Honestly I didn’t expect to feel so much by the end of this book but I did. It made me laugh gently, it made me cry greatly. Somehow Chast makes death amicable and palatable even as she spares no details.

Heartbreaking, Goldberg is novel in form while still playing on the same themes of mothers and daughters. The fragmented voices in the story somehow collage together to form a very coherent story. Personally, it would have been more interesting if the voices didn’t echo the same theme of each photograph but offered different perspectives. Nevertheless, the quiet drama captured in each photograph, letter and interview is fascinating and well done.

Reading Hanif’s work is like drinking Kool Aid on the perfect summer day, the kind your grandma makes sitting on the porch telling you all about how it used to be, careless with the amount of love she puts in. It’s a triumph and a siren call all at once.

This book hits hard and heavy like a Haitian feast, each story a carved meat prepared by your mother as she hunches over the stove in the yard, served on your grandmother’s shined silver and your sister’s spine. It is a spread that will make you cry, laugh and hold onto your bedsheets with frustrated sighs.

Not as good as the first (maybe the years make the writing less enjoyable?) but still laugh out loud, sardonic and downright emotional. Think of this book as spending the day with a church gossip on the porch sipping iced tea with molasses and not a thing to do for the rest of the day.

Felt like being wrapped in a hug with all your aunties and having them tell you exactly how to be. Wonderful concept.

There is a way to sing joy & beauty & love into the blood seeping the cracks of the pavement & the wildflowers that grow in the vacuum & this book will make you cry & laugh & look inside to see the flowers still blooming in the places where you are broken.

It’s rare to find queer stories being told in the science fiction world and these stories are an oasis, rich in detail and imagination.

Honestly really made me sad. I know he was trying to be funny and sassy but to be honest, the book just seemed like the judgmental rantings of a jaded business man.