About Book Marks
Recent Reviews
Haruki Murakami, trans. by Philip Gabriel
Rave Shelf Awareness Mesmerizing ... This confident ambiguity infuses each of the three distinct yet connected sections of The City and Its Uncertain Walls, evoking an uncanny, dreamlike state. For those willing to engage the ambiguities, Murakami\'s latest will not disappoint.
Jo Hamya
Rave Shelf Awareness An impeccable rendering of familiar and familial pain, the hurts those closest can inflict, even when the harm is unintended or goes completely unnoticed.
Joy Williams
Rave Shelf Awareness Impressive ... Concerning the Future of Souls resists any attempt to reduce it to a single thread, and though its slim size makes it possible to consume in a single sitting, that would be a mistake. This is a book to linger over, with more questions than answers, and it is sure to be lauded for its intellectual breadth and masterful control.
Julia Phillips
Rave Shelf Awareness Taut brilliance ... A fast-moving river—smooth on the surface but churning underneath—and sisters Sam and Elena are caught in its inexorable current as they wrestle with conflicting hopes for the future.
Téa Obreht
Rave Shelf Awareness A wildly inventive magician of a writer, every performance new and wonder-inducing, every book a distinctive blend of realism and fantasy.
Elizabeth Gonzalez James
Positive Shelf Awareness Both a page-turner with impeccable pacing and a complicated narrative full of unexpected elements and deeper questions.
Christian Wiman
Rave Shelf Awareness The essays are full of insights on poets like Lucille Clifton or Emily Dickinson, but the poems punctuating those longer entries are the thing. They exceed every expectation, offering light and sound and silence ... An uncommon work from an uncommonly beautiful mind, full of compassion and built of dazzling intellect.
Elaine Feeney
Positive Shelf Awareness Simultaneously quiet and riotous and equal parts light and darkness ... Feeney layers in cutting commentary on gender politics, and the dangers that can lurk in conservative single-sex schools. Employing Jamie\'s unvarnished but occasionally oblivious perspective, Feeney balances direct critique with more subtle implications or questions raised.
Kathryn J. Edin, H. Luke Shaefer, Timothy J. Nelson
Rave Shelf Awareness Every few years, an academic work arrives that transcends genre, combining unparalleled research skills with engaging storytelling. The Injustice of Place: Uncovering the Legacy of Poverty in America is undoubtedly one such book ... A well-researched argument about how the history of a place influences the health and well-being of its people.
Leesa Cross-Smith
Mixed Kirkus Cross-Smith has crafted a dense story of devoted friendship against the backdrop of an overwhelming number of minor characters. The rotating third-person perspective combined with the amount of exposition makes it difficult for a compelling central story to rise to the surface, and once it finally does, the tension is too easily resolved, without the seriousness of violent events ever being fully recognized.
Julia Wertz
Rave Shelf Awareness Wertz perfectly captures the oscillation between wanting to quit drinking and being unable to, a dance familiar to many who struggle with addiction ... Despite these difficult elements, Impossible People is decidedly funny. The book is also uncommonly beautiful ... The contrast between the deceptively simple panels focused on dialogue or relationships and the heavily detailed storefronts and streetscapes is incredibly effective.
Sheila Liming
Rave Shelf Awareness Her writing does not meander; instead, it straddles the line between academic and accessible, ultimately creating a tightly argued, brilliantly written book that will be discussed at the best dinner parties and back porch hangouts ... Hanging Out will impress readers with the way each idea builds on the next, never forced and always human.
Josh Riedel
Positive Shelf Awareness If another close look at a social media startup were all this novel were about, it might not warrant much attention. Thankfully, that\'s not all Riedel is up to ... The book pushes readers to see the ways both art and technology construct and disrupt reality, forcing an examination of every experience, an insistence that humans are always in the process of discovering what is true. These more abstract and infinitely more interesting questions are the heart of Please Report Your Bug Here.
Josh Riedel
Positive Shelf Awareness Inventive ... The book pushes readers to see the ways both art and technology construct and disrupt reality, forcing an examination of every experience, an insistence that humans are always in the process of discovering what is true.
Louise Glück
Positive Shelf Awareness Ever the poet, Glück chooses each word carefully and leaves only the necessary and true on the page, so Marigold and Rose is a decidedly slim volume, but it holds a wealth of insight ... it would be easy for Marigold and Rose to slip into sentimentality. Instead, the simplicity of the subject matter serves to elevate each moment of brilliance. The babies are bathed, they sleep in separate cribs, they learn to drink from a cup--all ordinary moments that are somehow transfigured. Glück suggests that these moments of deep learning in early childhood are accompanied by equally deep interiority ... becomes something more than observations of very young children; it is a reflection on life and learning, time and the passing of time, and always--always--the choosing of just the right words.
Amanda Svensson, trans. by Nichola Smalley
Rave Shelf Awareness ... brilliant ... a sprawling family epic exploring complex questions about the power of one\'s mind and the impact of one\'s choices ... This sharp and expansive novel takes up love, loss, truth and beauty and will challenge readers to decide if they agree when Matilda asserts: \'We\'re all living in different worlds. It\'s up to each of us to decide what form that world takes.\'
Megan Giddings
Rave Shelf Awareness Though The Women Could Fly pushes into unexpected territory, there are many elements that will feel uncomfortably familiar: protests against the continued infringement of the rights of women, people of color and the LGBTQ+ community; the rise of a vocal conservative minority; and, of course, widespread condemnation of witchcraft. But it also champions the power of community, inviting readers to view this society through a lens of hope rather than despair. As Jo follows the instructions laid out in her mother\'s will, readers will be spellbound, willing to overlook the spots where the world-building is uneven. The Women Could Fly, full of imaginative turns, is a timely look at gender roles and societal expectations.
