About Book Marks
Michael Cart
Recent Reviews
Lisa Selin Davis
Positive Booklist ... fascinating ... Though sometimes a bit wonky (look for words like androstenedione, neuroimaging, androphilic), the book is always well written and accessible, and interest never flags, even when the dive into the subject is at its deepest ... Interspersed throughout are accounts of actual tomboys, humanizing the text. The conclusion is clear: tomboys rule!
Roberto Saviano, tr. Antony Shugaar
Mixed Booklist While its plot is compelling, there are problems with Savage Kiss: it seems to contain more characters than War and Peace ... The style can be a bit perfervid, too, and the ending is predictable; but, nevertheless, fans of Saviano’s earlier work won’t want to miss it.
John Woods
Positive Booklist Amy tells her fraught story in her own first-person voice, while a second story—that of a local police officer—is told in third person. The officer, a monster of a man, becomes involved in Amy’s life in a surprising way. Woods’ accomplished but very dark novel about a town where violence is epidemic is an extended exercise in a kind of nihilism. It is unsettling and invites long thoughts about the world Amy inhabits.
Héctor Tobar
Rave Booklist The vividly realized particulars of his restless journeys are offered in Tobar’s remarkable novelization of Sanderson’s real life, his adventures and misadventures ... inarguably a great novel, a tribute to him that is beautifully written and spectacularly imagined. Tobar writes that it took him 11 years to complete this wonderful book. Readers will rejoice that he persisted.
Alan Mikhail
Positive Booklist ... richly detailed, epic ... The book is notable for its revisionist views of the role of Islam and the empire in defining and shaping the New World. Though certainly recommended for public libraries, God’s Shadow will probably find a largely academic, rather than a general, readership, although history buffs will doubtless enjoy its challenges and rewards.
Melissa Faliveno
Positive Booklist In \'Motherland,\' arguably the best essay in the book, she writes affectingly about, yes, mothers but also about family—birth and chosen—and the grief that seems endemic to the women in her family. Together, the essays offer a full-dress portrait of a writer whom most readers will be intrigued to know.
Daisy Johnson
Rave Booklist Johnson’s character-driven novel is told, in part, in July’s first-person voice, and, in part, from the third-person viewpoint of their mother, Sheela. Their relentlessly dark, very interior stories move backward and forward in time and, as the novel proceeds, become ever more fevered and seemingly, almost suffocatingly, unmoored from reality. The story is beautifully written, the characters expertly drawn, as is the setting, the house becoming a character in itself. A memorable and haunting novel.
James Wade
Positive Booklist ... [an] often-somber first novel ... Although sometimes a bit ponderous in its philosophizing, the novel is nevertheless accomplished, haunting, and satisfying.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez
Positive Booklist ... fascinating ... Sure to be controversial, the author’s closely reasoned argument is thoughtful and thought provoking.
Eric Cervini
Rave Booklist His is a fascinating story, and Cervini does it more than ample justice in this insightful, meticulously detailed book. He has clearly done a remarkable job of research, creating an absolutely indispensable, highly readable work of history that belongs in every library.
Meredith Talusan
Rave Booklist Her carefully detailed story is notable for its introspection...and emotional depth. The account of her earlier life as a man and her decision to become a woman—including reassignment surgery—is psychologically acute, enlightening, and occasionally heartbreaking as her decision to transition spelled the end of her relationship with the man she loved. Fairest is a welcome addition to transgender literature.
Amy Jo Burns
Rave Booklist ...[a] gorgeously written, plot-rich novel that examines the complex lives of...five beautifully realized characters. The novel is, of course, about what happens to them, but it is also about the lives of women and their fraught relations with men; being set in Appalachia, it is no surprise that the novel is also about story and its gradual morphing into legend. The tone of the novel is melancholy, and things happen that exacerbate that mood, but everything is perfectly apposite. This memorable first novel is exceptional in its power and imagination. It’s clearly a must-read.
Phuc Tran
Rave Booklist ... affecting, deeply felt ... [Tran] writes movingly about his struggle for acceptance and his two-pronged attack to achieve assimilation ... A clever conceit, in this connection, is his naming each chapter with the title of a great book and then finding a parallel with his life in each. The result is a compelling story of an outsider discovering himself and a world where he fit in.
