Meredith Maran

The very intensity with which Parks pursues Roy’s story reveals and reflects the depth of Parks’s longing to love herself ... Parks has written a memoir that will serve as a beacon for many others still yearning to no longer feel like misfits.

Meredith Maran

In her trademark godly yet snarky way, she extracts every life lesson from her latest new experience with the deft zeal of a chef reducing flour and fat to roux... Lamott speaks to the human in all of us, challenging us to bear her beam of love, and our own.

Meredith Maran

Deciding what to do, Cinnamon deliberates with everyone...These discussions elevate the novel from entertaining domestic drama to enlightening portrait of how race can infuse every decision and interaction, even between close friends.

Meredith Maran

Travis Bickle, meet Toni Morrison, in a socially probing, fiercely fun debut novel... It’s rare for a writer to marry such deep social consciousness with a comic, sultry romance, rarer still to pull that off in a way that satisfies and provokes the reader.

Meredith Maran

RT @bookcritics: NBCC member @meredithmaran reviewed Kirstin Valdez Quade’s "The Five Wounds" for @latimesbooks: https://t.co/MzR64PRAXQ

Meredith Maran

In today’s America, what constitutes success? What are the obstacles to achieving it? How do race, class, age, and location affect the odds? These oh-so-serious questions are tackled with scathing, lol-inducing wit in The Survivalists, Kashana Cauley’s smart, sharp debut novel.

Meredith Maran

…Her unmistakable voice: wry, witty, authentic, down-to-earth but also way-up-in-the-clouds. Above all, it’s the self-deprecating, self-aware and ultimately self-loving honesty that distinguishes Tea’s way of life and her irresistible, evocative and wise way of writing about it.