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Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica (audio)

September 19, 2023 by 4 Comments

Source: Purchased
Audiobook, 6+ hrs.
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Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica, narrated by Joseph Balderrama, is a translated work in which a dystopian world of cannibalism emerges after a virus makes all other meat inedible. Marcos is the main character who is the supervisor of the local “specialty meat” plant. His father has dementia and he is paying for all his care, but his wife left him and his only child is dead.

Much of this book is stomach-churning, and while I see it as a commentary on the meat production industry and the industry/money driven industry’s influence over government policy. It’s interesting to me that the author chose this topic after I learned that Argentina is one of the largest meat consumers in the world. Marcos is so detached from his family, his emotions, his interactions with others, and while the gift he is given later on is supposed to make us believe he is reconnecting with his humanity, I don’t believe it. I was unconvinced. The ending wasn’t a shock.

I can see how this would be a good book club selection because there are a number of themes to explore and discuss, but the characters were very flat and didn’t evolve much throughout. Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica is an odd dystopian novel set in Argentina where cannibalism is the norm out of necessity, but little is examined about the moral or ethical challenges of this decision. What’s worse is the conspiracies about it being a government hoax are never explored.

RATING: Tercet

About the Author:

Agustina Bazterrica is an Argentinian novelist and short story writer. She is a central figure in the Buenos Aires literary scene. She won the prestigious Premio Clarin Novela for her second novel, Tender Is the Flesh, which has been translated into twenty-three languages. Several of the stories in Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird have also won awards, including First Prize in the 2004/2005 City of Buenos Aires Awards for Unpublished Stories and First Prize in the Edmundo Valadés Awards for the Latin American Short Story, among others.
Filed Under: audiobooks, challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, purchased, Read in 2023, reviews, Simon & Schuster Tagged With: , , ,

Dancehall by Tim Stobierski

September 14, 2023 by Leave a Comment

Source: the poet
Paperback, 90 pgs.
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Dancehall by Tim Stobierski, touring with Poetic Book Tours, is a collection in a five-act play format with poems that crescendo into an unforgettable love story. Stobierski’s poems are tender and full of emotion. In Act One, you’ll be enchanted by “Just as Sparrows,” in which a lover is compared to sparrows looking through the grass for that perfect morsel — holding the narrator’s heart gently but for what seems like just a moment. In that moment, a heart is captured and the journey of love begins.

And like a word (pg. 8)

I ache to be spoken--
to cling to your lip
and fall from your tongue--

to crack in your voice
and catch in your throat.

Speak me into being.

There is longing, desire, love, and so much wonderment at attachment and love. The opening act is like that initial rush of lovers who have eyes only for each other. It will bring you back to those early days.

“Press into me/as night/presses/into a canyon.//” says the narrator in “Want.” (pg. 20) We’re moving into the full love of this relationship and navigating the early relationship awkwardness. The narrator is opening up to this feeling of love and discovering the depths of it, nearly losing himself but reveling in it. But of course, what relationship is complete without disagreement?

Don’t we all try to bend and fit in a narrative not our own, make ourselves smaller and appease our lovers. “If I am too much to hold,/fold me in half/so I will fit in your arms.//” (“Crease”, pg. 30) Readers are now moving into the maturing of a relationship and realizations that all is not paradise, but the love still binds the narrator to his lover. In “If this is it,” the narrator says, “rest your head upon my chest/one last time,/and I will run my fingers/through the soft hairs/at the nape of your neck.//” (pg. 33)

Dancehall by Tim Stobierski is a beautiful collection full of tenderness and ache, and the poems will invest you in this love story from the start. Stobierski’s lines and images are endearing and heartbreaking. Don’t miss this collection.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

Tim Stobierski writes about relationships. His work explores universal themes of love, lust, longing, and loss — presented through the lens of his own experiences as a queer man. His poetry has been published in a number of journals, including the Connecticut River Review, Midwest Quarterly, and Grey Sparrow. His first book of poetry, Chronicles of a Bee Whisperer, was published by River Otter Press in 2012.

