Michael Cart
Recent Reviews
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.
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.