Celia Laskey
Positive Booklist At turns melancholy, bittersweet, and even buoyant, the stories constitute a kind of queer, twenty-first-century Our Town that, in this revisionist exercise, is deeply satisfying. A fine first novel.
Dennis E. Staples
Positive Booklist Staples’ first novel is an arresting look at the intersection of past and present. Himself an Ojibwe, Staples writes with authority about his characters and setting. If his novel has a failing, it is that his female characters are often little more than names, leading to confusion in the flashbacks, but otherwise this is an auspicious debut with a memorable protagonist.
Dennis Baron
Positive Booklist If it is true, as Baron declares, that \'Pronouns are suddenly sexy,\' then his nearly 300 pages devoted to that part of speech must be X-rated! But, alas, there’s nothing especially titillating here ... While he gives attention to current circumstances, he spends more time on a deep dive all the way back to the first English grammars of the seventeenth century, evidencing that his quest is hardly new. He doesn’t limit his search to history, however; he eventually turns his attention to the political controversies that have brought pronouns into the limelight, ending his search with the declaration that the missing word is (drumroll, please) the singular they. He concludes with a flourish: an überambitious, 58-page chronology of gender-neutral and nonbinary pronouns. Esoteric? Yes, but catnip for the grammarian, especially the culturally and politically conscious variety.
Christopher Bollen
Rave Booklist A compelling read with appealing characters, Bollen’s novel is deftly paced and plotted with a beautifully realized setting that brings Venice to vivid life. The result is a treat for both crime-fiction fans and armchair travelers.
Deepa Anappara
Positive Booklist The author has done an excellent job of telling her sometimes sad story in Jai’s credible nine-year-old voice, and her treatment of her setting, with its ingrained social inequities, is a model of verisimilitude. Best, however, is her characterization, especially that of Jai, who comes to life on the page to live on in readers’ memories.
John Green
Rave Booklist Writing about kids with cancer is an invitation to sentimentality and pathos—or worse, in unskilled hands, bathos. Happily, Green is able to transcend such pitfalls in his best and most ambitious novel to date. Beautifully conceived and executed, this story artfully examines the largest possible considerations—life, love, and death—with sensitivity, intelligence, honesty, and integrity. In the process, Green shows his readers what it is like to live with cancer, sometimes no more than a breath or a heartbeat away from death. But it is life that Green spiritedly celebrates here, even while acknowledging its pain. In its every aspect, this novel is a triumph.
Lars Iyer
Rave Booklist How closely fictional Nietzsche is meant to resemble the real thing is moot except for the fact that the fictional one has gone off his meds. Uh-oh. Some readers may find the often-allusive book too clever by half; others will delight in its wit. In either case, the book is a model of originality. Clever, indeed.
Ursula K Le Guin
Rave Booklist ... [a] collection of (for the most part) previously published talks, essays, book introductions, and reviews. Together, they put the lie to her assertion that \'I seldom have as much pleasure in reading nonfiction as I do in a poem or a story.\' For these examples of her own nonfiction are, for her readers, an undivided pleasure. Part of that pleasure derives from the investment of energy they demand from the reader ... Finally, what she says of poetry—\'Its primary job is simply to find the words that give it its right, true shape\'—might well be said of all the shapely pieces in this generous, edifying, and invaluable collection.
Evan James
Positive Booklist ... [James] makes notes aplenty, even about the most quotidian moments (throwing his back out) but hardly at breakneck speed; his pace is more sedate, proceeding well within the literary speed limit. A peripatetic sort, he sets his essays in such disparate places as New Zealand, Bali, and Spain, with the latter the setting for arguably the finest piece in the collection, which recounts a sojourn at the age of 19 searching for independence. Perhaps he has been wrong before, but in this fine collection he is inarguably right.
