As a Reviews Editor, I try to be conscientious about only ordering ARCs that are likely to actually get reviewed for CAROUSEL. Publishers, especially small presses, often run on tight budgets, and I don’t want them to spend time and money sending out books that will languish on a shelf. But I’m also only human, and sometimes I miscalculate, and we end up with more books than review slots, or a book I would have
Joanna Acevedo reveals the ghosts and the guts beneath the “deceptively simple” surface of R.F. Kuang’s latest novel Yellowface (Harper Collins, 2023). Note: the last paragraph of the review contains potential spoilers. ISBN 978-0-06325-083-3 | 336 pp | $37.00 CAD / 30.00 USD | BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY R.F. Kuang’s forthcoming novel, Yellowface, brings up complex and nuanced concepts of race and appropriation in the literary world, through a close examination of the publishing industry. Failed
Chen ChenExplodingly Yours (Ghost City Press, 2023)ISBN 978-1-7327347-8-4 | 48 pp | $10 USD | BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY In Chen Chen’s latest chapbook, Explodingly Yours, which came out in January 2023 from Ghost City Press, Chen explores similar themes from his previous two books, but with a more explicit touch. The chapbook is erotic, ephemeral and formally innovative for Chen. As seen in his most recent release, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced An Emergency (BOA
Gabrielle BatesJudas Goat (Tin House, 2023)ISBN 978-1-95353-464-4 | 104 pp | $16.95 USD | BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY Gabrielle Bates’ debut collection of poems, Judas Goat, surprises and shocks with its candor and specificity about being a young woman in the beckoning Deep South. Violence permeates this collection, as does religion — images of Judas, his organs spilling out of his body, make appearances, as do the Virgin Mary and other eclectic figures. They are woven
Introducing our March 2023 Reviewer-in-Residence: Joanna Acevedo (she/they) is the Pushcart nominated author of the chapbook List of Demands (Bottlecap Press, 2022) and the books The Pathophysiology of Longing (Black Centipede Press, 2020) and Unsaid Things (Flexible Press, 2021). She received her MFA in Fiction from New York University in 2021. More: joannaacevedo.net Over the course of the month, Acevedo will review the following books: • Gabrielle Bates’ debut poetry collection Judas Goat (Tin House,
Since our debut more than two years ago in September 2020, CAROUSEL’s USEREVIEW has published over 100 traditional, experimental and short-form capsule reviews. Last year, we debuted our Reviewer-in-Residence program, in which we published short capsule reviews from a single reviewer for three weeks in a row. Never ones to coast, we decided this year to expand our Reviewer-in-Residence program to shine an even brighter spotlight on individual reviewers’ critical practices. For 2023, we have
Nisa MalliAllodynia (Palimpsest Press, 2022)ISBN 978-1-99029-306-1 | 80 pp | $19.95 CAD | BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY Allodynia (Palimpsest Press, 2022) is the debut poetry collection from bpNichol Chapbook Award-winning poet Nisa Malli. In Allodynia, Malli builds on her explorations of pain and illness, moving her poetry further into the sci-fi and speculative realms. The collection is divided into three sections: ‘Pain Log,’ ‘Ship’s Log,’ and ‘Pain Log.’ The poems from the two ‘Pain Log’ sections
Natalie Limarrhythmia (Rahila’s Ghost Press, 2022)ISBN 978-1-98946-313-0 | 32 pp | $12.00 CAD | BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY Natalie Lim’s debut poetry chapbook, arrhythmia (Rahila’s Ghost Press, 2022) shares the same name as Lim’s CBC Poetry Prize-winning poem, but this is an astounding collection that shows Lim’s growth as a poet since winning the prize. Lim’s writing is breathless, seen from opening poem, ‘How do you tell someone you’ve written a poem about them.’ Here, Lim
Mikko HarveyLet the World Have You (House of Anansi, 2022)ISBN 978-1-48701-069-0 | 96 pp | $19.99 CAD | BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY Mikko Harvey’s second book of poems, Let the World Have You (House of Anansi, 2022) is a dive into a strange and surreal world. Like his debut collection Unstable Neighbourhood Rabbit, Harvey’s newest work is full of animals and other creatures interacting with the daily occurrences of our lives. In ‘Funny Business,’ the speaker
Erica McKeenTear (Invisible Publishing, 2022)ISBN | 978-1-77843-006-0 | 304 pp | $22.95 CAD | BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY The latest addition to the ‘monstrous feminine‘ literary canon is Erica McKeen‘s debut novel Tear. Aptly described by its synopsis as a “horrifyingly deformed Bildungsroman,” Tear shadows its protagonist, Frances, from her childhood with a deadbeat father, an ambivalent mother and her only friend Jasper, to her early adulthood as a reticent and isolated young woman on the
