Review by New York Times Review
NO TURNING BACK: Life, Loss, and Hope in Wartime Syria, by Rania Abouzeid. (Norton, $17.95.) Abouzeid has spent years on the ground in Syria covering the civil war, and she combines extraordinary reporting with a historical and political overview of the origins of the conflict. In her book she focuses on a small group of characters, and their stories offer an intimate look at the impact of violence and tragedy. A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW, by Amor Towles. (Penguin, $17.) In Towles's hugely popular novel, an aristocrat under arrest watches from a posh hotel as the Russian Revolution unfolds. Our reviewer, Craig Taylor, wrote, "What saves the book is the gorgeous sleight of hand that draws it to a satisfying end, and the way he chooses themes that run deeper than mere sociopolitical commentary." LOOK ALIVE OUT THERE: Essays, by Sloane Crosley. (Picador/MCD, $17.) Fans of Crosley, the author of "I Was Told There'd Be Cake" and "How Did You Get This Number," will be pleased to see her signature wit on full display in this new collection. The pieces draw on everything from her volcano-scaling escapades to the death of her solitary downstairs neighbor. Her observations, even the most sobering, are shot through with hope. THE BALCONY, by Jane Delury. (Back Bay/Little, Brown, $15.99.) This debut novel leaps back and forth to tell the stories of a property's inhabitants, starting in the 19 th century through the recent past. The state of the house, from dilapidation to haphazard renovation, mirrors the shifting relationships among its residents, including a Jewish family in hiding, a former courtesan and more. Our reviewer, Jan Stuart, praised the novel, writing, "The vivid intimacy of Delury's canvas is enhanced by descriptive prose at once concise and lush." TAILSPIN: The People and Forces Behind America's Fifty-Year Fall - and Those Fighting to Reverse It, by Steven Brill. (Vintage, $16.95.) In this lament, Brill places a special focus on the laws and public decisions that have ushered in the current political and legal stalemates. It's not all depressing reading, however, as Brill is careful to highlight people and groups he believes are working to address our present problems. SMALL COUNTRY, by Gael j ··4 paye Trans|atecj by Sarah 4 Ardizzone. (Hogarth, $15.) A best seller in France, this novel borrows some ele"???? ments from the author's life to tell the story of a young boy, Gabriel, who is uprooted from his happy childhood in Burundi after civil war between the Hutus and Tutsis breaks out in the 1990s. The book charts Gabriel's loss of innocence in the face of violence.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [July 11, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* After publishing her first novel, the fun literary caper The Clasp (2015), Crosley returns to the form that put her name on best-seller lists for the essay collections I Was Told There'd Be Cake (2008) and How Did You Get This Number? (2010). A true humorist, Crosley brings to her writing just the kind of openness required to fly across the country for a heart-to-heart with her mom's former-porn-star cousin, or climb a South American volcano with her preparedness meter hovering somewhere around zero. A remote writing retreat is as creatively fruitful as she hoped it would be, and full of more stoner swingers than she ever expected. She takes an assignment to investigate chupacabra sightings in Vermont but meets a stupefying creature called Chartreuse instead. Laugh-out-loud funny seems too trite a phrase for a writer whose takes are so addictively original and unexpected, but it's also true: dear readers, you will laugh. Whether 2 or 20 pages in length, Crosley's essays are complete and stop-you-in-your-tracks clever; and whether readers have considered freezing their eggs or not, have or haven't paid top dollar to wrestle their personal websites back from an overseas opportunist, they'll settle right in.--Bostrom, Annie Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Crosley's confident reading of her latest collection of personal essays comes across like a great stand-up comic performance. Her wacky tales of life as a starving young writer interacting with neighbors, friends, and strangers are satirical, insightful, often tender, and always funny. Her peevish tone perfectly suits her hallmark surly, self-deprecating humor. With rising or falling intonation, she also ruminates on more personal matters, such as her decision to not have children. Crosley has one bad habit shared by many audio narrators: she drops her voice at the ends of sentences, creating distracting rhythmic patterns at various points in her reading. Still, fans will love listening to the author's lively rendering of wise and wicked stories from her life. An MCD hardcover. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
The author of I Was Told There'd Be Cake and How Did You Get This Number, -Crosley is an accomplished humorist who has earned her reputation with spot-on, incisive social critiques. In this way, the author's newest collection does not disappoint. In fact, this is Crosley at her best. These essays are funny but also complex and with depth. The author uses humor to not only entertain but also examine wealth and social inequality, sex and gender roles, fertility and death-topics that otherwise would not lend themselves easily to comedy. This collection is impressive in its subtlety. One essay that seemingly begins to describe a trip to Ecuador and an ill-formed plan to climb one of the world's tallest volcanoes gradually develops into a deeper meditation on human loneliness. In another, a retired porn star offers Crosley some wise love advice. And in another, a psychic coincidence somehow leads her into the lobby of a fertility clinic, confronting an egg-freezing dilemma. These essays, in other words, take readers to unexpected places. They surprise. VERDICT Crosley's growth and maturity as a writer shines in this collection, and it's fair to say: she is the millennial's Nora Ephron. [See Prepub Alert, 10/29/17.]-Meagan Lacy, -Guttman Community Coll., CUNY © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The latest collection from the Manhattan-based essayist suggests she can write engagingly about nearly anything.A decade after establishing herself with her bestselling debut, I Was Told There'd Be Cake, Crosley now finds herself addressing concerns and issues bordering on middle age, and she doesn't like it. An early example of how many thematic levels she builds into an essay comes with "Outside Voices," which seems, early on, to be about living in proximity to others, and then, more specifically, about "living on the most densely populated slip of land in America." A lesser essayist would mine this for all it's worth, but for Crosley, this is merely context for what comes to obsess herthe teenage boy next door and the family that entitles him to disturb the author's personal space with his noisy outdoor social life. What really bothers her about him is his youth, which shows her how old she has become. So while the essay addresses the challenges and annoyances of overcrowded Manhattan, to the voyeuristic delight of readers who haven't chosen to live there, it goes deeper into the universal ambivalence of realizing that you are no longer young and must seek out some type of second act as 40 approaches. As is typical in such collections, some essays are more ambitious and fully realized than others, but all work on multiple levels and all are sharply written, as Crosley continues to extend her impressive range. A writer writing about the writing life would not seem promising until she stumbles into a coven of pot-growing swingers who take the essay in an entirely different direction. An appearance on the canceled Gossip Girl might seem dated if it weren't so perceptive on various levels of celebrity and the stereotypes that public figures adopt. The author's closing essay on preserving her eggs is a marvel of ambivalence on ticking clocks and motherhood.A smart, droll essay collection that is all over the map but focused by Crosley's consistently sharp eye. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