Brian Doyle
Rave Booklist The late Doyle called the contents of this generous, posthumous collection essays although they have the rhythm of poems and the lyricism of songs ... Doyle was a wonderful stylist, obviously in love with series and adjectives ... Although love, he says, \'is our greatest and hardest work,\' he is generous, almost profligate in filling his work with it, especially when it is targeted at his children, who are small miracles because he and his wife were told that they couldn’t have children but proved the doctor wrong. The book concludes with a piece called \'A Last Prayer\'—appropriately one of gratitude, for readers will be equally grateful for this lovely book and its beautiful contents.
Angie Thomas
Rave Booklist Thomas’ debut, both a searing indictment of injustice and a clear-eyed, dramatic examination of the complexities of race in America, invites deep thoughts about our social fabric, ethics, morality, and justice. Beautifully written in Starr’s authentic first-person voice, this is a marvel of verisimilitude as it insightfully examines two worlds in collision. An inarguably important book that demands the widest possible readership.
Allen Eskens
Positive Booklist Eskens does an excellent job of weaving these disparate threads together into a fine blend of mystery and coming-of-age novel. The setting is spot-on, the characters are empathetic and well realized, and the plot is clever and compelling, building suspense until a harrowing denouement reveals all.
Jack Miles
Rave Booklist This is an exceptional work that challenges and rewards careful reading and thought. It belongs in every library.
Eleanor Fitzsimons
Rave Booklist Fitzsimmons has done prodigious research to bring [Nesbit\'s] story to vibrant life. Indeed, it sometimes seems that she is offering a day-to-day account of Nesbit’s life, with her work taking a back seat. Fortunately, the life is interesting enough to fill this large, minutely detailed, well-written biography ... As an author, she was one of a kind, and Fitzsimmons makes a compelling case for her stature as an important writer. This biography is long overdue.
André Aciman
Positive Booklist Call Me By Your Name was widely praised for its treatment of the nature of love, a theme that Find Me continues with subtlety and grace. Its treatment of the characters’ psychology is astute and insightful, but what will ultimately drive reader interest is the question of whether star-crossed lovers Elio and Oliver will reunite. One can only hope.
William Kent Krueger
Rave Booklist ...a deeply satisfying odyssey, a quest in search of self and home. Richly imagined and exceptionally well plotted and written, the novel is, most of all, a compelling, often haunting story that will captivate both adult and young adult readers.
Curtis Sittenfeld
Mixed Booklist ...the denouement, like so much else in this first novel, is simply too predictable. Saving the book from formula, however, are some fine writing and assorted shrewd insights into both the psychology of adolescence and the privileged world of a traditional prep school.
Elissa Altman
Positive Booklist Although this is Altman’s memoir, Rita is definitely the star. Readers do learn bits and pieces about the author’s life, but even then it’s through Rita ... Yet in the end, Altman calls her book a love story. And so, in its introspective, psychologically acute way, it is.
Abi Maxwell
Rave Booklist Maxwell has written a deeply satisfying, haunting work of literary fiction. Driven by characters who are uniformly engaging and beautifully realized, it is not to be missed.
Lyz Lenz
Positive Booklist \"[Lyz\'s] thought-provoking examination of all of this is passionate and, despite the death and loss she sometimes finds, ultimately inspiring.
Naomi Wolf
Rave Booklist ... [Wolf\'s] remarkable book is a tour de force of research and insight into Symonds’ life and work and the related evolution of public and state attitudes toward homosexuality. Hers is an essential contribution not only to queer history but also to studies of nineteenth-century culture. It is not to be missed.
Walt Odets
Positive Booklist ...an insightful and thought-provoking book ... While mostly accessible to a general readership, parts of the book remain technical despite the author’s practice of consigning the thorniest of these sections to endnotes. Nevertheless, a luminous humanity shines through, never more so than in the final chapter, the author’s highly empathetic, memorable story of the three men he has loved.
Oscar Cásares
Positive Booklist In this gentle novel, Cásares has done a beautiful job of answering Orly’s questions for the reader, creating a vivid portrait of a boy caught between two worlds. The story is a necessary exercise in empathy at a time when there is too little for the Daniels of the world ... Teens will be moved by this heartfelt story about an intensely timely subject.
