Category Archives: Reviews

In the Weeds: A Review of Kamala Harris’s 107 Days

Posted on October 26, 2025 by Gabriella West

107 Days, Kamala Harris, Simon & Schuster, October 2025, $14.99 on Kindle Former Vice President Kamala Harris is doing the rounds of her book tour right now. This book came out remarkably fast, given that she lost the election to … Continue reading →

Posted in News, Reviews | Tagged 107 Days, donald trump, female politicians, Harris-Trump Debate, Kamala Harris, political memoir, Presidential Election, Presidential Election 2024, sexism, Tim Walz, Vice President | 1 Comment

Review: We All Shine On by Elliot Mintz

Posted on October 27, 2024 by Gabriella West

This memoir by a very old friend of the Lennons is definitely worth reading for the arc of his friendship with John. Mintz has many good stories. As a 26-year-old broadcaster in LA in 1971, he played Yoko’s double album … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged 1970s, Beatles history, bisexuality, death, Elliot Mintz, friendship, John Lennon, LA, loss, May Pang, memoir, Music, review, We All Shine On, Yoko Ono | Leave a comment

Life Span by Molly Giles: A Review

Posted on June 20, 2024 by Gabriella West

Molly Giles is best known as a gifted short-story writer, but this late-in-life memoir produces a different kind of sparkle. It’s a more vulnerable tale than her polished fiction, and the flashes of rage and ambivalence that reoccur throughout the … Continue reading →

Posted in creativity and its discontents, Reviews, San Francisco | Tagged abuse, alcoholism, California writers, Creative Writing, dysfunctional parents, Golden Gate Bridge, marriage, memoir, men, Molly Giles, San Francisco State University, short stories, teaching, Woodacre, writing, WTAW Press | Leave a comment

Beyond Piety: A Review of “Dearest Sister Wendy…” by Sister Wendy Beckett and Robert Ellsberg

Posted on May 14, 2023 by Gabriella West

Dearest Sister Wendy: A Surprising Story of Faith and Friendship, Orbis, 2022, $24.99 paperback; $16.99 on Kindle A collection of letters between a religious publisher in upstate New York and a cloistered nun in Norfolk, England, has enraptured me. I … Continue reading →

Posted in Health, Reviews | Tagged Catholicism, connection, faith, friendship, health problems, holiness, letters, mortality, Orbis, Pope Francis, Quidenham, Robert Ellsberg, Sister Wendy, spirituality | Leave a comment

After the Ecstasy, the Laundry: A Review of ‘Too Early to Know Who’s Winning’ by Karla Huebner

Posted on March 31, 2023 by Gabriella West

Karla Huebner’s latest book seems as if it’s the story of a friendship between two women during the harrowing Trump years. Superficially, it is, but it soon becomes clear that it’s a thinly veiled autobiographical novel about the anxieties of … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal, Reviews | Tagged aging, autobiographical fiction, feminist fiction, friendships, Health, Karla Huebner, loss, middle age, Midwest, review, stress, Too Early to Know Who's Winning, Trump Years | Leave a comment

Review: Putting the Rabbit in the Hat by Brian Cox

Posted on February 6, 2022 by Gabriella West

What a life Brian Cox has had. The weird zaniness of some of his memoir, Putting the Rabbit in the Hat (Grand Central Publishing, 2022, $14.99 on Kindle), is amplified by the fact that the “Editorial Reviews” section on the … Continue reading →

Posted in creativity and its discontents, Reviews | Tagged acting, brian cox, putting the rabbit in the hat | Leave a comment

The Letters of Shirley Jackson—a Preview!

Posted on August 23, 2021 by Gabriella West

I’ve been busy reading the delightful, yet somewhat vexing Letters of Shirley Jackson (Random House, 672 pp., $14.99 on Kindle) and writing a long review of it! Finding a home (irony alert, as Shirley was always focused on the physical … Continue reading →

Posted in creativity and its discontents, News, Reviews, Writing | Tagged 1950s, cruelty, dysfunctional relationships, female breadwinners, feminism, husbands, marriage, mental health, Morris Minors, Shirley Jackson, The Internet Review of Books, The Letters of Shirley Jackson, Vermont, women writers, women's lives | Leave a comment

Review: Summer Will Show by Sylvia Townsend Warner

Posted on May 23, 2021 by Gabriella West

Occasionally, I will pick up a library book (and I vow to do this more, post-pandemic). I wanted to review a striking, mostly forgotten novel by 20th-century English author Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893-1978), whose long life spanned almost a century … Continue reading →

Posted in creativity and its discontents, LGBT, Reviews, Writing | Tagged 20th-century women writers, bisexuality, Communism, feminism, historical fiction, Jewish fiction, lesbian fiction, NYRB, Penguin, relationships between women, revolutionaries, Summer Will Show, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Valentine Ackland, women in love | Leave a comment

Once You Are Mine by Gabriella West ~ Book Review

Posted on March 29, 2021 by Gabriella West

Originally posted on Lily Michaels:
In this pandemic love story set in the tense, unpredictable summer of 2020, 21-year-old Alex Martinez gets out of San Quentin after serving three years for a nonviolent crime. He’s hardened by his time inside…

Posted in LGBT, Reviews, Writing | Tagged Alex, Bookbub, Lily Michaels, MMRomance, Northern California, once you are mine, pain, pandemic, real, Terry | 1 Comment

Review: H Is for Hawk

Posted on January 28, 2021 by Gabriella West

I wanted to do a belated review of a memoir I bought last summer and finished late last year, Helen Macdonald’s H Is for Hawk (Grove, currently $4.96 on Kindle). Hard to write a short review of this gorgeous book. … Continue reading →