Category: Book Review

Book Review, Criticism, Essay

Rachel Cusk’s Life of M is Less a Takedown of Natalie Portman and More an Illumination of the Hollowness of Celebrity Itself

Throughout the twentieth century and for most of the twenty-first thus far, the quest to become famous has remained a common goal among the starry-eyed and attractive (even if only “by small-town standards”). In fact, one could argue it has for so long been presented as the foremost goal not just because of fame’s erstwhile association with wealth, but because “who wouldn’t want their name … Continue reading Rachel Cusk’s Life of M is Less a Takedown of Natalie Portman and More an Illumination of the Hollowness of Celebrity Itself

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Book Review

Jessica Knoll’s Bright Young Women Puts a Spotlight on the Way Violent and Abusive Men are Not Only Allowed to Keep Getting Away with Literal Murder, But are Essentially Applauded and Falsely Mythologized Afterward

It’s not exactly “earth-shattering” news that, when it comes to serial killers, the American collective has a sick and macabre tendency to “romanticize” them. Not necessarily in what the conventional sense of what that word might mean, but in the sense of giving far more, let’s say, “reverence” and credit to them than they deserve. This, more often than not, comes in the form of … Continue reading Jessica Knoll’s Bright Young Women Puts a Spotlight on the Way Violent and Abusive Men are Not Only Allowed to Keep Getting Away with Literal Murder, But are Essentially Applauded and Falsely Mythologized Afterward

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Book Review, Criticism

Perfection: Not So Much an Attack on Millennials as the Things That Shaped Their Formative Years—In Other Words, the Internet

From the very outset of Vincenzo Latronico’s fourth novel (and the first to be translated to English), Perfection, there is a simmering contempt that’s always waiting to boil to the surface, but never does in quite the direct way one might have ordinarily expected before emotional suppression and passive aggression became de rigeur. A description that can, in effect, describe what it means to be … Continue reading Perfection: Not So Much an Attack on Millennials as the Things That Shaped Their Formative Years—In Other Words, the Internet

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Book Review

Psychosexual Dynamics and Unexpected Self-Discovery Permeate Penny Allen’s This Rescue Thing by Mona la Liseuse

In her latest novel, This Rescue Thing, Penny Allen offers a vivid tale that many literary theorists would call “autofiction,” or a fictionalized autobiography. And this amazing “rescue thing,” full of dramatic intensity and carried out by the narrator, was inspired by certain events of the author’s life in the mid-1990s. It is during this time that the narrator willingly leaves her troubled job in … Continue reading Psychosexual Dynamics and Unexpected Self-Discovery Permeate Penny Allen’s This Rescue Thing by Mona la Liseuse

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Book Review

Getting it Down on the Page, Fearlessly: Madeline McDonnell’s Lonesome Ballroom by Charles Holdefer

Sometimes, an image can perfectly illustrate a narrative while leaving itself open to ambiguities. Think Hester Prynne’s scarlet letter, or Jay Gatsby’s green light. In Madeline McDonnell’s Lonesome Ballroom, the protagonist, Betty Block (née Bird), lives in the shadow of her formidable artist mother, Violet Flowers, whose famous work, The Creation of Violet, is based on an exact replica of Michelangelo’s painting on the ceiling … Continue reading Getting it Down on the Page, Fearlessly: Madeline McDonnell’s Lonesome Ballroom by Charles Holdefer

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Book Review

Curtis Smith’s Deaf Heaven Explores the Hunger for a Moral Compass in an Immoral Society by Charles Holdefer

Politically timely novels in the twenty-first century are largely accidental. The novel business is slow, while the news cycle runs faster and faster. Despite our much-vaunted technical progress, the lag time between signing a book contract and the book’s actual release is longer than it was a generation ago, and compared to previous generations, the pace is glacial. (For instance, despite wartime paper-rationing, George Orwell’s … Continue reading Curtis Smith’s Deaf Heaven Explores the Hunger for a Moral Compass in an Immoral Society by Charles Holdefer

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Book Review

Daniel M. Lavery’s Women’s Hotel Isn’t Just an Ode to a Certain Time, But to the Cast-Offs and Misfits of Society Always Trying to Find a Loophole to Get By

While a famed, glamorous women’s hotel like the Barbizon might allow the romantic mythology of “hotel residence living” in the mid-twentieth century to endure, Daniel M. Lavery’s Women’s Hotel paints such a unique setup and period in history as more Girl, Interrupted than, shall we say, Gossip Girl. The “women’s hotel” of Lavery’s imagination is called the Biedermeier, and it knows that it’s “beta” at … Continue reading Daniel M. Lavery’s Women’s Hotel Isn’t Just an Ode to a Certain Time, But to the Cast-Offs and Misfits of Society Always Trying to Find a Loophole to Get By

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Book Review, Criticism

The Uptown Local, Or: Listening to On the 6 Might Be a Better Experience

In 1999, Jennifer Lopez released her first record, On the 6—a title that alluded to her commute from the Bronx to Manhattan while working her early jobs as a dancer. Perhaps Cory Leadbeater thought better of titling his memoir the same, opting instead for The Uptown Local, which says as little about Joan Didion as the book itself…but “at least” readers know he had to … Continue reading The Uptown Local, Or: Listening to On the 6 Might Be a Better Experience

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Book Review, Criticism

Bad Blood: Intermezzo Explores the Complexities of Brotherly Bonds, Broken or Otherwise

Sally Rooney is no stranger to exploring the complexities of the (monogamous) romantic relationship, but with her fourth novel, Intermezzo, the author challenges herself to explore the even more particular emotional intricacies of the sibling dynamic. Namely, among two brothers, Ivan (the youngest at twenty-two) and Peter (the eldest at thirty-two). The Koubek brothers, if you will. Although normally “estranged” (for all intents and purposes), … Continue reading Bad Blood: Intermezzo Explores the Complexities of Brotherly Bonds, Broken or Otherwise

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Book Review, Criticism, Essay

Not A Girl, Finally A Woman: MARINA’s Eat the World

Like many pop stars who weren’t yet pop stars in the early 2000s, Britney Spears was both an inspiration and a cautionary tale to someone like MARINA. Her influence undeniable on every millennial from Taylor Swift to Charli XCX. In 2021, MARINA paid homage to that influence in a “justice for Britney” sort of way with the “Purge the Poison” lyrics, “2007/When Size 0 was … Continue reading Not A Girl, Finally A Woman: MARINA’s Eat the World

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