Mohammed Hanif
Rave Booklist Hanif’s superb novel, with its elements of magic realism, is told from multiple points of view, principally those of Momo, Ellie, and—in a whimsical touch—Momo’s dog ... Hanif has written a splendidly satirical novel that beautifully captures the absurdity and folly of war and its ineluctable impact on its survivors. At turns funny and heartbreaking, it is a memorable contribution to the literature of conflict.
Brian Jay Jones
Positive Booklist [A] massive, loving biography ... Don’t expect a lot of critical analysis, though. Jones is more interested in straight reportage ... this biography stands as a straightforward record of Geisel’s life and career.
Dustin Lance Black
Rave Booklist ...a consummate storyteller, as he demonstrates in this beautifully written, vastly entertaining, and moving memoir ... Black seems incapable of writing a dull word as he evokes his stirring life and times, ultimately inspiring comity by word and example. His book belongs in every library.
New York Public Library
Positive Booklist [A] generous and eclectic assortment of writings about the historic event ... This significant book does welcome justice to an event that author Edmund White, who wrote the foreword, says sparked \'an oceanic change in thinking.\'
Trent Dalton
Rave Booklist ...[a] marvelous bildungsroman ... There is much more to come in this marvelously plot-rich novel, which—told in Eli’s first-person voice—is filled with beautifully lyric prose ... exceptional.
Jennifer DuBois
Rave Booklist \"A beautifully written, even aphoristic novel, but its greatest strength is its characterization: Semi and his gay friends, Cel and her mother and grandfather, and, of course, the always enigmatic Mattie are brilliantly conceived and, like the novel in which they star, utterly unforgettable.\
Hugh Ryan
Rave Booklist Happily, his new book brings many of those pieces together in a fascinating portrait of gay life in Brooklyn ... A number of celebrated creative types figure prominently, and Ryan gives generous attention to the likes of poets Hart Crane, W. H. Auden, and Marianne Moore ... Bringing them alive again is one of the valuable services Ryan’s fine work contributes to queer history.
Jacob Tobia
Rave Booklist Tobia is a gifted storyteller ... Always thoughtful, Tobia writes extremely well, with insight, lucidity, occasional anger, and, when things get too serious, wit. The result is, hands down, one of the best trans narratives available; it deserves a place in every library.
Alessandro D'Avenia, trans. by Jeremy Parzen
Positive Booklist What Hell Is Not is an examination of the admixture of heaven and hell, of love and hate. Rich in figurative language, which is sometimes heavy-handed, the story is, nevertheless, equally rich in characterization and setting.
Anthony McCarten
Positive Booklist Their stories, based largely on secondary sources in McCarten’s telling, are dramatic and, accordingly, are used in the screenplay (of the same name) the author has written for a motion picture that will debut on Netflix in 2019.
Siddharth Dube
Positive Booklist ...[an] insightful memoir, which is as much about [Dube\'s] work as his personal life, though he writes movingly about his search for love and an enduring relationship, the latter often proving elusive. Readers will find his autobiography memorable and especially valuable as a contribution to the body of AIDS literature.
Chloe Aridjis
Mixed Booklist The critically acclaimed Mexican American author writes stylishly but without drama. A description of Luisa’s mood comes dangerously close to describing the book itself, though it does succeed in painting a portrait of Mexico at the time. Fans of character-driven fiction will find enough to like here, in spite of the relatively immobile story.
Jodie Patterson
Positive Booklist [An] extremely valuable book about family, gender, race, and identity. Patterson has broken the silence, and readers will thank her for it.
Matthew Dennison
Positive Booklist Dennison’s account of all this is sympathetic but honest, psychologically acute and insightful. It is, withal, a sad story but one that Dennison tells extremely well to his and Grahame’s credit.
D. W. Pasulka
Positive Booklist Thought-provoking ... a sober, generally accessible account of research into what she calls \'a new religion, the religion of the UFO event\' ... a hybrid of the lively and the abstruse that will leave many readers enlightened and puzzled in turn.
Gytha Lodge
Positive Booklist A bit anticlimactic, though the story is neatly plotted and nicely atmospheric. And, yes, there is the obligatory, teasing red herring, but the solution to this British import is plausible and eminently satisfying. Encore, please.