To pay the bills, he is a freelance writer and content strategist focused on the world of finance, investing, fintech, insurance, and software. In his professional writing, he prides himself on his ability to help the reader understand complicated subjects easily, a quality that informs his poetry.

He is also the founder and editor of Student Debt Warriors, a free resource for college students, graduates, and parents who are struggling to make sense of the complex world of student loans. Follow Tim on Instagram.

Filed Under: ARC, challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: ,

Inheritance by Taylor Johnson

September 13, 2023 by Leave a Comment

Source: Gift
Paperback, 100 pgs.
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Inheritance by Taylor Johnson, who is Takoma Park, Maryland’s Poet Laureate, is deceptively quiet. It opens with a poem, “Since I Quit That Internet Service,” that speaks to community and finding your voice. It is such a hopeful beginning to a collection that delves into the depths of our nation’s capitalism, what role gender-ization plays in society and how it forces us to view ourselves as something we seem to have no control over, and the pressures of race, a societal box to check, and all its baggage.

All of these poems ask us to carefully consider the word “inheritance” whether that be what we’ve carried from our families, our DNA, what we’ve been given by relatives after they pass, and so on. Johnson, for example, widens his definition of “inheritance” to include the spaces between us and strangers and the slight nods of acknowledgement we give and receive in passing. Johnson’s poems are witnesses and participants at the same time — we all can relate to that if we take the time to pause and listen, watch, and consider the complex world and our participation in it.

Chiaroscuro (pg. 42)

Whereas I come into the into to talk with my shadow.
From you I've not hid my face.

For in the morning I make, and am made by you:
beautiful projection, boy in the mirror, boy in my mind.
I separate my flesh from my flesh to become more
like you, to drown in your holdings.

O young lord of my desire, you are the light
I ride toward, I run from. I eat less and avoid
being hailed. Anonymous interstitial prince
of my undoing, redeemer of my yes, I want

to grow into you, and then abandon your
imprecise naming. I am bequeathed violence—
your inheritance — and your rough glamour.

I am made to tarry, here, with you,
thus illumined by your tenuous light.

Inheritance by Taylor Johnson is a collection to read aloud and read again as you listen to each word, envision each image, and hear the truth of life and its complexity. We try so hard to simplify a world that is far more layered than our brains can comprehend, perhaps we should just live it, not try to wrangle it into submission.

RATING: Cinquain

photo by S*an D. Henry-Smith

About the Poet:

Taylor Johnson is from Washington, D.C. He is the author of Inheritance (Alice James Books, 2020), winner of the 2021 Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. His work appears in Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review, The Baffler, Scalawag, and elsewhere. Johnson is a Cave Canem graduate fellow and a recipient of the 2017 Larry Neal Writers’ Award from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and the 2021 Judith A. Markowitz Award for Emerging Writers from Lambda Literary. Taylor was the inaugural 2022 Poet-in-Residence at the Guggenheim Museum. He is the Poet Laureate of Takoma Park, Maryland. With his wife, Elizabeth Bryant, Taylor curates the Green Way Reading Series at People’s Book in Takoma Park.

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, purchased, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: ,

The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand (audio)

September 12, 2023 by 2 Comments

Source: Purchased
Audiobook, 12+ hrs.
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The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand, narrated by Erin Bennett, is a rich person’s vacation but what anchors this weekend in reality is the relationships between these different women in Hollis Shaw’s life and the fractured relationship Shaw has with her daughter, Caroline. A tragic event widens the cracks in Hollis’ “Insta-worthy” life.

In the midst of her sadness, Hollis comes across a rejuvenating idea — the five-star weekend — in which you invite one friend from each of your “significant” stages of life: her teenage years, her twenties, her thirties, and midlife. She invites her childhood friend and “sister” Tatum, her elitist college friend Dru-Ann, Brooke who went through pregnancy and childbirth with Hollis in her thirties, and Gigi who Hollis has met online through her website as they connect over tragedy.

