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khuizenga's review against another edition
5.0
Beautiful in the slow motion glass falling from a car crash kind of way.
essjay1's review against another edition
4.0
Stories of love and loss, heartbreak and regret. I love a good story collection but this one took a while to warm up for me. The writing is excellent - clever, nuanced, concise - however for some reason I failed to engage.
Some stand out stories: Anything Remarkable (on marriage, on the said & unsaid - when was the last time you wished for different?), Chavez (on being abandoned, grief etc), A Small Cleared Space (when the loss is a child). Sinkers the standout for me. So perfectly captures the perversity of the grief process.
Most of these stories deal with how to move on, from loss of some sort be it death of a loved one or a relationship, or just an argument.
Some stand out stories: Anything Remarkable (on marriage, on the said & unsaid - when was the last time you wished for different?), Chavez (on being abandoned, grief etc), A Small Cleared Space (when the loss is a child). Sinkers the standout for me. So perfectly captures the perversity of the grief process.
Most of these stories deal with how to move on, from loss of some sort be it death of a loved one or a relationship, or just an argument.
millennial_dandy's review against another edition
4.0
3.5 rounded up to 4
"How sinister a spoon looks, lying all alone on a windowsill."
If you're looking for a bit of 'summertime sadness', this is the short story collection for you. Indeed, even the stories that take place in the wintertime ooze with the breezy melancholy Lana seemed to be referring to.
If asked to summarize what happens in any given story, they could all be summed up thusly: 'nothing really happens other than life whooshing around the protagonist, but it was sad.'
These are stories about loss, but not the losing parts, not the dramatic crying on the kitchen floor at 3am parts, but the quiet parts of mourning and grief and uncertainty and loneliness where it's a beautiful day with a perfect breeze and you sit out on the porch sipping lemonade and feeling depressed. Maybe about something specific, maybe not.
This type of whimsical, poetic, and at the same time incredibly mundane unhappiness perfectly captures the brand of ennui that characterizes the Millennial generation.
It was all fun and games back in 2013 when we sent each other memes of manic smiles and captions like 'I'm so fucking depressed haha' or posting pictures of $5 bath bombs on Facebook with the caption 'self care lol' with the subtext: 'please god help me I'm so sad all the time and the brief bump of dopamine I got when I bought this is the only thing keeping me going.'
I vividly remember the discourse about the dangers of romanticizing depression and manic self care even as we all felt ourselves getting crushed under capitalism, staring down the twin barrels of climate change and social instability.
And now, ten years later, those anxious young adults are becoming 'real' adults and nothing feels like it's any better and we've resigned ourselves to a lifetime of mourning the bright future that was never there for us. Even so, even if anxiety feels as innate a part of you as your left pinky toe, at least if you look out for it something funny might happen at the local cafe or the check-out line at the grocery store, or maybe you'll go for a walk in the woods and come upon someone your age just screaming at the clouds. Either way, something for the group chat.
All this to say, to the average, irony-poisoned, anxiety-riddled Boomer Zoomer/fetus Millennial, 'Here Until August' feels like home.
Stories like 'Real Life', 'The Once-Drowned Man' and 'Chavez' focus on life's alltägliche occurrences but with a quirky twist: playing a game with your sort-of lover, trying to guess if the couple downstairs is fighting or having sex, a passenger in your taxi who claims to have been involved in obscure film projects and needs a lift four hours north to the Canadian border, dogs with names like 'Mingus' and 'Heisenberg' being told by bougie owners to stay out of the trash.
Josephine Rowe is obviously someone who pays attention when she's out and about and sits at Starbucks without headphones in so she can eavesdrop on the couple at the table next to her, because every one of the stories in this collection feel like small moments captured on glass slides, and she's just helping you look through the microscope. 'See,' she seems to be saying, 'that grain of sand contains multitudes -- doesn't that make you feel alive? But also very, very sad?'
I think you get the idea.
Not every meditation on mourning or yearning will resonate with every person, of course. I can feel for the woman who lost her baby, but that's not a grief I'll ever feel, so it's less meaningful to me than stories about relationships where the couple only stays together because loneliness would be worse, or where the protagonist does summersaults just to avoid having to talk to her neighbors or fellow dog-walkers.
It's a subjective thing, but if you're in the right age group and you're wanting to lean into a wistful fugue state, this is the book for you. Keep your best underlining pen at the ready.
And yes, I took a picture of the cover against summer flowers for Instagram and posted it while I sipped on an oat-milk latte (though I did skip out on the avocado toast) because sometimes that self-indulgent, summertime sadness aesthetic is what you need. And let's be real: whoever designed that cover knew what they were doing.
Josephine gets it.
And hey, if you're looking for these vibes elsewhere, 'Love in the Big City' by Sang Young Park is also a great place to find them.
"How sinister a spoon looks, lying all alone on a windowsill."