Reniqua Allen
Positive Booklist \"Throughout, Allen pursues her own version of the American Dream, finding part of it in home ownership, a career in media, and attaining visibility. Much of her book is, frankly, depressing as she vividly demonstrates the often heartbreaking challenges of being black in contemporary America. Attention must be paid, though, and Allen has done an excellent job of insuring that will happen.\
Natalie Babbitt
Positive Booklist \"... splendid ... Though their subjects vary, the pieces have in common their excellence ... It is children, as well as literature, who capture and hold [Babbitt\'s] attention. She is a stalwart defender of both. As for her work, it speaks, or barks, for itself.\
Elaine Pagels
Rave Booklist Unsparingly honest ... [A] brilliant book, which stimulates intellectual curiosity and thought while giving equal weight to Pagel’s emotional life. It is a felicitous mixture that will excite both those familiar with her work and those for whom this volume will be an intriguing introduction.
Robert Rorke
Rave Booklist Teenage Nicky tells this sad story in his own, often eloquent, first-person voice. Even as his father’s life is devolving, Nicky’s is evolving as he comes of age in this sometimes funny but always melancholy novel. With a vividly realized setting—Brooklyn in the 1970s—the story is sharply written, inviting deep empathy from readers, who will find universal truths in this compelling tale of a single family.
Markus Zusak
Rave Booklist Extraordinary ... Zusak pushes the parameters of YA in this gorgeously written novel ... an unforgettably lovely book.
John Gray
Positive Booklist Always erudite and convincing, Gray is sometimes given to interesting categorical statements ... He is inarguably a reliable guide through a thicket of famous names associated with atheism—Lenin, Marx, Conrad, and Hitler, among them—and he offers solid introductions to the work of lesser-known figures, including Jan Bockelson and Isaac La Peyrère. In addressing his subjects, Gray takes deep dives into history, examining the evolution of ideas in a generally accessible way. A valuable examination of one of the many fascinating junctures where religion and philosophy meet.
Justin Torres
Positive Booklist ...an impressionistic examination of a family of mixed race and ethnicity ... an uncharacteristically operatic, almost melodramatic ending that seems to violate the book’s tone. But be that as it may, Torres is clearly a gifted writer with a special talent for tone and characterization. His novel is a pleasure to read.
Esi Edugyan
Rave Booklist \"The story is memorable not only in its voice but also in its evocation of the horrors of slavery; and it is brilliant, too, in its construction of character. Wash and Titch are so alive as to be unforgettable, as is the story of their tangled relationship. This important novel from the author of the superb Half-Blood Blues (2012) belongs in every library.\
Jon McGregor
Rave Booklist Online McGregor demonstrates an extraordinary ability to create complex, multidimensional characters in only a few spare sentences. He is also a master of mood, investing his stories with an air of the ominous while proving also to be a superb stylist (bees buzz \'fatly\' in foxgloves; \'a baggy flock of crows\' lift from trees). Irresistibly readable, the book is, in sum, a memorable celebration of literary fiction.
Lillian Faderman
Positive Booklist Online Harvey Milk was a complex man,\' Faderman asserts in this exemplary biography, a volume in Yale University Press’ Jewish Lives series. As she points out, Milk tried many \'lives\'—she lists a dozen, ranging from teacher to Wall Street securities analyst, from actor to hippie—before he finally found his calling as a politician ... Faderman pulls no punches in her examination of Milk’s often disastrous private life but puts it in the context of the martyred Milk’s undeniable contribution to the evolution of gay liberation. Concise and beautifully written, Harvey Milk is an invaluable addition to LGBTQ literature.
Samantha Hunt
Positive Booklist Hunt’s fevered, reality-bending first novel is clearly inspired by the 1811 German novel Undine, about a female water spirit who falls in love with a mortal knight ... will she kill her knight with a kiss? Some readers, overburdened by obscure symbols and narrative ambiguity, won’t care. Others, however, will enjoy this fusion of fiction and folklore that is illuminated by flashes of quite fine writing.
