Review by Susan Blumberg-Kason Sometimes it takes near-death experiences for people to really start living. In Sharon White’s latest novel, Minato Sketches, Gigi, the protagonist, suffers a stroke and leaves her husband and grown sons behind when she moves…
Browsing: Reviews
Curated by Melissa Joplin Higley Maria Lisella, At the Hour of Now, Bordighera Press, April 2026, poetry Maria Lisella’s newest collection At the Hour of Now tells the unflinchingly honest story of a blended family that raises urgent questions,…
Review by A. Anupama In this collection, Catherine Esposito Prescott’s poems trace the loss of her teenage son Austen to a rare, pediatric brain cancer. I read this collection in the time between Mother’s Day and my daughter’s high…
Review by Rebecca Jane wolves in shells rewilds the experience of reading poetry. This collection achieves narrative justice for battered women, abandoned women, wolves hunted as game, and domestic experience. Here, language repositions spaces we dwell in to alter…
Famished: On food, sex, and growing up as a good girl by Anna Rollins Review by Melanie McGehee In Famished: On Food, Sex, and Growing Up as a Good Girl, Anna Rollins examines the influences of purity culture and diet…
Review by Tessara Dudley Holli Carrell’s debut collection, Apostasies, is the lyrical diary of an adult reckoning with the aftermath of a girlhood within the Mormon church. Though it is poetry, it draws on a variety of archives and…
Review by Mindy Kronenberg I must confess that I was intrigued by the title of this book when selecting it for review. Not for any perceived sensational contents or promise of provocative odyssey, but its implied cleverness and earnest…
Curated by Melissa Joplin Higley Chelsea Krieg, Everything Is Water, Texas Review Press, March 2026, poetry Everything Is Water is an open letter to caregivers as the speaker grapples with her partner’s life-threatening illness, pregnancy and new motherhood, and…
Review by Lisa C. Taylor Accidental Devotions is a wonder of a poetry collection, organized in four sections: Scrolling for God, Rebel Angels, Cathedral of Clouds, and Unmistakable Prayers. The final poem is called Necessary Prayer, and it is…
Review by Susan Blumberg-Kason Most adults who grew up in the United States remember reading Highlights. Before the digital age, children around the country would peruse Highlights while waiting for a doctor or dentist appointment. The magazine is accessible…