Carol Harvey Steskirump + flank (NeWest Press, 2021)ISBN | 978-1-77439-028-3 | 96 pp | $19.95 CAD | BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY Carol Harvey Steski’s poetry debut rump + flank is, as the title suggests, concerned with the body, with the essential physical substance of existence — but also with the bawdy, with the erotic, the indecent, the amusing. Divided into three sections, the collection is book-ended by ‘Various Cuts’ and ‘Scar,’ their names clearly evoking the
Karl JirgensThe Razor’s Edge (The Porcupine’s Quill, 2022)ISBN | 978-0-88984-450-6 | 152 pp | $18.95 CAD | BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY Karl Jirgens gave me some advice years ago that I haven’t been able to forget. He said (and here I paraphrase): “If you want to be a writer, don’t become a publisher.” Whatever wisdom there might be in that aphorism, it doesn’t seem to apply very well to Jirgens himself. He was the editor and
Trynne Delaneythe half-drowned (Metatron Press, 2022)ISBN | 978-1-98835-525-2 | 144 pp | $18.00 CAD | BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY I became acquainted with Trynne Delaney’s writing through their compelling, experimental ‘dark patterns: matrilineal family curse,’ described as a “poem nested in a genetic pedigree,” that appeared in the “2S+QTBIPOC” issue of CV2. Prior to book publication, a preponderance of Delaney’s publicly available work appears to have been poetry, including their self-published debut chapbook, death of the
To our infinite dismay, we at USEREVIEW cannot possibly review all of the wonderful books that come out in any given year — but we can do our best to give a little extra attention to books written by our much-appreciated former, current and forthcoming CAROUSEL contributors! As 2022 ends, join us as we look back on some of the amazing books published by CAROUSEL contributors this year … #USEREVIEWEDNESDAY CHAPBOOKS NOVELS & NOVELLAS POETRY
In lieu of our regular weekly USEREVIEW posts, we at CAROUSEL will be using each Wednesday in December to highlight just a few of the many exciting artistic projects that former contributors have been at work on outside of the pages of our magazine. Up now: Justin Stephenson’s film titles for David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future (2022). Past CAROUSEL contributor Justin Stephenson is an award-winning filmmaker and moving image designer. He has directed, animated
In lieu of our regular weekly USEREVIEW posts, we at CAROUSEL will be using each Wednesday in December to highlight just a few of the many exciting artistic projects that former contributors have been at work on outside of the pages of our magazine. Up now: Anders Nilsen’s covers for new reissues of classic John Wyndham books! Past CAROUSEL contributor Anders Nilsen is the Los Angeles-based artist & author of ten books including Big Questions, The
In lieu of our regular weekly USEREVIEW posts, we at CAROUSEL will be using each Wednesday in December to highlight just a few of the many exciting artistic projects that former contributors have been at work on outside of the pages of our magazine. Up first: Hey Witch! Pottery & Art by Jessica Bromley Bartram. CAROUSEL contributor Jessica Bromley Bartram is an illustrator, graphic designer and artist based in Ottawa, Ontario. We’ve featured her work
In this traditional review, Marcie McCauley assesses the successes of Victoria Hetherington’s sophomore novel Autonomy (Dundurn Press — Rare Machines imprint, 2022) within the context of a history of literature about human-AI interaction. ISBN 978-1-45974-847-7 | 272 pp | $23.99 CAD — BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY One of the characters at the heart of Victoria Hetherington’s Autonomy is a reader with a habit of peering into stories to find new ways of being. “All the female
In this traditional review, Hollay Ghadery gets out the microscope to peer closely at rob mclennan’s latest poetry collection the book of smaller (University of Calgary Press, 2022). ISBN 978-1-77385-261-4 | 120 pp | $19.99 CAD — BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY rob mclennan’s newest poetry collection, the book of smaller, is an impressive exercise in compression. Like so many of my favourite poets, mclennan excels at distilling sentiment into something, if not more pure, at least
Kate Finegan finds the love and courage that bloom like flowers among ruins in this traditional review of Deirdre Danklin’s debut novella Catastrophe (Texas Review Press, 2022), winner of the 2021 Clay Reynolds Novella Prize. ISBN 978-1-68003-273-4 | 186 pp | $19.95 USD — BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY In Deirdre Danklin’s debut novella, Catastrophe, two friends separated by time and distance communicate telepathically while waiting out a catastrophe that has made population centres uninhabitable. The unnamed