Sabaa Tahir
Rave Booklist Online Elias, now the Soul Catcher and urgently needing to heighten his powers, is up to his eyebrows in despairing ghosts and angry jinn. Laia, who loves him, is desperate to foil the world-destroying machinations of the Nightbringer while also saving her people, the Scholars, from destruction ... Meanwhile, wars (and rumors of wars) threaten to bring the empire to its knees ... Tahir has created another compelling story that defies readers to stop turning the pages.
David Chariandy
Rave Booklist The tone of this often melancholy story is elegiac ... The characters are well drawn, and the setting is beautifully realized. The result is a haunting story that will linger in readers’ memories.
Michael Zadoorian
Positive Booklist \"True to its time, there are occasional mini-race riots at school, but they seldom touch him—until they do, with dire consequences. This affectionate, nostalgic novel about a sometimes-troubled teen is a crossover delight with appeal to both adults and teens.\
Lily Bailey
Rave Booklist Bailey is unsparing in her well-written memoir of her struggles with OCD, giving readers an intimate experience of living with the disorder. Her account focuses much-needed light on a condition that demands to be better understood
Piper Weiss
Rave Booklist Online \"Her story is divided between the early nineties and the near present. The true-crime part of her book is significantly more interesting than her report of her own unexceptional life as a well-to-do teen. As a result, this one is strictly for true-crime fans.\
Nick White
Positive Booklist ...the people who populate the stories are worth knowing ... Aside from mood and tone, many of the stories share a commonality in the presence of gay characters and fine, evocative writing ... Ultimately, White’s world is harsh but informed by kinds of love that will touch readers’ hearts.
Rosalie Knecht
Positive Booklist \"...a tangled, atmospheric story that gradually builds suspense to a satisfyingly surprising denouement. Spy-fiction fans will want to take note.\
Arlene Stein
Rave Booklist Part history, part sociology, part group portrait, Stein’s book is an accessible, thoroughly researched, and well-written examination of a circumstance still noted for its complexities, inviting searching discussions of the meanings of gender and masculinity. Happily, Unbound will bring much needed clarity to such discussions.
Robert W. Fieseler
Positive Booklist \"Largely forgotten for many years, this tragedy has now been brought to vivid life by Fieseler, who has done a remarkable job of research in telling the story of an event that would help give rise to the LGBTQ rights movement in New Orleans ... Attention must be paid, and Fieseler has done a laudable job of insuring that it will be. His inspiring account is an important contribution to LGBTQ literature.\
Darnell L. Moore
Rave Booklist This coming-of-age memoir cum meditation is the introspective story of a man in search of self ... dreams die, Moore says, if they are consigned to the imagination only. They are seeds that must be planted for survival. And Moore is a survivor, gradually coming to terms with his homosexuality and finally finding himself in selfless service to others. His story is an inspiration.
Jimmy Carter
Positive Booklist His thoughtful book is replete with quotations from people of faith whose work he admires, people like Reinhold Niebuhr, Søren Kierkegaard, Karl Barth, and others. The insights, however, are all his own. For Carter, the word faith is not only a noun but also a verb, for while he believes that people are saved by grace through faith, and not by works, he nevertheless applauds action inspired by faith.
Sarah McBride
Rave Booklist \"Part autobiography, part advocacy, it succeeds beautifully on both counts ... the book makes a passionate case for universal rights for the LGBTQ community, particularly for those who are its transgender members. But hers is also a highly personal love story of her growing relationship with Andy, another advocate, who was a trans man ... Highly readable and beautifully written, hers is an inarguably important book that deserves the widest possible readership.\
Jennifer Clement
Rave Booklist \"Clement is a brilliant stylist; her figurative language is far more than fine; her metaphors and similes are superb; and together they create a haunting atmosphere—sometimes fey, occasionally whimsical, no stranger to tragedy but always heartfelt and spot-on, as are her beautifully realized, captivating characters. Though sui generis, her work may remind some readers of Flannery O’Connor’s. Always evocative, it is an unforgettable knockout not to be missed.\
Patrick Nathan
Rave Booklist Finally, fleeing the quotidian awfulness of their respective lives, mother and son travel to Los Angeles, where instead of healing, they find only the Apocalypse. If all this sounds melodramatic, in Nathan’s skillful, beautifully written telling, it isn’t. He selects his incidents artfully and—in part by shifting the point of view between [protagonist] Colin and his mother—does a masterful job of creating believable, multidimensional characters about whom the reader cares desperately. And if their ending is heartbreaking, it is artistically inevitable. Nathan’s first novel is beautifully done and promises to linger in the reader’s memory.
