& You Think It Ends poems by Amy Small-McKinney Review by Rebecca Jane & You Think It Ends opens wounds and exposes their lasting impact. Rape, gun violence, genocide, unsafe abortion, drug abuse, emotional abuse, bird extinction, and widowhood…
Browsing: Reviews
Review by Edith-Nicole Cameron Three years ago, I resigned from my lawyer job to write a novel. The seed had been planted two years prior, during our pandemic lockdown. In November 2020, my 4th and 6th graders and I…
Review by Ruth Hoberman Elizabeth’s Sylvia’s new book presents itself modestly: My Little Book of Domestic Anxieties contains only twenty-four poems, and their tone (like the title) is low-key. But such a book isn’t “little” when it’s a forceful,…
Review by Emily Webber When reading Flood, Christine Kalafus’s debut memoir, there’s a constant feeling of being pulled by raging waters, swept up into something you can’t control, the feeling of waters rising and rising, and you can’t…
Review by Lara Lillibridge Skip It, Spice Girls, vanilla body spray, Dr. Pepper Lip Smackers and frosted eyeshadow. “We’ve grown up when being captured on-screen is still a novelty.” Sarah Fawn Montgomery captures all of the desperation, longing, and…
Reviewed by Susan Blumberg-Kason Jamie Wendt is an award-winning poet, a prolific book reviewer, and a middle school teacher based in Chicago. Her latest collection of poetry, Laughing in Yiddish, was a finalist for the 2022 Philip Levine Prize…
Review by Kate Lewis With Body, Nina B. Lichtenstein Explores the Physical Contours of Self Navigating through explorations of a body allow author Nina B. Lichtenstein’s memoir, Body: My Life In Parts, to bring together the entirety of…
An Interview with Jocelyn Jane Cox, Author of Motion Dazzle, a Memoir of Motherhood, Loss and Skating on Thin Ice. Interview by Sara Weiss In her debut memoir Motion Dazzle, former competitive figure skater and coach Jocelyn Jane Cox…
MER Bookshelf – August 2025 Curated by Melissa Joplin Higley Suzanne Kamata, River of Dolls and Other Stories, Penguin Random House SEA, January 2025, literary fiction (short stories) These stories, many of which riff on traditional Japanese folk tales…
Review by Rebecca Jane Mothersalt shines a light on moments of awe, ambivalence, disorientation, surprise, and power that arise with pregnancy, labor, childbirth, breastfeeding, and caring for babies. These poems reveal a woman aligning her Mother identity with that…