Its characters and events, while sinister, are plausible: an uncomfortable mirror to our own world.
‘You’ Series Loses Original Heart in Third Installment: Review of You Love Me by Caroline Kepnes
As per usual, Kepnes pulls out all the stops with bottomless cliffhangers and narrative-shaking revelations.
To Death and Back: Review of Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel W. Moniz
Dantiel W. Moniz’s debut story collection, Milk Blood Heat, pulsates with the everyday horrors of being alive.
The Reader’s Paradise: Review of The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
Morgenstern’s work is a novel for the book lovers and the story fanatics. It is the reader’s paradise, filled with reading nooks, secret libraries, mysterious books, and attractive storytellers.
Through Twists and Timelines: Review of The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
Stuart Turton’s debut novel, The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, is a book filled with surprises.
Stars and Starts: Review of Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers
The book spins a vibrating tension between silken, lyrical imagery, and anxiety-inducing plot.
Learning to Love Yourself: Review of Someone Who Will Love You In All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg
These stories provide incisive and cutting looks into being alone in the world and grieving lost relationships.
Glittery and Gritty: Review of Pass with Care: Memoirs by Cooper Lee Bombardier
At the heart of the memoir are Bombardier’s negotiations with his gender presentation and identity throughout the years and the very idea of the “trans memoir.”
Everyday Fairytales: Review of Bluebeard’s First Wife by Seong-nan Ha, translated by Janet Hong
In Bluebeard’s First Wife, Ha explores big cities and small rural towns where ambition, familial responsibilities, and expectations of marriage coalesce to reveal hidden sides to neighbors, wives, and husbands.
The Ugly Side of Healing: Review of Kate Elizabeth Russell’s My Dark Vanessa
But My Dark Vanessa is not so much a retelling as it is an echo of Lolita, giving a voice to young victims like Dolores Haze who are trapped and abused by those wielding authority over them.
BERKELEY FICTION REVIEW 