It took some time for me to figure out how I wanted to capture my thoughts on what I’m reading as part of my 100 books in 12 months project. Knowing I wouldn’t be able to slow down enough to write formal reviews, I decided to use a reading notes format where I keep a list of thoughts as I read, quote some lines that knock my socks off and include links to reviews and poems from each book.
While doing that for Donna Vorreyer’s Every Love Story Is an Apocalypse Story, I stumbled upon her non-traditional book review of Amorak Huey’s Boom Box.
The review is a sketch. That’s it. That’s the whole thing.
And I loved it.
She tells us a lot about the book with quick impressions and short quotes and, of course, an image that aligns with the book’s title. She sketched a cassette tape along with the folded, detailed card stock inserts that — back in *my* day — served as “album” cover for the cassette… and lyrics, if we were lucky.
Donna’s nontraditional book review delighted me, as I was already curious about inventive ways to respond to the books we read. I had written a nontraditional review to an essay collection a couple years back, but I had no idea what else was out there. With this blog post, I attempt to correct that.
I used Twitter to put out a call for examples, and I got some really great responses, albeit from a small group of people. Huge thanks to Donna Vorreyer, Renée E. D’Aoust and Kathryn Cowles for their responses and kudos to journals like Rhino Poetry,* The Rupture, River Teeth and Tinderbox Poetry for publishing such unique reviews.
I’d love to expand this list and include additional selections (especially video!), so feel free to contact me with additions or link to them in the comments. In the meantime, here are some of the types of creative, nontraditional book reviews** I discovered, along with linked examples:
UPDATED AS I FIND EXAMPLES (most recently, August 16, 2020)
Illustration/Doodle/Collage
- Frances Cannon’s review of To Make Room for the Sea by Adam Clay for Green Mountains Review
- Faisal Mohyuddin’s review of WHEREAS by Lali Long Soldier for Rhino Poetry
- Naoko Fujimoto’s review of Visiting Days by Gretchen Primack for Rhino Poetry
- Kristin LaTour’s review of Give a Girl Chaos by Heidi Seaborn for Rhino Poetry
- Gabrielle Bate’s review of Soft Science by Franny Choi for Rhino Poetry
- Kelcey Parker Ervick’s review of Leonora Carrington’s The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington for Rhino Poetry
Correspondence (a series of letters)
- Renee D’Aoust’s review of Dora: A Headcase by Lydia Yuknavitch for The Rupture
A narrative using primarily titles of poems in the collection
- Donna Vorreyer’s review of Darren Demaree’s Emily As Sometimes the Forest Wants the Fire for Tinderbox Poetry
Lyric essay
Lab report with hypotheses, data points & conclusions
- Donna Vorreyer’s review of Mary Peelen’s Quantum for Rhino Poetry
Cento
- Donna Vorreyer’s review of View From True North by Sarah Henning for Rhino Poetry
* Since so many of these reviews come from Rhino, I reached out to the editors to dig into some history/background and the philosophy behind opening up to these reviews, and I’ll add that commentary when it’s received.
** Note that I’ve only included reviews published in journals/magazines but have not restricted it to poetry reviews.
*** Yes, I included my own example. I trust you’ll survive this act of blatant self-promotion.
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