Review by New York Times Review
Miller's story "Uphill" opens as most of the others in this book do: focused on a nameless couple (who remain anonymous for the duration) in an unspecified Southern town (this one is somewhere in Mississippi). In the case of "Uphill," the man tells his on-again-offagain girlfriend that he's been asked by a dope dealer to drive to Biloxi and "take a picture of a lady." The couple soon find themselves traveling down U.S. Route 49 after negotiating a higher fee. The action advances through the girlfriend's staccato narration ("I open a beer and he takes it out of my hand. I open another"). Her mind doesn't rest, and her prattle is arguably pathetic, albeit relatable: "I'll never have a baby with him but I like the idea of it, having a small version of him that I could control, who would listen to me and obey me and tell me every thought that popped into his head." Reading a puffy quote from Cameron Diaz in an old issue of Cosmopolitan, she remarks, "I wonder if her answer would be different in 2013, if she would say something so embarrassing and unfeminist-like." All of the innominate girlfriends, wives, roommates, teachers and even a children's shelter worker offer similarly unfettered commentary. The stories begin to flow together through recurring objects - "Uphill" ends with the girlfriend asking about her camera, and the next story begins with a camera trained on a woman; the boyfriend in "Uphill" says he'd like to buy the narrator a white bikini, an item worn by the narrator in the title story. Diaz, too, makes a second cameo, when the couple in "Hamilton Pool" put on a DVD of "The Box." There are recurring characters as well. The title story revisits the same threesome described in "At One Time This Was the Longest Covered Walkway in the World," though the reprise is more lucid, as though the protagonist hasn't had as much to drink. Taken as a whole, this harrowing yet ultimately enjoyable collection is less about the conventions of storytelling - exposition, climax, denouement - and more of a meditation on the stories a person tells herself.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [January 1, 2017]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Floating in the swimming pools and rivers of the American South, the cash-conscious, vice-ridden, anxiety-stricken narrators of Miller's second short story collection (following her heralded debut novel The Last Days of California, 2014), might be many women, or just a single one, followed down a hallway of fun-house mirrors. Their boyfriends and exes are around, or not, their siblings are referred to but remain out of frame, and missed calls from their worried moms tally up. Flying first-class to Miami, a woman contemplates the depth of her nouveau-riche friend's generosity, and their reasons for remaining friends in the first place. Living alone in a luxurious, off-campus home as part of a writing fellowship, a divorcée hosts her students for a party and is tempted by one of them. In the title piece, a woman helps her boyfriend's kid find redneck arrowheads, his dad's funny name for trash. A woman working at a shelter for abused children has a favorite. Miller's stories' most dramatic elements a woman's worrisome bleeding, another's murky involvement in a potential murder, a boyfriend's desire to film sex are rarely their most interesting or even most attention-getting moments. It's the proximity to her characters that her crystalline, unfiltered prose allows that will draw readers in immediately and entirely.--Bostrom, Annie Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In Miller's stellar new collection of stories, a series of women who are struggling to figure out their lives must learn to cope with unsatisfying relationships and complicated friendships. All of the stories feature intimate, first-person narration from a woman who is in some form of trouble. In the title story, a college composition teacher has trouble maintaining her relationship with her boyfriend, mainly because they both drink heavily and he has a young son. In another story, "First Class," a young woman tags along on expensive trips with her wealthy, bored friend even though neither of them especially want to be together. "Big Bad Love" concerns a narrator who works at a shelter for abused children. She cares about the neglected kids and dotes on one of them in particular, hoping the child will remember that someone loved her once. The women in these stories worry about their weight, how they look in bikinis, if they will ever have children, and whether they are living the life they should be. Miller's collection feels so true because it never glosses over the desperate or unflattering portrayals of its narrators, but neither does it exploit their faults. These stories acutely explore boyfriends, exes, poor choices, and the sad fallout of so many doomed relationships. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Enduring dead-end jobs or relationships, living in trailer parks or rented houses, overdoing it on drugs, liquor, or bad sex, Miller's affectless heroines don't lead quality lives. It's hardly surprising when one of them says, "I try to be as unlikeable as possible." Well, yes, and their stories can make for depressing reading. But these portraits are also mesmerizing and exactly rendered, and Miller (The Last Days of California) tartly reminds us that for many people, life is defined by hardship, surprise, and just getting by. Says one thoughtful young narrator of the wealthy women who gingerly visit the children's home where she works, "It makes me want to steal their husbands so they can see how quickly life can rearrange itself into unfamiliar and unpleasant patterns." VERDICT Despite an occasional sense of sameness, excellent reading for fans of the genre. [See Prepub Alert, 7/11/16.] © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A sense of detachment permeates the lives of the women in this short story collection, yet readers will find themselves riveted.They drink too much, keep company with the wrong men (or perhaps the men are right and they are wrong), and moon around their lives like bored teens with nothing to do but find trouble on a sultry summer day. Some have money, others are seriously strapped for cash. Most are educated, all are smarteven if they dont make smart choices. The women who slouch around the centers of Millers (The Last Days of California, 2014, etc.) short storiesdrinking dive-bar beer or mixed drinks made strong, ordering in pizza or getting fast food from the drive-thru lane, binge-watching TV, and looking for love in all the wrong placesare all about squandered potential, loneliness, and listlessness, distance where closeness should be and vice versa. They may be frustratingly disconnected, indifferent to the men who love them, attracted to those who maybe dont. Their relationships with boyfriends, husbands, and exes, parents, siblings, friends, and neighbors are complicated, yet many seem stuck. What's holding them in place? Laziness? Fear? I guess my main problem with her is that she doesnt seem to be afraid of anything, the protagonist of one story, The House on Main Street, a divorced Southern grad student, says of her roommate, Melinda, a New Yorker who eats different foods (fresh meats she buys at the farmers market), writes different poetry (about apples and trees and never become more than apples and trees), and beds a different sort of man (Baptist and clean-cut and gets along well with everyone) than she. When Melinda is out, Millers protagonist sneaks into her bedroom to look at her stuff, marveling at how distinct the trappings of her roommate's life are from her own, never touching a thing. I just stand in her space feeling like an intruder, she says. The reader may respond the same way to the 16 stories in this collection, which feel both homey and exotic, limning lives at once familiar and distinctly their own. Like a two-for-one drink special or a boxful of beer, this bracingly strong collection may prove intoxicating. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