If you're looking for a bit of 'summertime sadness', this is the short story collection for you. Indeed, even the stories that take place in the wintertime ooze with the breezy melancholy Lana seemed to be referring to.
If asked to summarize what happens in any given story, they could all be summed up thusly: 'nothing really happens other than life whooshing around the protagonist, but it was sad.'
These are stories about loss, but not the losing parts, not the dramatic crying on the kitchen floor at 3am parts, but the quiet parts of mourning and grief and uncertainty and loneliness where it's a beautiful day with a perfect breeze and you sit out on the porch sipping lemonade and feeling depressed. Maybe about something specific, maybe not.
This type of whimsical, poetic, and at the same time incredibly mundane unhappiness perfectly captures the brand of ennui that characterizes the Millennial generation.
It was all fun and games back in 2013 when we sent each other memes of manic smiles and captions like 'I'm so fucking depressed haha' or posting pictures of $5 bath bombs on Facebook with the caption 'self care lol' with the subtext: 'please god help me I'm so sad all the time and the brief bump of dopamine I got when I bought this is the only thing keeping me going.'
I vividly remember the discourse about the dangers of romanticizing depression and manic self care even as we all felt ourselves getting crushed under capitalism, staring down the twin barrels of climate change and social instability.
And now, ten years later, those anxious young adults are becoming 'real' adults and nothing feels like it's any better and we've resigned ourselves to a lifetime of mourning the bright future that was never there for us. Even so, even if anxiety feels as innate a part of you as your left pinky toe, at least if you look out for it something funny might happen at the local cafe or the check-out line at the grocery store, or maybe you'll go for a walk in the woods and come upon someone your age just screaming at the clouds. Either way, something for the group chat.
All this to say, to the average, irony-poisoned, anxiety-riddled Boomer Zoomer/fetus Millennial, 'Here Until August' feels like home.
Stories like 'Real Life', 'The Once-Drowned Man' and 'Chavez' focus on life's alltägliche occurrences but with a quirky twist: playing a game with your sort-of lover, trying to guess if the couple downstairs is fighting or having sex, a passenger in your taxi who claims to have been involved in obscure film projects and needs a lift four hours north to the Canadian border, dogs with names like 'Mingus' and 'Heisenberg' being told by bougie owners to stay out of the trash.
Josephine Rowe is obviously someone who pays attention when she's out and about and sits at Starbucks without headphones in so she can eavesdrop on the couple at the table next to her, because every one of the stories in this collection feel like small moments captured on glass slides, and she's just helping you look through the microscope. 'See,' she seems to be saying, 'that grain of sand contains multitudes -- doesn't that make you feel alive? But also very, very sad?'
I think you get the idea.
Not every meditation on mourning or yearning will resonate with every person, of course. I can feel for the woman who lost her baby, but that's not a grief I'll ever feel, so it's less meaningful to me than stories about relationships where the couple only stays together because loneliness would be worse, or where the protagonist does summersaults just to avoid having to talk to her neighbors or fellow dog-walkers.
It's a subjective thing, but if you're in the right age group and you're wanting to lean into a wistful fugue state, this is the book for you. Keep your best underlining pen at the ready.
And yes, I took a picture of the cover against summer flowers for Instagram and posted it while I sipped on an oat-milk latte (though I did skip out on the avocado toast) because sometimes that self-indulgent, summertime sadness aesthetic is what you need. And let's be real: whoever designed that cover knew what they were doing.
Josephine gets it.
And hey, if you're looking for these vibes elsewhere, 'Love in the Big City' by Sang Young Park is also a great place to find them.
misha_ali's review against another edition
1.0
I normally love short stories. I enjoy dipping into a new setting or perspective, enjoying the mini-arc they go through and the conclusion. I didn't enjoy this collection because none of the stories ended on a note that seemed like an ending. In some cases, I was aggravated by the introduction of distinctly weird things just at the end of the story, followed by an abrupt ending that was not only unsatisfying, but downright confusing.
I can see how people who enjoy lyrical descriptions would enjoy these stories, but it was absolutely not to my taste.
I can see how people who enjoy lyrical descriptions would enjoy these stories, but it was absolutely not to my taste.
aaron_j136's review against another edition
3.0
This collection started off promising with Glisk but unfortunately the majority of the other stories just fell a bit flat.
onecheesetoasty's review against another edition
1.0
TW: death and loss of every single kind
I know, I'm going to get a lot of heat for being "insensitive", or "she just doesn't get it." Child I get it, trust me. We've all dealt with pain, grief, and confusion. And I know that poetry and books about pain can help those going through it understand their feelings. Unfortunately, this book is not one of them no natter how hard it tries to be. Rowe sacrifices substance for run on sentences, absolutely no dialogue, and a dizzying amount of metaphors.