Tragedy has a way of amplifying what is wrong in a family. Hilderbrand’s novel also reminds us that what we see of people’s lives online — social media, websites, etc. — is only a snapshot of happiest moments but not the reality of their whole lives. Hollis Shaw’s picture-perfect Nantucket/Bostonian life is no where near perfect, but neither are many of her other friends’ lives — lives she has done little to keep up with.

The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand is a far deeper story than its dressings of high-end dinners, exclusive reservations, and sailing trips make it seem. These women are stronger because of their bonds, even if the have some wear and cracks. It’s the ability to overcome the slights and miscommunications of the past that ensure these women will be stronger into the future.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Author:

Elin Hilderbrand is the author of 28 novels, including the forthcoming THE HOTEL NANTUCKET (June 14, 2022). She is a proud 1991 graduate of Johns Hopkins University where she majored in Writing Seminars. In her senior year at Hopkins, Elin had her first short story, “Misdirection,” accepted for publication in Seventeen Magazine.

After a short stint working in publishing and teaching in New York City, she moved to Nantucket permanently in 1994. She attended the University of Iowa writers workshop and earned her MFA in 1998, and published her first novel, THE BEACH CLUB, in the summer of 2000. Her 2019 novel, SUMMER OF ’69 was her first novel to debut at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. She is the mother of three children and loves riding the Peloton, cooking, and going to the beach. She will retire with her summer of 2024 book and plans on becoming a book influencer.

Filed Under: audiobooks, fiction, Hachette Books, Publishers/Publicists, purchased, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto

September 6, 2023 by 3 Comments

Source: Borrowed
Hardcover, 352 pgs.
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Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto is just what you would expect it to be, especially given that fantastic cover. Vera Wong gets up at 4 a.m. every morning to start her day with texts to her adult son, Tilly, and to have her brisk walk before opening her “world famous” teahouse for business in San Francisco’s Chinatown. There are only two things wrong, she has just one customer, and the sign above the teahouse might just be misrepresenting the establishment as “Vera Wang’s World-Famous Teahouse.” Her son, Tilbert, is less than pleased by this, but since she has few customers, he believes the likelihood that his mother will be sued by the real Vera Wang are small to none.

One morning, Vera finds a dead body in her teahouse, and because the police don’t provide her with the respect she believes she is due and don’t seem concerned with the murder, she takes it upon herself to investigate — complete with her little notebook of suspects.

“Vera’s murder investigation is going so well that she wonders why more people don’t just decide to leave their boring desk jobs and go into detective work. She’s started daydreaming of having the huge VERA WANG’S WORLD-FAMOUS TEAHOUSE sign taken down and replace with VERA WANG: PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR.” (pg. 85)

Her son, Tilly, is a lawyer, but since he rarely keeps in touch, he’s mostly unaware of Vera’s investigation, until of course she starts asking him some very specific hypothetical questions about evidence tampering. Along the way, she begins offering advice to all kinds of potential suspects in the Marshall Chen murder. Sana, Riki, Oliver, Julia, and Emma begin to circle in Vera’s orbit as the search for the killer continues, even as Officer Gray insists that Vera stay out of it.

Like Sutanto’s other books, you are in for a wild ride with some crazy antics. But you will love Vera Wong — she’s a mother/grandmother in search of purpose and with this group, she has a lot of work to do, including solving a murder. I highly recommend Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto. If you read Aunties, you will love this one.

RATING: Cinquain

Other Reviews:

About the Author:

Jesse Q Sutanto grew up shuttling back and forth between Jakarta and Singapore and sees both cities as her homes. She has a Masters degree from Oxford University, though she has yet to figure out a way of saying that without sounding obnoxious. She is currently living back in Jakarta on the same street as her parents and about seven hundred meddlesome aunties. When she’s not tearing out her hair over her latest WIP, she spends her time baking and playing FPS games. Oh, and also being a mom to her two kids.

