#42: The Blurry Years by Eleanor Kriseman

 A teenager comes of age in the shadow of an alcoholic mother in Eleanor Kriseman's debut The Blurry Years.

The young woman lives on the fringes of Florida society, and dips in and out of various dangerous situations; an ill-advised road trip with her mother to Oregon begins to tip the scales in her favor, but their return to Florida leads to the breaking point.

Although I didn't think Kriseman's novel broke any new ground, I liked the storytelling, with a good feel for time and place.  The characters are complex and the novel ends with a respite of sorts, but with no easy answers.  I'm curious to see what Kriseman would write next.

This novel was sent to me by Two Dollar Radio, and I read it quickly.

#34: The Deeper the Water, the Uglier the Fish by Katya Apekina

Two sisters have to go live with their absent father (a famous author) after their mother's suicide attempt, and slowly unbury a troubled family history, in Katya Apekina's The Deeper the Water, the Uglier the Fish.

Apekina's debut novel has familiar plotting--there seems to be shades of Mona Simpson, Larry McMurtry, and Michael Chabon throughout--in its discussion of difficult topics such as mental illness, infidelity, suicide, child molesting, and incest.  But its storytelling is more uniquely its own, mixing in oral histories, letters, and vantage points from various times, places, and characters.

Part of the storytelling centers around the father being involved in the civil rights movement, where he meets a teenager who becomes his wife; more around a graduate student trying to write a dissertation about the author (though more accurately, stalking him); but central is the voice of one sister, from her perspective as a teen, and the other sister, as an adult looking back at a rocky stretch of her life.

Apekina's novel is compelling and readable throughout, even with some familiar beats, and worthwhile for those comfortable with challenging subject matter.

I was sent this novel by the publisher, Two Dollar Radio.

#38: Seeing People Off by Jana Beňová

Two young couples in post-Soviet Slovakia figure out life and love in Jana Beňová's Seeing People Off.

Beňová provides a little slice of life in this vignette-oriented novel, some parts whimsical and magical, some parts more grounded in emotional and mental health.  All in all a fresh voice from the Eastern European school.

Beňová may be new to these shores in this English translation, but has written steadily, on a variety of platforms, in her native Slovakia.  She lives in Bratislava, the central city featured in this work.

I bought Seeing People Off  from Two Dollar Radio, an interesting publishing house for independent writing, based in Ohio.

#10: The Reactive by Masande Ntshanga

Three knockabout friends in Cape Town hang out, use drugs, and also sell them--primarily HIV drugs--in Masande Ntshanga's episodic novel The Reactive.

This slice-of-life novel, set in South Africa, tries to frame its story around a mysterious masked man who wants to buy a large quantity of drugs from the trio; but the novel is more rewarding when it peers into the thoughts of the characters, and their lives on the fringe of a ramshackle neighborhood.  How each of the friends became adrift, sniffing glue and dreaming, is really the core of the book.

I liked Ntshanga's writing, especially his characterization, and found this to be an interesting, change-of-pace slice of literary fiction.

This was sent to me by Two Dollar Radio and I read it quickly.

#54: The Only Ones by Carola Dibbell

In a broken, pandemic-ridden near-future New York, a hard-luck young woman volunteers for a cloning experiment, then ends up raising the results in Carola Dibbell's The Only Ones.

Dibbell's debut novel is a knockout chunk of sci-fi, what might happen if Brave New World had been narrated by an uneducated single mother.  And Dibbell's Inez is a vivid character with a unique voice, carrying the first-person narrative through an epic narrative that includes both world-breaking events as well as nuanced family relationships.

I found this to be a very rewarding read and was glad to finish my year of reading women with this novel.  Recommended for fans of both science fiction and literary fiction.

I purchased this at the Women and Children First bookstore in Chicago.  It is published by Ohio-based Two Dollar Radio, whose output I have enjoyed.

#50: I Smile Back by Amy Koppelman

A young wife and mother struggles with her identity, masking her problems with drugs and risky sex, in Amy Koppelman's downbeat portrayal of suburban life I Smile Back.

Koppelman creates a fully-realized central character, and finely-tuned but bleak sketch of the American Dream, for an overall rewarding literary fiction outing.

I became interested in this novel when I learned that it would be made into a film with Sarah Silverman, who to me seems to be a good choice for the self-destructive Laney.  I Smile Back was published by Two Dollar Radio, a small publishing house in nearby Columbus, Ohio, whose output I have enjoyed.

I purchased this novel from Two Dollar Radio and read it quickly, passing it on to other like-minded readers afterwards.

This was a great novel to enjoy in reaching my goal of reading fifty books by women in 2015.  I wanted to seek out new voices and stories told from different perspectives, and Koppelman's work was a good example of that goal.

#17: How to Get Into the Twin Palms by Karolina Waclawiak

A young Polish woman living on the margins of Los Angeles dreams of entering a Russian club across the street from her apartment, but learns to be careful what she wishes for in Karolina Waclawiak's How to Get into the Twin Palms.

Waclawiak's novel is a well-done contemporary immigrant story, alternating between humorous and heartbreaking as we follow her journey, which mirrors a mythological descent as aggressive wildfires prick at the edges of her existence.

Vivid in portraying both the lives of expat Eastern Europeans and the fringes of California society, How to Get into the Twin Palms is a worthwhile read.

I bought this from the independent publishing house Two Dollar Radio and read it quickly.