The Good Life Review
Book Reviews
The Latest…
Jiya Kotecha Reviews Prachi Gupta’s “They Called Us Exceptional”
Written by Prachi Gupta, this memoir unravels the psychological cost of Asian Americans attempting to attain the ‘American Dream’. The novel explores the familial dynamics between Prachi, her parents, and her brother Yush, whose intertwined struggles trace a journey through unseen wounds of cultural pressure. Through honesty and heartbreak, Prachi exposes how the pursuit of exceptionalism can both bind and break a family…
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Jamie Wendt Reviews “The Deep Blue of Neptune” by Terry Belew
Belew’s use of imagery highlights his capacity to notice the anger and guilt for the way we live, whether due to recklessness, and dreams we lose sight of when we notice our over-reliance on technology, which he explores in the poem “Wish List While Reading the News on my Phone,” where he begs, “Find me…
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Cid Galicia Reviews “All the Possible Bodies” by Iain Haley Pollock
This collection of poems is a generous embodiment, like a tribal elder narrative, an evocation and invitation. Through the examples of family we experience in his poems, we are invited to consider our place in the community—invited to listen, learn, observe, and to hope society moves toward acceptance, equality, value, and integrity in our country’s…
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Cid Galicia Reviews “Freeland” by Leigh Sugar
Navigating Leigh Sugar’s collection, FREELAND, is like being caught in an argument between Han Solo and Gnarles Barkley on how to rescue the Rebel Princess from the Galactic Empire’s prison, The Death Star. At least they weren’t caught in the 1900s, still naming prisons via historical indigenous geographic locations. Because we are, and Leigh is,…
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Cid Galicia Reviews “The Flightless Years” by Jamie L. Smith
Jamie L. Smith’s collection, The Flightless Years, is an incredibly well-constructed catastrophe. When we deem those around us godlike, be they family or friends, darker realities are revealed…
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Sydney Poniewaz Reviews Hyeseung Song’s “Docile: Memoirs of a Not-so-Perfect Asian Girl”
Hyeseung Song’s intimate and tender memoir, Docile: Memoirs of a Not-so-Perfect Asian Girl, explores the captivity of the expectations introduced by the “American Dream,” a concept that promises prosperity and happiness to anyone who works hard. For Song and her family, these expectations are amplified through the model minority myth that Asian Americans often face.…
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Cid Galicia Reviews “That’s a Pretty Thing to Call It” Edited by Leigh Sugar
To read Leigh Sugar’s collection of writing, in That’s a Pretty Thing to Call It, is like visiting a prison, looking through the bars, and seeing – perhaps a villainized version of yourself. How is it that when you stop and stare at the person behind bars that you both know and don’t know them?…
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Jonah Peretz Reviews Davon Loeb’s “The In-Betweens”
In The In-Betweens, Loeb stands as witness to the many ways his family, friends, and country have tried to inform him of which box he and others belong in. He deftly illustrates the ways these circumstances forced him to plant his feet and declare that while he may not fit into tidy categories he is still – despite…
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Rory Gould Review’s “Sky Watch” by Emma Hudelson
Emma is unique in the sense that her purpose and soul seem to be so intertwined with horses that she cannot exist without them, even if that means riding while pregnant or bringing her six-month-old up on the back of her mare in the hopes that her daughter, Fern, might help sustain the uncertain future of…
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Issue #12 Cover: “Haley and Celeste” by Cameron Shipley
