Otherwise Elsewhere. . . The title is like reading an implied question. Filled with unwavering eyes, the cover art is abstract enough that you want to open it, if only because it feels like you are being stared at and are not sure what to expect. Or maybe because after staring back at the title [...]
About: Melissa Slachetka
Website: http://melissaslachetka.blogspot.com/
Melissa graduated with a degree in English Literature. After moving to Minneapolis, she discovered freelance writing. Melissa's work has been featured in local publications such as Twin Cities Statement, Rain Taxi, The Bridge, The Downtown Journal, The Northeaster, and Twin Cities Daily Planet. She also enjoys photography, writing poetry, and traveling.
The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death is absurd and hilarious. This is the kind of book you will want to read aloud to a friend while giggling spontaneously and ultimately loosing the narrative, but enjoying it so much that the other person laughs along at the image of your attempts. Laurie Notaro [...]
Repetition, alliteration, personification, and a certain amount of attention deficit disorder flow through Steve Healey's newest book of poems 10 Mississippi. And like the uncertain river that flows through our Twin Cities, Healey's poems don't even contemplate being lulling and smooth. They are a jumpy, choppy, force of words. Elements in combat would be an [...]
Some books of short stories are held together by a theme, but John Jodzio’s new book, If You Lived Here You'd Already Be Home, is held together by style. Darkly humorous and filled with unsettling symbolism, Jodzio offers us a glimpse through the keyhole into another life. “I get paid eight dollars an hour to [...]
The Surrendered by Chang-Rae Lee is a novel of epic proportions. The book is set in the present tense, but very much of it takes place through remembering life during war. June and Hector are the two main characters and they met during the Korean War. June was a young girl who lost her family [...]
Romantic chick-lit crossed with Japanese illustrated Manga is a fusion too good to pass up. Like exotic bubble tea that keeps popping up in local tea shops, you just have to try it, whether or not you will like it can be determined after the first sip. Response, written by Penny Jordan with art by [...]
It seems like a recipe for failure to have your storyline told by a family pet, expound on the sport of racecar driving, and top it off with the idea of reincarnation. The fact that this novel works is a testament to Garth Stein's skill as an author. The plot is crafted beautifully, the characters [...]
Off We Go into the Wild Blue Yonder is a new novel by Travis Nichols, with the title taken from a popular World War II bomber song. The story is told through a group of letters written to Luddie, a Polish woman, who hid the main character's grandfather from Nazi's during the war. The main [...]
Laurie Lindeen (who answered MN Reads 6 questions last year) sets us up for a solid rock-n-roll road-trip in Petal Pusher: A Rock and Roll Cinderella Story. With its sassy pink cover, this memoir will do its best to surprise you with brutal honesty and boundless energy. Lindeen and her band, Zuzu's Petals, may not [...]
Bonnie Rough expertly straddles the fine line of too much information in her new book Carrier, Untangling the Danger in my DNA. Reality and memoir fill in the pieces to Rough's past as she writes about her genetic abnormality – an inherited DNA trait – that she could likely pass on to future children. “In [...]
Dreams of Sex and Stage Diving is the best Martin Millar book since Good Fairies of New York. It is uncouth, dirty, and a lot of fun. Millar taps into confused youths brave denial of any proper society, by pushing sexual boundaries and creating a punk-rock playground. The writing is graphic and gratuitous, with an [...]
Shocking and powerful: Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa is a history of heartache that will turn on the water-works. It is an intimate portrait of true loves' deep scars and generations of families that get brought together and pulled apart so many times, that it's like ripping a band-aid off the same place again [...]
Under the idyllic and pastoral cover, The Stranger Manual by Catie Rosemurgy is a creepy little book of poems. It juxtaposes the realities of grotesque and pretty: of comic and disturbing. While this seems alarming, it may not be a bad thing. Miss Peach, an ever-appearing character in the verses, is as compelling as Miss [...]
The Last Days of Madame Rey is a perfect companion to A. W. Hill's Nowhere-Land. Both feature the daring PI Stephan Raszer, and although Madame Rey came first, it has just been newly released in a paperback with brand-new cover art. Both reads are intense, but Madame Rey has an earthy mother-nature tone where science [...]
Greg Hewett's new book of poems, darkacre, dabbles in property law as well as the physical and abstract definitions surrounding it. The poetry collection’s name is a play on the legal term 'blackacre' which simply defines one property from another, 'whiteacre', for contracts and legal proceedings. Hewett takes this from law to literary, with poems [...]
Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty is a colorful and contradictory view of America. The poems are a filled with musings on the century we are living in and the dynamics of love and life. Tony Hoagland's verses seem to ask if we are just bold adventurers claiming a new democratic royalty or is [...]
Like a CSI television drama, Find the Girl captures our full attention. The poems deal with the death of and lurking danger to girls and young women. Author, Lightsey Darst's verses urge the reader to tap into the days of innocence when running through fields was brave exploration and lips were stained red by Kool-Aid, [...]
Minneapolis's own Hell's Kitchen is no relation to the television show of same name but it is just as intense, and reading the story behind its success is even better than watching Chef Ramsay yell. The vivacious chef and owner of our local hellish hotspot is Mitch Omer. He joins literary forces with Ann Bauer, [...]
Writer's block, obsessive authors, and drunken arrests, don't begin to describe John McNally's novel, After the Workshop. Main character, Jack Hercules Sheahan, is a writer that had a chance to make a name for himself as a novelist and let it slip through his fingers, finding himself years later as an ill-paid, often disrespected media [...]
Ruby and the Stone Age Diet is a classic Martin Millar novel with a jumble of sub-plots, twists and turns, and an unnamed narrator. Millar, once again, explores the world of Britain's underclass filled with dreamers, tweakers, and lovable misfits. Threads of storyline intermingle to create a literary fog that is great to get lost [...]
Never Trust a Thin Cook is best described as an epicurious travelogue. It focuses more on the joy of food and cooking traditions than on specific recipes. Essentially, it is a diary of an American living abroad. Author, Eric Dregni puts this tale in play when he walks away from the popular south Minneapolis eatery, [...]
Alex Lemon's memoir, Happy, is filled with blood, sweat, and courage. It is a raw and brutally honest look at overcoming what fate throws at you. Happy is a nickname and a personality Lemon shows the world as his body deteriorates in illness. The moments in this book are so personal; it will make you [...]
Melissa’s Top Ten Favorites of 2009
{Best of: A.W. Hill, Alan Deniro, Anne-Marie Oomen, Best Books of 2009, Carolina DeRobertis, Debra Ollivier, Isobella Jade, Janet Skeslien Charles, Laird Hunt, Miriam Toews, Norah Labiner}
1. Ray of the Star by Laird Hunt: Loved everything about this book! The writing is dynamic, the setting is exotic, and the plotline is filled with beauty and tragedy. [review] 2. The Invisible Mountain by Carolina De Robertis: This book is currently making the rounds with the ladies of my family. It is a [...]
Toss The Rules in the trash-bin, put on your sexy lingerie, and welcome this new French mindset. This novel is an ultimate woman's guide to getting what she wants. Author Debra Ollivier, a born-again French woman, knows enough about her own country and her husband's homeland to be instantly relatable to gals on both sides [...]
Total Oblivion, More or Less is a fantastical voyage down the Mississippi that would make Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer proud. The only difference with this trip is: there's no going home. “There were tall white birches lining the eastern shore, their bark like an albino's skin. They seemed like trees from a different place [...]
Big Noise by Jen Wright is a Northwood's thriller you can curl up with on a snowy night. Main character, Jo, is in need of a vacation from her stressful work dealing with troubled and sometimes dangerous teens. She and her new love interest, Zoey, head to the town Big Noise to visit friends, explore [...]
There's something entrancing about a brainiac flirting with a mobster… especially when he flirts back. Moonlight in Odessa is a steamy and somber novel that gives the reader a love story caught in a world of beauty and corruption. It's hard to believe this is the debut novel by Janet Skeslien Charles. Her characters are [...]
Part memoir and part comic book, this graphic novel interweaves stunning illustrations with journal entries, text messages, and photographic elements. With a bold red cover and racy images, it's a book that begs to be opened. It is extremely well put together, but what it exudes in style, it lacks in text and plot. This [...]
Beautiful and hypnotic; Ray of the Star is a novel of magical realism that will have you laughing at the absurdity of life and bowing to the tragedy. Laird Hunt's words will make the reader transcend into a world of living statues, yellow submarines, and talking shoes … and love every second of it. Laird [...]
There is a point where contemporary crosses over into fad. It's too soon to tell for sure what category In a Perfect World by Laura Kasischke falls into, but it's likely to be the latter. It certainly is timely, but so is a TMZ celebrity newscast and that may be just the problem. There was [...]
