bashbashbashbash's review
4.0
I like the theme and diversity of this issue, and that everyone who reviews it seems to have different favorites. Personally I loved Rita Bullwinkel's bizarre, troubling, and totally great story "Decor," about a woman who works in a high-end furniture store as a kind of piece of living furniture and receives mail from a convict who wants fabric samples.
Jenn Shapland's essay "Illness Is Metaphor" was a standout too – partly because it's full of weird facts about health-seeking consumptives of the late 19th and early 20th century, but also because it describes in some detail what it's like to be undiagnosable, to live with an unnamed chronic illness, and to redefine the very ideas of health and wellness to yourself.
Amy Bloom's essay "Car Wash of the Dead" articulates an idea that I've been struggling to put into words for a long time: namely that death has a tendency to (car)wash away all the nagging irritations we experience with deceased people who we've loved and been close to.
I also enjoyed Leslie Jamison's "Confessions of an Unredeemed Fan." Having missed most of the Amy Winehouse writing of the past few years, having even failed to see the eponymous documentary about her, I found Jamison's essay riveting.
Jenn Shapland's essay "Illness Is Metaphor" was a standout too – partly because it's full of weird facts about health-seeking consumptives of the late 19th and early 20th century, but also because it describes in some detail what it's like to be undiagnosable, to live with an unnamed chronic illness, and to redefine the very ideas of health and wellness to yourself.
Amy Bloom's essay "Car Wash of the Dead" articulates an idea that I've been struggling to put into words for a long time: namely that death has a tendency to (car)wash away all the nagging irritations we experience with deceased people who we've loved and been close to.
I also enjoyed Leslie Jamison's "Confessions of an Unredeemed Fan." Having missed most of the Amy Winehouse writing of the past few years, having even failed to see the eponymous documentary about her, I found Jamison's essay riveting.
zachkuhn's review
4.0
worth the price of admission for the Jennifer Tseng story. Odd and lovely and moving.
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