Voice to Books: Memoirs on Overcoming Struggles and Trauma

In this episode of Voice to Books, our readers review memoirs written by people from a variety of backgrounds. Everyone has a story to tell, and firsthand accounts of struggles are powerful instruments of change and understanding. Reading underrepresented voices, especially in memoir, helps to cultivate compassion and awareness for cultures and experiences that are not our own. Consent: A Memoir by Vanessa Springora (translated from the French by Natasha Lehrer) Reviewed by A.E. Santana Writing can be transformative and healing. It can thread together themes in the lives of authors or make sense of a situation they’ve lived. For…

Book Review: ­­World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

By Jessica Bremmer When considering World of Wonders, poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s collection of essays about the wonders, great and small, of the natural world, perhaps it is best to begin at the end. The book’s final essay, “Firefly (Redux),” contemplates the Photinus pyralis: “Its luminescence could very well be the spark that reminds us to make a most necessary turn—a shift and a swing and a switch—toward cherishing this magnificent and wondrous planet. Boom. Boom. You might think of a heartbeat—your own. A child’s. Someone else’s. Or some thing’s heart. And in that slowdown, you might think it’s a kind…

Book Review: The Doll by Ismail Kadare

By Linda Romano Many people may  not be familiar with Albania, a small country bordering Greece on the western part of the Balkan Peninsula, or of Ismail Kadare, a renowned Albanian poet and novelist. In Kadare’s autobiographical novel, The Doll, this lack of familiarity does not prevent us from identifying with the common question of how our childhood, and especially our mothers, impact our life. At seventy-eight, Ismail Kadare explores the relationship with his mother and her influence on the political writer he became. Kadare not only survived but flourished in a country under communist dictator Enver Hoxha, where writers…

Voice to Books — Romance Episode

This month’s episode of Voice to Books is all about love. Romance is one of the biggest money makers in publishing, but, despite being so popular, the romance genre does not always get the credit it deserves. Romance is the perfect escape genre. There is a bit of drama, some flirting, sometimes there is sex, and you know the characters are going to end up happy—it’s a promise the genre makes to its readers. Here at Voice to Books, we’re excited to see BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and disabled characters get their happily ever afters. Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard  Reviewed…

Voice to Books: Episode 3

January is the month of new beginnings. This is the time when people look toward the future with hope and bright intentions. Science fiction has long been lauded as the first step to imagining our collective future, be it with technology, arts, or health advancements. This month, our reviewers examined science fiction novels written by authors from underrepresented groups. The contributions of people from minority communities to science fiction are often overlooked, but incredibly impactful, nonetheless. The books reviewed this month highlight marginalized writers who have influenced the genre, adding to the possibilities of our society’s future. A Memory Called…

Book Review: Big Bad Wolf

By Sara Marchant In Suleikha Snyder’s Big Bad Wolf, the world is full of strangers and strangeness, but it is recognizably our world. “Different,” she tells us, “unequal, but same.” The novel is set in the Divided States of America after the Darkest Day of 2016, where Sanctuary Cities are more than lip service and operate to protect the rights of the LGBTQ, women, and Black and Brown brethren as well as supernatural citizens, and the only unbelievable aspect of the story is a hero who prefers giving head to receiving it. Joe, an anti-heroic (literal) alpha male, is awaiting…

Book Review: Atomizer

by Sara Grimes Elizabeth A. I. Powell doesn’t pull any punches when satirizing her lovers in Atomizer. The collection is a sassy, whip-smart treatise on the deceitful nature of love, using the extended metaphor of scent as a cover-up. Powell brings each love under the microscope of her fierce poetry to see if it is in fact a gem or a lump of coal. Oftentimes it is the latter. She extends the same analysis to all love relationships—romantic, imagined, or familial. In “The Book of Sires”: “My homage: He was an atelier of garbage. How his microaggressions of Paco Rabanne…

Book Review: Like Love

When my children were young, we went around the dinner table and shared serendipities—something surprising and joyful that had happened to each of us during the day. My children are grown now, and I live alone, and we are in the midst of the worst phase of a global pandemic.

Book Review: Kissing a Tree Surgeon

Eleanor Levine’s collection of short stories Kissing a Tree Surgeon takes readers on a hilariously offbeat journey amidst an equally offbeat cast of characters.

Book Review: Suppose a Sentence

It’s an experience that will be familiar to avid readers everywhere: you’re making smooth progress through a book, until suddenly a passage or sentence stops you in your tracks.