After by Jane Hirshfield
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm never sure about assigning star rating to poetry, I don't quite have the confidence for it- who's to say what's good or successful when the goal is such a moving target so much of the time? I liked these poems. I loved a few. I was ambivalent about some.

I've long-admired Jane Hirshfield's poems, but I think this is the first time I've sat down with a collection. After is accented with poems that examine the tiny forgotten words in out language, and more often than not, these poems meditate on the mundane and quotidian to illuminate some larger understanding or feeling. Some of them feel truly lyric in their ability to turn the reader inside out, and others feel a little hollower.

I loved, especially, "Those Who Cannot Act," "Of: An Assay," "A Man Walks Through His Life," and "It Was Like This: You Were Happy."

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Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I didn't set out to read two poetic, understated novellas about immigrants in America today on purpose, but that seems to be what happened. Signs Preceding the End of the World is both shorter and broader that When the Emperor Was Divine. It sweeps through experience and follows the protagonist, Makina, closely on a journey that is more post-apocalyptic than not.

As a result, there's a satisfying character to come to know, and the reader feels almost immediately invested in her journey. Preservation of self and culture become inextricably linked in the theme of this book. Like Emperor, Signs Preceding the End of the World avois sentiment and relies on thoughtful, poetic prose to evoke emotion.

It's not a feel-good read by any stretch, but this one would be worth one's attention if all it did was take a searing look at what nativism and American Exceptionalism look like in the immigrant experience, but it does so much more than that.

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When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It’s interesting to read a novel about the unfolding of a defining moment in America’s history and character during a defining moment in America’s history and character. The understated, clipped delivery of the Japanese-American experience in the Western US during World War II further underscores how our atrocities happen quietly--an announcement here, a policy-shift there, and how the consequences reverberate in the lives of children, the bedrock of marriages, the weave of neighborhoods.

It’s difficult not to think of families detained along the U.S. Border as the world hunkers down in quarantine when reading about how a nation let its fear guide its policy and trample on the values we ought to protect.

When the Emperor was Divine was published almost 20 years ago, but it feels urgent today. It’s poetic and impressive example of writing that understands compression.

Well-written and an interesting story, it's a 3.5 star read for me. It's muted approach includes its impact. It's like reading a good, long article in the New Yorker or The Atlantic- it's interesting, it gives the head something to chew on for a while, but it isn't something I'm likely to recall with much fondness or recommend emphatically in the future. It's an interesting little book with an important and worthwhile story to tell, it's not a riveting piece of fiction.


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What Comes Next and How to Like It by Abigail Thomas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is such an interesting collection of vignettes that use short prose and the careful selection of quotidian details to circling themes of mortality and friendship. It deals more in the craft of painting than in writing, and that's maybe good, because it's easier to dislike Thomas when she's talking about herself as a writer, but she's pretty interesting as a novice painter.

She's an honest and flawed teller of her own story, and she approaches aging flinchingly, and with humor.

It's interesting to read this novel after the tidal wave of the Me Too movement, and wonder if perhaps the easy forgiveness that Thomas offers long-time friend Chuck requires a consideration of power and vulnerability. What I mean is, while Thomas and Chuck have an intimate connection, she is older and his professional superior. It is not until it is her daughter, working for Chuck, that he sacrifices his marriage for a brief affair. It's a loud omission that might have begged a quieter question when it was first published. Part of the reason I wish Thomas had addressed it is because I think she might have had interesting things to say about it. Hers is a consistently interesting mind.

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The Overdue Life of Amy Byler by Kelly Harms
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.75 stars, but I'll round up.

Sometimes there is a global pandemic and you just need to read something pleasant.

That's ridiculous. The best discovery about myself as a reader is that I don't need to use planetary emergencies as an excuse to read fun books, and The Overdue Life of Amy Byler aligns with that thinking because there's a pretty consistent plot thread dedicated to encouraging reading by presenting readers with material they look. The book isn't trying to be anything other than a pleasant escape, and it succeeds.

There is maybe some part of the book that's trying to say Big Things about motherhood, and/or childlessness, or the tendency to lose one's sense of self once becoming a parent. That part was less successful for me, mostly because I think there's far more nuance to it than the book had room to explore (and I would not have enjoyed reading it if that had been its primary objective).

There's an epistolary component I didn't love, with text messages and journal entries that advance the plot. While it makes for quick reading, the book is best when Amy Byler, the middle-aged protagonist rediscovering herself on the pages of a New York City fashion magazine, is controlling the narration. Amy's no Cannie Shapiro, but she's smart and capable and her view of the world is worth paying attention to.

Lots of stars for its ability to make me not worry about infectious disease for five or six hours!



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Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What, a winding, satisfying ride through lived experience back and forth between mainstream and fringe cultures in the UK. That's about as narrow a brush as one can use to characterize Girl, Woman, Other.

The characters here are interesting and full, frequently finding their way toward some sort of "alternative" lifestyle. They're all working on matters of identity, and the novel is something of a love letter to intersectionality. Whether it's gender, ethnicity, race, sexuality, political, socio-economic or professional, the novel turns a gentle but piercing eye on the ways we perform identity and the ways we grow into it more authentically.

There's a sprawling cast to this novel, and the transitions between characters are not always gentle. But this is a book about sharing stories that have been historically marginalized, and it does it so well that one forgives the fumbled passes between characters when they occur.

It's fierce focus on female friendships, and the families we make and choose placed against those we are born into, makes it reminiscent of City of Girls: A Novel, although Girl, Woman, Other pushes further and asks more of the reader.

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