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What Shines from It
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The eleven stories in Sara Rauch’s What Shines from It are rife with the physical and psychic wounds of everyday life. In “Beholden,” girl meets boy meets the unsettled spirits of post-9/11 New York City, but her future can’t hold them all. In “Kitten,” a struggling veteran and his wife argue over adopting an abandoned kitten, deepening their financial and emotional rifts.
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Paperback, First, 190 pages
Published
March 3rd 2020
by Alternating Current Press
(first published February 8th 2020)
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Community Reviews
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Start your review of What Shines from It
Feb 02, 2020
Lori
added it
Thrilled to be supporting the publicity of this book along with Sara and her publisher Alternating Current Press. It's an amazing collection of stories you won't want to overlook! If you're interested in reviewing the book or interviewing the author, please DM here!
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I wrote it so my review is biased, but I think it's pretty good!
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A fantastic short story collection focusing on fractured or fracturing relationships and incredibly human characters. The stories are thoughtful and beautifully written, and they stayed with me long after I finished reading them. 4.5 stars.
Some of my favorite stories in the collection:
-"Kintsukuroi," about a woman who uses gold to repair broken pottery in her shop, as she focuses on the beauty despite the wrongness of the affair she's having
-"Abandon," about a woman who seemingly loses everythin ...more
Some of my favorite stories in the collection:
-"Kintsukuroi," about a woman who uses gold to repair broken pottery in her shop, as she focuses on the beauty despite the wrongness of the affair she's having
-"Abandon," about a woman who seemingly loses everythin ...more
Sara Rauch's writing engulfs you. I'm not sure how else to put it; her stories put unforgettable characters into off-kilter situations, often with a border of wildness at the edges. Look close enough, and it vanishes like it was never strange at all. But that's the beauty of this collection -- the layers that make you want to read again and again, despite the ache in your heart. Or maybe because of what the story wrenched free. Five stars truly isn't enough to describe it.
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As I was reading the last stories in What Shines From It, in particular, the story Frequency told by the pov of a husband whose wife is trying to get pregnant, I had this moment of adjusting myself to the idea of reading from the male perspective and it was like sliding into a new skin, which felt completely natural and marvellous and I realized that reading this book was very much like that. Slipping into the interior lives of people, in the places where they experience the little fractures as
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What Shines from It is a work of art. Every story is touched by pure, blatant honesty and poise. I could feel every eruption, every heartbreak, every questioned motive, every discomfort.
Sara Rauch breathed life into her characters. I have not read anything like this in a long while. Moving, absorbing, unsettling, breathtaking.
A gigantic thank you to Lori Hettler (publicity), and the author, Sara Rauch, for a copy of her work in return for an honest review. It has definitely been my pleasure :) A ...more
Sara Rauch breathed life into her characters. I have not read anything like this in a long while. Moving, absorbing, unsettling, breathtaking.
A gigantic thank you to Lori Hettler (publicity), and the author, Sara Rauch, for a copy of her work in return for an honest review. It has definitely been my pleasure :) A ...more
Jan 17, 2020
Alternating Current Press
rated it
it was amazing
Shelves:
book,
electric-book-winners,
feminism,
fiction,
friendship,
identity,
literary-fiction,
short-stories,
new-york,
new-england
I am the editor and publisher of this book, so my opinion is biased, but the reason we picked up this collection at Alternating Current Press is because it's so haunting and beautiful, feather-light yet carries a wicked East-Coast punch. These stories of identity, relationships, urban living, desperation, and shining rays of hope will crumble you to bits, then build you back up again. It's a stunning debut in clear, concise language that still remains buoyant and poetic throughout.
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I am the editor and publisher of this book, so my opinion is biased, but the reason we picked up this collection at Alternating Current Press is because it's so haunting and beautiful, feather-light yet carries a wicked East-Coast punch. These stories of identity, relationships, urban living, desperation, and shining rays of hope will crumble you to bits, then build you back up again. It's a stunning debut in clear, concise language that still remains buoyant and poetic throughout.
...more
I very much enjoyed this collection! 11 realist stories about protagonists dealing with vulnerability in murky situations. Plus, I love the graphic design, particularly the illustrations that accompany each story, as provided by the publisher, Alternating Current Press.
Many of the stories deal with queer women (and characters who like making origami out of napkins, just saying. :P) Here are some that stood out to me:
“Addition” might be my favorite, about a same sex couple grappling with having a ...more
Many of the stories deal with queer women (and characters who like making origami out of napkins, just saying. :P) Here are some that stood out to me:
“Addition” might be my favorite, about a same sex couple grappling with having a ...more
Wonderful collection of stories chronicling mostly women at crossroads in their lives. Often dealing with the complications of sex and sexuality and relationships, these stories face big issues in the most intimate and meaningful ways. Everyone should be talking about this book. Highlights: A married man and mysterious woman skirt romance in NYC in "Answer"; a woman resists adding a child to their family in "Addition"; a dressmaker battles the ghost of her boyfriend's ex in "Slice"; a potter in
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There are 11 short stories in this collection, and overall this was a solid "it was good, I liked it" read for me. The first 5 stories really wowed me, I definitely enjoyed the last story, but the others in between didn't have the same impact. I found my mind wandering as I read. Sara Rauch has a knack for telling people stories, though, getting to the heart of what motivates and moves her characters and how they interact with each other. Her writing flows easily and is filled with warmth, even
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Review to come at Enclave.
This was such a nice surprise! I liked how straightforward these stories were but how they also dealt with such complicated issues. The writing was solid, though the lack of quotation marks did throw me a few times.
Sara Rauch’s debut, What Shines From It, is a luminously rich, heart-wrenching collection of eleven stories. Stories written in both the shadow and the spotlight of the feminine experience, examining the pain and beauty of life simultaneously alongside one another. The stories in this collection share themes of love and loss, relationships and frayed bonds, desire and broken spirits — universal trials which haunt each of us throughout our lives. Powerfully human and familiar, yet transcendent in
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SARA RAUCH is the author of WHAT SHINES FROM IT: STORIES. Her fiction and essays have appeared in Paper Darts, Hobart, Split Lip, So to Speak, Qu, Lunch Ticket, and other literary magazines, as well as in the anthologies Dear John, I Love Jane; Best Lesbian Romance 2014; and She’s Lost Control. She has covered books for Bustle, BitchMedia, Curve Magazine, Lambda Literary, The Rumpus, and more. In
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