Cincinnati Review

Half off all subscriptions through December 19!

In the opening lines of Samyak Shertok’s “Operation Rhododendron,” everyday objects transform into makeshift weapons for role-playing scenes of war.

Spider Love Song and Other Stories by Nancy Au is a short-story collection about stories—how narratives can be used to construct and deconstruct lived realities.

I was first drawn to Taneum Bambrick’s full-length debut Vantage (Copper Canyon, 2019) because it had “an ecological eye,” but after reading the collection, I realize how much of a disservice it is to characterize this book solely as environmentally urgent.

My family feared white people. White people, after all, danced on our newly paved driveway, leaving gym-shoe footprints. White people threw rocks and rotten eggs at our windows. White people stole my family’s first big purchase, a ’72 Thunderbird that was found two months later—stripped—in a steakhouse parking lot off Cicero Avenue. White people were …