Filed Under: borrowed copy, fiction, Penguin, Publishers/Publicists, random house, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: ,

A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum

September 5, 2023 by 1 Comment

Source: Borrowed
Hardcover, 352 pgs.
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A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum was our August book club pick at work, and even though I had to miss the meeting for another meeting, I’m so glad I read this one. Deya is a high-school student in Brooklyn, N.Y., and her traditional Arab family from Palestine has her meeting with suitors before graduation, despite her hopes for a college education. To preserve their culture in which women are the silent backbone of the family, young women are married to men in their teens to have children and raise the next generation. Like her mother, Isra, Deya is expected to marry someone she barely knows and to start a family.

“A woman is no man,” is an oft repeated refrain from Deya’s grandmother. Told in alternating chapters by Isra and Deya, the narrative is threaded with the past of the grandmother, Fareeda, who also married young but was fortunate enough to flee Palestine after being evacuated to a refugee camp. Her strength is in her faith, but she also is the backbone of her family and the driving force behind their move to America. While both Deya and Isra see the move to America as a gateway to freedom and more opportunities, Fareeda sees it as something that must be guarded against because it will destroy their Arab culture. However, it is clear that Fareeda’s and Isra’s view of their culture stems from similarly abusive relationships with their fathers, and now husbands.

“…yet something about them seemed so American. What was it? Deya thought it was they way they spoke — their voices loud, or at least louder than hers. It was the way they stood confidently on the train, not apologizing for taking up the space.” (pg. 107)

The tension in this book is broken wide open by a family secret. For her entire life, Deya has been told her parents died in a car accident, but the truth will set them free in many ways, allowing a granddaughter and grandmother to bond, a daughter to understand her deceased mother better, and a daughter to have hope that her own hard-line mother may change.

Peeling back these layers chapter by chapter will slow the pace, but Rum’s narrative is this way to demonstrate the repetitive cultural oppression these women experience every day. As a modern reader outside the Palestinian culture, it will seem repetitive and unnecessary, but I would argue it is with purpose that Rum adopts this slower progression. We need to feel that pressure, that weight of oppression and constant restriction to understand how hard it would be to break free from it even as an American immigrant.

A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum is an emotional roller coast, and it will have readers shouting at these women to take advantage of their freedom and run away. But when you leave all that you know, it leaves you bare to the harsh realities of being alone in an unfamiliar world. Which is better? Sticking with the devil you know, or striking out into the unknown? Rum has created a multi-layered story that looks at the oppressive nature of the Arab community and religious expectations and the lure of freedom with consequences.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Author:

The daughter of Palestinian immigrants, Etaf Rum was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She has a Masters of Arts in American and British Literature as well as undergraduate degrees in Philosophy and English Composition and teaches undergraduate courses in North Carolina, where she lives with her two children. Etaf also runs the Instagram account @booksandbeans.

Filed Under: borrowed copy, challenges, fiction, Harper Collins, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: ,

What Follows by H.R. Webster

August 16, 2023 by Leave a Comment

Source: Purchased
Paperback, 70 pgs.
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What Follows by H.R. Webster is a debut collection of poems that shed light on the darkness and the scars left in the wake of turbulence. The opening poem, “What Follows,” sets the tone immediately: “Every house I’ve ever lived in was filled with snakes./” and “The snakes I live with now leave/quieter marks.” (pg. 3)

These poems try to make sense of the darkness in the world, the men who catcall at every woman and the boys that love the danger of the flips and tumbles of the skate park. What follows that darkness, what’s left behind? Shame? Heartbreak? Desire? It’s not the harm or the dark emotions but the glimmer of light that remains, the hope of beauty and satisfaction. “Look at the stain/in the diamond. It’s not the thing itself,/but what’s left of the light that was swallowed./” (“Occlusion”, pg. 36)

What Follows by H.R. Webster explores the space in between the before and after trauma, reminding us that there is some light in the darkness. Her poems use language that doesn’t focus directly on the trauma. The poems state what the trauma isn’t, outlining the pain with pain that is easier to understand. Readers will learn so much in these poems, through the poet’s dark humor and explorations of deep desires and lashing out. It’s a deeply human collection that reflects on our darkest thoughts and feelings — many of which we bury deep.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Poet:

H.R. Webster has received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center, Vermont Studio Center, and the Helen Zell Writers’ Program. Her work has appeared in the Massachusetts Review, Poetry Magazine, Black Warrior Review, Ninth Letter, 32Poems, Muzzle, and Ecotone.