I have several issues with this book. First, the stories are written in the same voice, making it difficult to separate the stories one after another. You would think that the narrators would not have the same meter of speaking, especially seeing as every story takes place on completely different continents. I am left thinking these short stories are meant to be read under one collection, like a clothing line or poetry collection. If not, then this is a cognitive oversight-- a shortcoming. Authors and reviewers should refer to Stephen King's "If It Bleeds" for an example on voice.
This brings us to our next point: style of writing. Fans of some (notice I say SOME!) free verse poetry will be pleased to read this book. This book is what a computer program thinks a free verse book is. The ratio of actual story telling to mindless descriptive paragraphs is so one-sided I forgot what I was reading, even when some stories were as short as 7 pages.
Now to the final and most important issue: what each story is actually about. I'll tell you: Horrible things that happen in life. Each story is like the first third of a regular book or movie: you meet the characters and then something horrible happens. But unfortunately, that's where the similarities end. There is no wrap up, no resolution and don't even bother getting attached to any characters because the story will be over in 4 paragraphs (the last installment). So if you enjoy the catastrophes that set up stories the best, this book will give you 195 pages of it!
Below is the topic of each story so you can read your favorite kind of tragedy faster:
1. Child death
2. Career loss
3. Divorce
4. Cancer
5. Divorce part 2: this time they have young children
6. Miscarriage
7. Survivor's guilt: the return of death
8. Miscarriage part 2: the memorial
9. Divorce part 3: celebrity edition
10. Ice?
Perhaps the trigger warning is all that needs to be said about the contents of this book. That being said, "The Once-Drowned Man" was my favorite.
I know, I'm going to get a lot of heat for being "insensitive", or "she just doesn't get it." Child I get it, trust me. We've all dealt with pain, grief, and confusion. And I know that poetry and books about pain can help those going through it understand their feelings. Unfortunately, this book is not one of them no natter how hard it tries to be. Rowe sacrifices substance for run on sentences, absolutely no dialogue, and a dizzying amount of metaphors.
I have several issues with this book. First, the stories are written in the same voice, making it difficult to separate the stories one after another. You would think that the narrators would not have the same meter of speaking, especially seeing as every story takes place on completely different continents. I am left thinking these short stories are meant to be read under one collection, like a clothing line or poetry collection. If not, then this is a cognitive oversight-- a shortcoming. Authors and reviewers should refer to Stephen King's "If It Bleeds" for an example on voice.
This brings us to our next point: style of writing. Fans of some (notice I say SOME!) free verse poetry will be pleased to read this book. This book is what a computer program thinks a free verse book is. The ratio of actual story telling to mindless descriptive paragraphs is so one-sided I forgot what I was reading, even when some stories were as short as 7 pages.
Now to the final and most important issue: what each story is actually about. I'll tell you: Horrible things that happen in life. Each story is like the first third of a regular book or movie: you meet the characters and then something horrible happens. But unfortunately, that's where the similarities end. There is no wrap up, no resolution and don't even bother getting attached to any characters because the story will be over in 4 paragraphs (the last installment). So if you enjoy the catastrophes that set up stories the best, this book will give you 195 pages of it!
Below is the topic of each story so you can read your favorite kind of tragedy faster:
1. Child death
2. Career loss
3. Divorce
4. Cancer
5. Divorce part 2: this time they have young children
6. Miscarriage
7. Survivor's guilt: the return of death
8. Miscarriage part 2: the memorial
9. Divorce part 3: celebrity edition
10. Ice?
Perhaps the trigger warning is all that needs to be said about the contents of this book. That being said, "The Once-Drowned Man" was my favorite.
bestdressedbookworm's review against another edition
1.0
This was not for me.
Short story collections can often go 2 ways:
1 - you fall in love with the characters and you wish the story was longer because you just want more.
Or
2 - it’s overly written flowery prose that make absolutely no sense, there is no character development because it’s over written and there is no more time for character development and no one thinks the same way some authors write. You get lost and confused and start finding what you’re reading pointless, boring and cannot connect in anyway to anything that’s written on the page. And before you know it that story has ended and you’re starting that confusing journey all over again and you do this 10-12 times.
Unfortunately for me with this collection it was the ladder. I’m in a minority here with this author, I can see a lot of people found this brilliant. I feel that if you are going to only give me 6-12 pages to relate to a character, to make hearing about their story worth it, you have to work harder than this.
Short story collections can often go 2 ways:
1 - you fall in love with the characters and you wish the story was longer because you just want more.
Or
2 - it’s overly written flowery prose that make absolutely no sense, there is no character development because it’s over written and there is no more time for character development and no one thinks the same way some authors write. You get lost and confused and start finding what you’re reading pointless, boring and cannot connect in anyway to anything that’s written on the page. And before you know it that story has ended and you’re starting that confusing journey all over again and you do this 10-12 times.
Unfortunately for me with this collection it was the ladder. I’m in a minority here with this author, I can see a lot of people found this brilliant. I feel that if you are going to only give me 6-12 pages to relate to a character, to make hearing about their story worth it, you have to work harder than this.
ashrocc's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
2.0