About Book Marks
Recent Reviews
Hahrie Han
Rave The New York Times Book Review Poignant ... She is attuned to the subtle and unglamorous work of effecting real change. Her intimacy with her subjects shows in the way she convincingly portrays not just meetings and marches, but quiet family moments and internal wrestling ... A refreshingly complex portrait of an institution and its members on the rocky path to change.
Alex Trebek
Positive Slate As it turns out, Trebek’s genius has never been in his intellect. It’s in his steadiness. If the book slightly tarnishes the image of Trebek that superfans may have constructed in their own minds, it provides something more deeply reassuring to replace it ... As a piece of writing, The Answer Is… goes down easy. Trebek does not pretend the book is a narrative masterwork or an excavation of his psyche ... But for all its breeziness, the memoir does the work of fleshing out a character with whom millions of Americans have spent their evenings since the 1980s ... Trebek writes frankly about the darkness he’s facing: the side effects from chemotherapy, and the conversations with his family about when to stop treatment. But he also seems uncommonly prepared for the end of the game.
Rachael Denhollander
Rave Slate ... rigorous and righteous ... Much more than a personal story of trauma and triumph, Denhollander’s book is an exposé of the institutional suppression of women’s stories and the devaluing of their lives—far beyond the world of gymnastics ... Abuse victims are often asked, directly or obliquely, how they could have let it happen...What Is a Girl Worth? is effectively a book-length narrative dismantling of these toxic premises ... the book captures the dirty diapers, long drives, work wedged into early mornings and late nights, a CNN interview in a bathroom with a towel draped over the toilet tank. Coming forward as a victim isn’t glamorous, Denhollander reminds the reader over and over ... This is not a book about bad guys and good guys. It is a book about systems—and Denhollander has bigger systems in her sights than Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics, although her advocacy has fundamentally changed both.
Ramin Setoodeh
Positive Slate The show treats politics like a soap opera, and blurs the lines between journalism and opinion ... But here’s another way to look at The View. While its daytime rivals peddled paternity-test brawls and soft-focus celebrity interviews, The View was the show that believed that the audience for daytime television—low-income mothers, mostly—could cultivate an interest in politics and policy ... Ladies Who Punch makes both cases, which is exactly right ... Ladies Who Punch is terrifically fun to read. Setoodeh has been reporting on the show for years, and he knows everyone. The book is studded with juicy little scoops, including firing stories, backstage drama[.]
Vicky Ward
Positive Slate \"The most comprehensive collection of Jared and Ivanka’s scandals, missteps, and personality flaws to date. If anyone, anywhere, has reported something negative about \'Javanka,\' Ward has found it ... very much of its genre—which is to say, contemporary White House palace-intrigue reporting ... an Instagram-filter approach to journalism, making allegations both fuzzier and sexier ... Many of Ward’s meatier allegations are drawn from reporting in the New York Times, Vanity Fair, the New Yorker, and New York magazine. This is still a useful service. Kushner’s complex, sprawling scandals have dribbled out in newsprint over the course of many months, so it’s clarifying to have them compiled and summarized in one place, even when the reporting isn’t new ... serves its readers exactly what they are craving ... Anything this delicious comes with an expiration date, and might leave you feeling a little ill afterward. But it’s still helplessly fun to devour.\
Alison Gopnik
Pan The New York Times Book Review Her diagnosis will resonate painfully with anyone trying to raise good humans in a ­relentlessly outcome-obsessed culture ... The middle chapters of The Gardener and the Carpenter are stuffed with absorbing bite-size summaries of similar research, demonstrating children’s intuitive grasp of concepts like probability, reliability and ontology. It’s in teasing out the implications of all this evidence where things get both fuzzy and frustrating ... In the end, Gopnik’s woodworker starts to look more like a straw man.
Courtney Jung
Positive The Wall Street Journal Ms. Jung defines 'lactivism' as 'compulsory breastfeeding, breastfeeding as a moral crusade, and breastfeeding as a means of distinguishing good from bad parents.' She didn’t invent the term, but she is adept at describing it, particularly the way that privileged white women have turned breast-feeding into yet another arena for maternal one-upmanship. More important, she makes a provocative case that its benefits have been drastically oversold.
Carrie Brownstein
Pan The Washington Post Throughout, Brownstein is refreshingly un-rock-and-roll. At times, that thoroughgoing decency might frustrate readers...In fact, she hovers at a remove from large swaths of her own story, which can make for a flat reading experience.