The stories in Rachel Reeher’s debut collection underscore the gap that often exists between appearance and reality.
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All articles filed in Reviews
“The Book Witch” Casts a Spell
A review of Meg Shaffer’s “The Book Witch.”
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Startling and Sublime: Beth Ann Fennelly’s Micro-Memoirs
Former poet laureate of Mississippi, Beth Ann Fennelly, maven of the micro-memoir, has done it again with “The Irish Goodbye: Micro-Memoirs.”
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The Distance Between the Truth and What We Choose to Believe in “Make Sure You Die Screaming”
Make Sure You Die Screaming by Zee Carlstrom is a delightfully dark thrill ride perfect for a quick weekend read. The “thriller” label is well-earned as Carlstrom’s narrator drags the reader along on a full-fledged crash out that is orders of magnitude beyond the average burnout response. The narrator claims to have “burned [their] entire…
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Homesickness, Grief, and Appalachia in “Small Town Girls”
A review of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jayne Anne Phillip’s new memoir, “Small Town Girls.”
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Girlhood is Something Fierce and Bruising in “I’ll Take My Body To Go”
Girlhood is cracked open to glisten in Kindall Fredericks’ electrifying new collection, “I’ll Take My Body to Go”
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“A History of Heartache” Is a World Where No Saviors Are Coming
Bleak, clear-eyed, abrasive, and thoughtful stories about the forgotten folks of East Texas.
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“The End of Romance” is Cerebral, Messy and Made for Book Clubs
Some books are meant to be book club books, and I sincerely believe The End of Romance by Lily Meyer should be on the list for your next book club pick. This is a polarizing book. Some are going to love the philosophical, anti-romance of it all. They will eat up the cerebrally prone main…
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“Nowhere” Delivers Grisly, Supernatural, Appalachian Horror
The philosophical takes in Alison Gunn’s “Nowhere” combines small-town dynamics with all the best components of horror writing to create a genre-bending page turner.
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“Wayward” Women Struggle for Bodily Autonomy in “Women of a Promiscuous Nature”
From the American Plan in 1918 to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2026 in, well, 2026, women’s bodies and sexuality seem to be the perennial target of men in positions of authority. In Donna Everhart’s historical novel Women of a Promiscuous Nature, ordinary women in 1940s North Carolina resist their unjust incarceration at the State Industrial…
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Southern Review of Books 