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USEREVIEW 119 (Capsule): Arboreality

Rebecca CampbellArboreality (Stelliform Press, 2022)ISBN: 978-1-77768-232-3 | 117 pp | $18.99 CAD | BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY Built upon her Sturgeon Award-winning novelette ‘An Important Failure,’ Rebecca Campbell‘s Canticle for Liebowitz-style novella, Arboreality, uses the intimate losses and incremental gains of a post-climate collapse Cowichan Valley community to create a compassionate, masterfully executed book about rewilding our ecology of ideas. When Vancouver Island’s climate destabilizes, a few academics break up McPherson Library’s collection to save it

May 2023 Reviewer-in-Residence: Leah Bobet

Introducing our May 2023 Reviewer-in-Residence: Novelist, editor and critic Leah Bobet’s novels have won the Sunburst, Copper Cylinder and Aurora Awards, been selected for the Ontario Library Association’s Best Bets program and been shortlisted for the Cybils and the Andre Norton Award. Her short fiction has appeared in multiple Year’s Best anthologies and has been taught in high school and university classrooms in Canada, Australia and the US; her poetry has been multiply shortlisted for

USEREVIEW 118: Delight & Disconcertion

Hollay Ghadery has a fine ear for the complex orchestration of dualities in Sing, Nightingale, the latest novel by Marie Hélène Poitras, translated from the French by Rhonda Mullins (Coach House Books, 2023). ISBN 978-1-55245-448-0 | 176 pp | $22.95 CAD — BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY Arguably, all books aim to transport readers to another world, but not all books can do this as self-reflexively and immersively as Sing, Nightingale by Marie Hélène Poitras (translated from

USEREVIEW 117 (Capsule): The Family Code

Wayne NgThe Family Code (Guernica Editions, 2023)ISBN 978-1-77183-793-4 | 316 pp | $25 CAD | BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY The Family Code by Wayne Ng is a riveting and heart-wrenching story of inter-generational trauma that pivots around Hannah and her young son, Axel. Hannah and Axel live in poverty and are both victims of abuse: Hannah, at the hands of her father and partners; Axel, at the hands of his mother. Interestingly, the novel is narrated

USEREVIEW 116 (Capsule): WJD

Khashayar MohammadiWJD (Gordon Hill Press, 2022)ISBN 978-1-77422-070-2 | 68 of 138 pp* | $20 CAD | BUY Here #CAROUSELreviews#USEREVIEWEDNESDAY Khashayar Mohammadi’s second full-length collection of poetry, WJD, is an absorbing phenomenological exploration of language, culture, country and spirit. While rangy, roaming different literal and figurative landscapes from Iran to “pre-cosmic” nothingness, the poems are singular in their bubbling richness; an intensity that punches as it delights, plucks at the darkness but also, proffers a hard-won

April 2023 Reviewer-in-Residence: Hollay Ghadery

Introducing our April 2023 Reviewer-in-Residence: Hollay Ghadery is a writer living in rural Ontario on Anishinaabe land. She has her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Her fiction, nonfiction and poetry have been published in various literary journals, including Grain, Room, The Antigonish Review, The Fiddlehead and The Malahat Review. Her memoir on mixed-race identity and mental health, Fuse, came out with Guernica Editions’ MiroLand imprint in spring 2021. Her debut collection

USEREVIEW 114: Something Worthy

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

USEREVIEW 113 (Capsule): Explodingly Yours

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

USEREVIEW 112 (Capsule): Judas Goat

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

March 2023 Reviewer-in-Residence: Joanna Acevedo

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,

New at USEREVIEW in 2023

Staff
02, 2023
Book Review, Review
0

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

USEREVIEW 111 (Capsule): Allodynia

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

USEREVIEW 110 (Capsule): arrhythmia

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

USEREVIEW 109 (Capsule): Let the World Have You

Mikko HarveyLet the World Have You (House of Anansi Press, 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

USEREVIEW 108 (Capsule): Tear

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

USEREVIEW 107 (Capsule): rump + flank

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

USEREVIEW 106 (Capsule): The Razor’s Edge

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

USEREVIEW 105 (Capsule): the half-drowned

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

USEREVIEW 104: A Search for Another Ending

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

USEREVIEW 103: Prolong, in Fragments

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