Sayaka Murata tr. Ginny Tapley Takemori
Rave Shelf Awareness ... a series of funhouse mirrors, each story in the collection pushing readers to reconsider what is true, distorting the image so completely as to open the viewer to new and unexpected perspectives ... The dozen stories are uniformly strange but delivered in a straightforward cadence that gives lie to the strangeness. They are also wildly readable, each story turning societal norms on their head and leaving readers wondering if maybe it would make sense to honor the passing of a loved one by preparing and sharing a meal from their remains ... Each story displays a fine-boned architecture, a careful curation of details and paring away of the extraneous. The result is remarkable, the lean force of Murata\'s imagination rippling through each piece ... This, then, is the magic Murata works in Life Ceremony, the impressive way she is able to destabilize a mirrored reflection of humanity, giving back a strange and wonderful truth.
David Yoon
Rave Shelf Awareness Yoon refuses to follow the typical script, taking readers on an often funny and always compelling journey through the mystery man\'s past, an alternative present and the uncertain future ... City of Orange also raises questions about time and money and the stuff humans accumulate, while sharpening the focus on what really matters: family, love and enduring friendships. Despite its dark premise, City of Orange insists on hope and continuity in the face of tragedy.
Kali Fajardo-Anstine
Rave The Nashville Scene ... rejects such simplicity, asking readers to consider the ways the past might move through and around each generation, emerging into the present in complicated ways ... Fajardo-Anstine writes effortlessly stunning sentences, each unspooling to create a rich and engrossing tableau. In fact, Woman of Light is much like the visions Desiderya experiences, plunging readers into an unfamiliar past, one that seems to hold vital truths if only we will see them ... a sprawling and gorgeous exploration of the land we have come from, the past we have failed to acknowledge and the persistence of stories through time and space.
Ada Limón
Rave Shelf Awareness ... nearly 60 poems that run like a river in early spring: serene and musical from a distance but, up close, piercing and boundless and full of unexpected life ... Limón demonstrates her singular skill, drawing on both the natural world and humanity, both broken and beautiful ... Limón\'s poems often perform this kind of sleight of hand, hiding a kernel of pain inside a loosely closed fist. Each time, however, the magician\'s palm opens to reveal not emptiness but peace or light.
Kelly Barnhill
Positive Shelf Awareness ... evocative ... Balancing the story between Alex\'s recollections and historical documents, Barnhill explores the taboos around women and anger, resizing paradigms of choice, freedom and the complicated roles of gender in society.
Tara M. Stringfellow
Positive Chapter 16 Description is Stringfellow’s great gift. Whether describing the house or the city of Memphis, each scene is grounded in its setting. Greater still is the way Stringfellow describes people, especially the women ... Stringfellow repeatedly returns to these tensions, the push-pull between mother and child that proves the countless ways we both comfort and fail our children, asking the question: Is love enough? ... a family tree has its limitations. It cannot show you these unnamed relationships, the ones that hold a person and make her. For that, you need art: giant canvases like the ones Joan paints, or tender and honest narratives like Tara M. Stringfellow’s Memphis.
Hannah Emerson
Rave Shelf Awareness Emerson makes great use of repetition, such as with phrases that spiral in and out of the poems. This signals a certain urgency and makes the tone at once familiar and fresh. The rhythmic quality of each piece is similar, creating a steady pulse throughout the collection. Every poem feels alive with a fierce energy, a force that is balanced by the book\'s design. Each full page of white space grounds readers, creating a stillness within the movement ... This arresting collection is the first in Milkweed\'s Multiverse series, titles written and curated by the neurodivergent. It makes a remarkable statement, both visually and verbally.
Hans Von Trotha tr. Elisabeth Lauffer
Rave Shelf Awareness ... a deceptive 138 pages, possible to read in one sitting but, once read, impossible to stop thinking about ... a quiet and surprising masterpiece set during World War II, certain to make readers think deeply about history, philosophy and art.
Heather Havrilesky
Rave Southern Review of Books A collection of essays on marriage that achieves the impossible ... She walks the tightrope here, unflinching in her appraisal, indulgent in her praise. Somehow, she manages to condemn the restaurant while still convincing you of its tremendous worth. The book is a delight; it is a magic trick. It is also terrifically funny ... Woven through each essay is a chronological reflection on the author’s experience of being a woman, being a girlfriend, then a wife and a mother, none of which is easy ... Havrilesky’s intense candor and the occasional (okay, regular) use of profanity may turn some readers off, but others will find her tone just the right blend of tenderness and irreverence.
Taylor Harris
Rave Southern Review of Books With beautiful sentences and thoughtful descriptions, Harris has built a story of...intersections. She has woven together each shimmering strand: of the depth of her faith and her commitment to family; her struggles with mental health and her triumphs as a mother and as a professional; the mystery of her son’s body and her own and the relevance of their race. She brings these truths together, holding the incongruities and uncertainties in the palm of her hand, helping us all to see. There are parts of her story I can share, and there are parts I can only observe and receive with empathy, and all of them are important additions to any conversation around parenting, race, disability, and health care. Despite all their difficulties, all the hard truths explored, This Boy We Made is a story of hope and the infinitely beautiful possibilities of humanity.