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, purchased, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: , ,

The Unempty Spaces Between by Louis Efron

August 15, 2023 by 1 Comment

Source: the poet
Paperback, 62 pgs.
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The Unempty Spaces Between by Louis Efron, which is on tour with Poetic Book Tours, is a debut poetry collection that brings readers on a journey of exploration in the natural world to find not empty spaces that must be filled, but spaces that have hidden treasures. In the opening poem, “Beautiful Trees,” readers are shown the dead branches and passed fruit and leaves that have yet to fall, but as the narrator takes us into the earth, we are shown how the rain seeps down and the roots have dug deep and continue to do so. It’s a living being beneath the surface of the earth and it is beautiful.

One of my favorite poems in the collection is “Empty Attics,” in which dusty items sit and wait in the dark forgotten places. Imagine all those souvenirs bought and hidden away, tarnishing in the darkness. “our treasures/memories unlit/by such neglected bulbs/still failing to see ourselves/illuminated/as dust settles again/on the balconies of our mind/” (pg.25) Here we see attics filled with trinkets and memory, but they are rarely accessed. Does this mean we are unknown? Are we in darkness even about ourselves? Efron is showing us the introspection he himself is engaged in through his poems, and on this journey with him, we are exploring the identities of ourselves.

Another poem that will capture the storyteller and listener in all of us is “Rooms Without Nightlights” as Efron takes us inside the dark bedrooms of our past and the fairytales we know by heart. He sheds light on the shadows that scared us from sleeping and kept us on edge in our basements. He asks us to leave those “ruffled sheets/to tend to their own ghosts” but also to be wary of the “inviting masks/fooled only by our children/framed on forbidden trading cards/in palmed devices.” Vigilance can be a tricky skill.

The Unempty Spaces Between by Louis Efron allows readers to fall into the cracks and explore the emotions of our childish nightmares against the backdrop of more adult concerns. In many ways, we are looking for ourselves in that darkness and seeking the truth of it before the door of finality closes on us. What is in those spaces between?

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

Louis Efron is a poet and writer who has been featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, Chicago Tribune, POETiCA REViEW, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Academy of the Heart and Mind, Literary Yard, New Reader Magazine and over 100 other national and global publications. He is also the author of five books, including The Unempty Spaces Between, How to Find a Job, Career and Life You Love; Purpose Meets Execution; Beyond the Ink; as well as the children’s book What Kind of Bee Can I Be?

Filed Under: ARC, challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

August 14, 2023 by Leave a Comment

Source: Public Library
Hardcover, 272 pgs.
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Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, is my 11th book for the 12 books recommended by 12 friends reading challenge, is a novel written with Greek mythology at its base, particularly the labyrinth and its connection to madness or mental health. In Clarke’s novel, Piranesi is given his name by the Other, the only other living person in the House, which is packed with giant statues and a maze of halls — some of which are flooded or partially flooded. From time to time, the main character is visited by birds and he fishes in certain halls for food when the tides are high. He’s a recordkeeper, tracking what’s in each hall and the tides. The Other, however, seems to have access to real-world supplies and knowledge, but relies on Piranesi to map the House for him as he continues his search for the secret knowledge.

This is a mysterious tale with slow reveals, and while clues are dropped along the way, readers may find they, too, are duped by the labyrinth. Who are these mysterious people and how do they have knowledge of the real world if they have only ever lived in the House. What is the point of all this record keeping and traipsing back and forth if there are only two people alive here? Why can they not simply live in one place together and be a society unto themselves? It is clear the relationship is not reciprocal and is lopsided in the power dynamic from the beginning.

