Arresting and assured ... If Women and Children First is often bleak, it’s also beautiful. Grabowski is a gorgeously attentive writer. Her precise imagery brings the physical world into acute perspective ... The full complexity of both novel and town emerges as small details in some chapters become central themes in others, figures who appear briefly in early chapters later become main characters, and relationships evolve across chapters.
Kaleidoscopic ... Through her pitch-perfect summoning of this intergenerational female cast, Grabowski explores the fickleness of truth, the fallibility of memory, how difficult it is to really see those closest to us, and how easy it is to betray one another.
Craftily constructed and deeply moving ... Grabowski so deftly depicts the web of relations in this oppressively tight-knit community that it becomes evident how life changes for one character reverberate even for those who would seem outside her sphere of influence.
Each of the book’s first-person sections takes its time, fully immersing us in the dreams of its narrator and how those dreams have been frustrated ... A smart, propulsive novel attentive to the ways community can fall short.
Magnetic ... The ennui of small-town life is perfectly captured in the slice-of-life vignettes, which coalesce into a riveting set of Rashomon-style retellings. Grabowski shows immense promise.