Joseph Cassara
Rave Booklist Online Cassara has done a superb job of reimagining a world that will be foreign and even exotic to many readers, while creating fully developed characters to populate it.
Alan Hollinghurst
Rave Booklist Their brilliantly realized milieu is the world of art and literature and, for Evert and Johnny, who are gay, the evolving world of gay society and culture in Britain. Superlatives are made to describe this extraordinary work of fiction; characterization, style, mood, tone, setting—all are equally distinguished. Hollinghurst is especially good at evoking yearning, and, indeed, his novel will inarguably leave his readers yearning for more.
Matt Haig
Rave Booklist \"Haig’s plot is obviously complex, but—a marvel of invention—it is seamlessly presented, telling an absolutely compelling story. It examines large issues—history, time, purpose, and more—but in an engagingly thought-provoking, compulsively readable way. It is, in every way, a triumph not to be missed.\
Caroline Fraser
Rave Booklist \"Richly documented (it contains 85 pages of notes), it is the compelling, beautifully written story of a life whose childhood and early years of marriage were beset by incredible economic privation and disaster: poverty, hunger, fire, blizzards, invasions of locusts, and more, enough to seemingly eclipse the biblical plagues of Egypt ... One of the more interesting aspects of this wonderfully insightful book is its delineation of the fraught relationship between Wilder and her deeply disturbed, often suicidal daughter. But it is its marriage of biography and history—the latter providing such a rich context for the life—that is one of the great strengths of this indispensable book, an unforgettable American story.\
John Green
Rave Booklist ...superb ... Green, a master of deeply felt material, handles all of this with aplomb. With its attention to ideas and trademark introspection, it’s a challenging but richly rewarding read. It is also the most mature of Green’s work to date and deserving of all the accolades that are sure to come its way.
John Boyne
Rave Booklist Boyne, who has a wonderful gift for characterization, does a splendid job of weaving these various lives together in ways that are richly dramatic, sometimes surprising, and always compelling. A vividly realized theme in the novel is the inhumane treatment of homosexuals in Ireland, largely at the behest of the Roman Catholic Church. Accordingly, the fear of being outed will cause Cyril to make some life-changing mistakes that, in context, are altogether plausible. Often quite funny, the story nevertheless has its sadness, sometimes approaching tragedy. Utterly captivating and not to be missed.
Benjamin Taylor
Rave Booklist ...[a] lovely, gorgeously written memoir ... It’s Taylor’s gift to readers to make that past hauntingly real for them, too, without the taint of nostalgia, which, he wisely argues, 'lies.' The truth is that this memoir is an unforgettable sharing of one boy’s life that contains universal truths in a style that demands to be quoted. 'Memory is aesthetic,' he claims, and this book is proof of it.
Jonathan Cott
Rave Booklist ...[a] splendid book ... Fascinating and compellingly readable as all of this is, there remains something ineffable about Sendak’s work, for, yes, when all is said and done, there is a mystery there, one that Cott conveys beautifully.
Lisa Ko
Mixed Booklist Though obviously skillfully written—it’s a winner of the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction—the book can sometimes be difficult to read, thanks to its bleak subject matter, which, nevertheless, is reflective of today’s reality. Those who are interested in closely observed, character-driven fiction will want to leave room for The Leavers on their shelves.
Hannah Lillith Assadi
Positive Booklist Assadi’s first novel is—like Ahlam’s dreams—fevered, fragmented, and impressionistic. Its language is lushly poetic—leaves make 'a shivery melody'—but occasionally strained. Though the novel takes itself very seriously, it will interest those looking for a stylish read.
Rowan Hisayo Buchanan
Mixed Booklist With an unsympathetic protagonist whose actions seem oddly arbitrary, and a mood that ranges from melancholy to dreary, this is a hard book to like, but one can nevertheless admire its artful style and verisimilitude.