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The Regrets by Amy Bonnaffons

2/25/2020

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This review was originally published in and is reposted with permission from Shelf Awareness.
​In this poignant story, Rachel is in love with a dead man. He was dead when they met. Maybe it's the strange glow that Thomas seems to have about him, or the otherworldly heat of his skin, but Rachel believes him when he shares some of his story. Due to an error when he died, Thomas must wait another three months on Earth before crossing over, following instructions meant to avoid incurring any additional regrets. Starting relationships in this condition is not recommended, but after several weeks of noticing each other in the café or at the bus stop, he disregards the guidelines.
The Regrets, the debut novel from Amy Bonnaffons, demonstrates that the author is as skillful at probing subjects such as desire and mortality in the long form as she is in her short stories (The Wrong Heaven). The intensity with which Rachel and Thomas leap into their romance and the isolated world that they occupy--he because of his state of limbo, she because of the impossibility of explaining her new boyfriend--vividly evoke the obsessive fever of a new love affair. In a dreamlike tale, switching in long sections between the perspectives of Thomas, Rachel and Rachel's former boyfriend, Bonnaffons movingly conveys the haunting power of grief, whether for the end of a relationship or the end of a life. In this surreal yet satisfying version of the world, the ultimate challenge is still to find a way to carry on. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library
Discover: In this hauntingly beautiful debut novel, a love affair crosses the line between the living and the dead.
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We Wish You Luck by Caroline Zancan

2/15/2020

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This review was originally written for and is reposted with permission from Shelf-Awareness.
Words have a power to create or to destroy, and that is the heart of the memorable We Wish You Luck by Caroline Zancan (Local Girls). The students in a low residency MFA program narrate in a collective voice the story of three who fascinate the others: Leslie, Hannah and Jimmy. "We'll forgive you for forgetting any of the rest of us, but it's important you remember these three. We aren't arrogant enough to consider ourselves more than the story's background at worst, its keepers at best." Simone, a bestselling author and visiting professor, butts heads with one of these three, leading to a series of acts of retribution that will ruin multiple lives and leave none of them unchanged.
Zancan also turns the spotlight onto other students for brief episodes, which helps to immerse readers in the insular world of a campus almost deserted during academic breaks. However, the students outside that trio primarily serve as a Greek chorus, which skillfully builds suspense with mentions of who will not be back, and futures that might have been but will no longer be, setting the stage for the revelations as to why. The collective narration has a nebulous quality, sometimes stating that "we" don't all remember events the same way or agree on exactly when something happened. The result realistically evokes the feeling of a distant memory or a dream. This is an engrossing story of friendship, creativity and grief. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library
Discover: Graduate students form inseparable friendships and catastrophic rivalries in a tale that will linger with readers long after the last page.

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Feast Your Eyes by Myla Goldberg

2/13/2020

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The conceit of Feast Your Eyes is that it is the catalog for a photography exhibition, assembled by the photographer's daughter, consulting her mother's diary and conducting interviews with other people who knew her. The pictures are described but never shown. There is an introduction to the catalog written by a songwriter inspired by one of Lillian Preston's photographs, titled "Mommy is Sick," in which her daughter offers her a glass of milk while bloodstains are visible between her legs.

Preston moved to New York in the mid-1950s to pursue photography. She becomes a single mother, working to support her daughter Samantha alone and constantly pursuing new innovations in photography. She takes countless candid shots around their home. A showing of "the Samantha series," which includes "Mommy is Sick" and photographs of her daughter in various states of undress, leads to an obscenity case. Her mother and her photographs being headline news causes a radical change in how Samantha feels about being her mother's subject.

Feast Your Eyes is at its heart a story of the complex relationship between mother and daughter as Samantha grows up and Lillian struggles to live her artistic life authentically.

Overall: A+
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