About Book Marks
Recent Reviews
Paul French
Rave The New York Times Book Review French’s book — beautifully told through meticulous historical research and examination of contemporary literature and film — gives the reader a vivid picture of what China must have been like for an American expat in the 1920s, and in fact tells a more interesting story.
Olga Ravn, trans. by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell
Positive The New York Times Book Review Time is nonlinear. The novel is fragmentary ... This collage could be frustrating — a stylish evasion of plot or character. Instead, it is exactly right, capturing the overwhelming disorientation of early motherhood ... There are moments when My Work is long-winded and needlessly repetitive. But these are forgivable flaws, given the rare skill with which Ravn dramatizes the psychic commotion of motherhood.
Vanessa Schneider, trans. by Molly Ringwald
Rave The New York Times Book Review A slender memoir composed in second person, directly addressed to the actress and elegantly translated from the French by Molly Ringwald ... This memoir is written with a rare sense of intimacy and devotion. It warmly captures the highlights of Maria Schneider’s life ... Unsparing ... In this post-#MeToo era, Vanessa Schneider’s evenhanded portrayal of this daring actress of the 1970s is a refreshing one. For once, a young woman is not placed on an impossibly high pedestal, where she is unfairly worshiped for her beauty and then cruelly defiled for our entertainment. Instead, Maria Schneider is presented with both her faults and her charms. In that way, this is a generous account of a rare and complicated cinematic star.
Simon Han
Positive The New York Times Book Review This novel reminds us what it’s like navigating a foreign country: Connections feel frayed, self-doubt proliferates, the immigrant is never sure what is normal and what isn’t ... There’s much to admire in this debut novel. Simon Han’s voice embodies the monotony of feeling out of place, of realizing that life continues to roll forward, even if all you experience is inertia. To survive this kind of discord, the Chengs must first overcome their sense of alienation—from one another and from white America—and allow room for forgiveness.
Emma Cline
Mixed The New Republic Evie’s experience with Russell and Suzanne is so rare that the novel can’t stand as an exemplary examination of female adolescence. Cline is writing more about the lingering effects of trauma than the sexual chaos of the counterculture movement. Although this makes the novel’s historical details and fixation on the Manson cult feel more artificial than inspired—like cheap props in a play—it does create room for something new...Cline has an ear for the barbed and baiting way girls speak to each other. Her dialogue is casual but convincing. Elsewhere, though, Cline’s metaphors land heavily, and don’t help to show the world the way Evie might actually see it.