not staking out new ground with this whimsical love story. What You Can See From Here echoes other novels that spotlight small-town life, peopled by eccentric-but-endearing characters and featuring intergenerational bonds with families made up of both relatives and friends ... Some readers might find passages like these cutesy and cloying, even hokey. Yes, there are some heavy-handed metaphors about vision (see: the optician, the book’s title, etc.) and sentimental bits, particularly when characters recall childhood memories. But there is enough candor and humor, along with a handful of bracingly moody characters, to make Leky’s vision of perpetual love compelling. Of course, that’s because I err on the side of hope.
Michelle Gallen
Rave The Arts Fuse Michelle Gallen’s debut novel, Big Girl, Small Town, has the makings of a screenplay waiting for the right producer. Much of the text unfolds in candid dialogue; the characters are sharply drawn and ready for a casting call ... Gallen’s frank character sketch of Majella is the book’s greatest strength, conveyed through the young woman’s particular sensory navigation of the town’s people and their doings. Big Girl, Small Town‘s language, with its detailed evocation of sound and action, infuses the story’s candid protagonist and the characters around her with life.
Meredith Hall
Rave The Arts Fuse ...the weight of ache and grace that anchors her writing is still firmly lodged, channeled through new characters and their stories ... These details, and others, are tucked deep in Beneficence’s heavy folds. It is a book that lingers and does not read in a single gulp ... Beneficence is cloaked as fiction, but underneath it is an iteration of real-life, unshakable feelings.
Kelli Jo Ford
Positive The Arts Fuse ... [an] engaging composite debut ... The volume’s fluid perspective encourages the generational swirl. ... it also requires that we let the intricate text unfold. At times, our viewfinder has to be adjusted ... Taking the stories together invites us to superimpose how Justine, both a teenage daughter and mother-to-be in the opening chapter, sees her daughter, Reney, and how Reney sees Justine.