The start of this book left a lot to be desired. It was a slow narrative that left me bored initially. I wasn’t interested in the characters for about 40 pages. However, once I got past that point, I started noticing some kernels of how this world was not necessarily real but an amalgamation of things from the real world and that it was not a post-apocalyptic world like I initially thought. Piranesi is the main protagonist and because he doesn’t initially have all of the information needed to unravel this House and its mysteries, neither does the reader. This can be tiresome, but ultimately, the novel revealed itself through a series of events and the dynamic with the Other was more intriguing and less sterile.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke is a book that can try your patience and it was not a beach read, which is what I was looking for last week. However, it was interesting to unravel the secrets of the labyrinth. It was more satisfying than I thought at the beginning. I’d recommend this for readers who like to think outside the box and who like mysteries where you are unraveling them with the protagonist.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Author:

Susanna Clarke was born in Nottingham in 1959. A nomadic childhood was spent in towns in Northern England and Scotland. She was educated at St Hilda’s College, Oxford, and has worked in various areas of non-fiction publishing, including Gordon Fraser and Quarto. In 1990, she left London and went to Turin to teach English to stressed-out executives of the Fiat motor company. The following year she taught English in Bilbao.

She returned to England in 1992 and spent the rest of that year in County Durham, in a house that looked out over the North Sea. There she began working on her first novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. She lives in Cambridge with her partner, the novelist and reviewer Colin Greenland.

Filed Under: Bloomsbury, borrowed copy, challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Exits by Stephen C. Pollock

July 20, 2023 by

Source: Poet
Paperback, 54 pgs.
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Exits by Stephen C. Pollock, which is on tour with Poetic Book Tours, focuses on the ultimate exit we all must make and speaks to the fear and acceptance of our mortality. The collection includes not only poems, but also photographs and artwork that inspired some of the poems. They complement one another well.

The opening poem, “Arachindaea: Line Drawings,” and accompanying photograph of a spider in its web begin a symphony to life’s unexpected beauty: “your finest threads are strung with pearls/and you, a brooch with a clasp./” But then darkness comes when we “magnify the shiny spheres/to divine that each conceals/a miniature, an image/of struggling wings, of life undone.” (pg. 1) The poem is multi-layered in its exploration of the predator-prey dynamic, demonstrating the beauty alongside the ultimate demise of the prey. The strings of the web begin a tune, one that cannot be escaped.

Throughout this collection, Pollock looks to nature for not only music, but also beauty in mortality. The flowers in “Seeds” give up everything to insects and birds, breeding new life from their own deaths, ending a lifecycle but also beginning it anew. “So many seeds were borne by each alone,/so many lost with loss of those I’ve known.//” the narrator says. It’s the mortality and the remembrance of those gone before us that enables them to live on, like the seeds from the dying flowers in our garden.

Through a variety of forms and styles, Pollock takes us on a breathtaking journey that reminds us that through the sadness and finality of death and mortality, there’s also things that live on. There are pieces of us in other lives and other places that we’ve touched. In many ways Exits by Stephen C. Pollock is a hopeful collection — a collection looking to provide peace.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Poet:

Stephen C. Pollock is a recipient of the Rolfe Humphries Poetry Prize and a former associate professor at Duke University. His poems have appeared in a wide variety of literary journals, including “Blue Unicorn,” “The Road Not Taken,” “Live Canon Anthology,” “Pinesong,” “Coffin Bell,” and “Buddhist Poetry Review.” “Exits” is his first book.

Filed Under: ARC, challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: ,

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

July 14, 2023 by

Source: Public Library
Hardcover, 240 pgs.
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My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite was the July selection for my book club at work, and it was a wild ride. Korede is the older sister and she’s a nurse. Ayoola is the youngest sister who says she earns money on YouTube and has a hard time keeping her boyfriends alive. Set in Lagos, Nigeria, this dark thriller plunges readers headlong into criminal activity.

#FemiDurandIsMissing has gone viral. One post in particular is drawing a lot of attention — Ayoola’s. She has posted a picture of them together, announcing herself as the last person to have seen him alive, with a message begging anyone, anyone, to come forward if they know anything that can be of help.

She was in my bedroom when she posted this,…

Since their father’s death, Korede has become Ayoola’s protector. This is her weakness and it ultimately entangles her in her sister’s murderous actions. What unravels here is not the loyalty and bond between the sisters, but the moral constraints that should hold them to societal expectations. Braithwaite’s plot-focused novel reveals each layer of these sister’s personalities and their relationship chapter-by-chapter until you feel as though you don’t know what is true and what is fiction, much like the lives posted on social media.

Korede and Ayoola’s relationship is tested not during the cleanup of murders, but when the doctor Korede has been crushing on meets her beautiful, angelic sister and he asks for her sister’s phone number. Yes, this sounds a bit like a young adult novel, but it is more about how one sister’s protection of her sister becomes the thing that crushes her imagined romance. How can she tell him to stay away from her sister without divulging the truth? It is this absurdity that leaves readers perplexed at this surreal world.

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite is deceiving in its matter-of-fact tone and simple plot-focused cadence because so many nuances of character are revealed throughout the novel. Definitely a good novel to take to the beach or on vacation.

***It’s very strange that I’ve read 2 books this summer involving serial killer themes.***

RATING: Cinquain

About the Author:

Oyinkan Braithwaite is a graduate of Kingston University in Creative Writing and Law. Following her degree, she worked as an assistant editor at Kachifo Limited, a Nigerian publishing house, and as a production manager at Ajapaworld, a children’s educational and entertainment company. She now works as a freelance writer and editor. In 2014, she was shortlisted as a top-ten spoken-word artist in the Eko Poetry Slam, and in 2016 she was a finalist for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. She lives in Lagos, Nigeria.

Filed Under: borrowed copy, challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: ,

Words We Might One Day Say by Holly Karapetkova

July 12, 2023 by

Source: Purchased
Paperback, 84 pgs.
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Words We Might One Day Say by Holly Karapetkova pushes the boundaries of reality, incorporating what I would classify as some magical realism in her poems. A prime example of this is the opening poem, “The Woman Who Wanted a Child,” in which a woman wants a child so much that she can no longer sleep at night, visiting the marsh and watching the terns until she too becomes pregnant with a tern and must learn to feed her. “The Lost Mommy” is another delightful fairy tale she creates, woven from tales we all know.

Karapetkova’s poems are magical and imaginative, transporting readers to new places, while at the same time, those places seem familiar. It’s the emotional touch stone of wanting and of something missing that reaches us.

Parts of Speech (pg. 11)

Tomorrow, I will build a universe
of ink and write you subject to my pen,
controlling all you do and think in verse
and changing every loss of mine to win;
for instance, I could start with adjectives,
crossing out the old that I've become,
replacing dull with lovely, or I'd give
your careless words a turn to grateful ones.
And then for nouns -- inscribe your apathy
as care with but a movement of my wrist,
to trade distaste for passion, transform me
into she, and thus by you as her be kissed.
Or better than this wordy love-retrieving
I'll simply stop all verbs, keep you from leaving.

In a variety of poetic forms, including sonnets, Karapetkova is saying those words we might one day say or words we wish we had said to departing partners, almost children, and even our loved ones who are still with us. The collection is alive with wanting and loss, but also hope and love. Words We Might One Day Say by Holly Karapetkova is a storyteller who can transport you to magical places, only to ground you in reality like in “Cadaver Room,” where a cadaver is “an empty house” or in “Love and the National Defense” where a nation is incapable of protecting itself against the infection of love.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

Holly Karapetkova is the Poet Laureate of Arlington County and the recipient of a 2022 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. She is the author of two books of poetry, Words We Might One Day Say, winner of the 2010 Washington Writers’ Publishing House Poetry Award, and Towline, winner of the 2016 Vern Rutsala Poetry Contest from Cloudbank Books. Her current manuscript projects, Still Life With White and Planter’s Wife grapple with the deep wounds left by our history of racism, slavery, and environmental destruction. She is also the author of over 20 books for children. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and a PhD in English and Comparative Literature and teaches in the Department of Literature and Languages at Marymount University.

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