Sweetgirl (Mulhauser) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
[L]ean yet poetic prose.
Popmatters.com


The writing is gorgeous and the stakes rise steadily from the moment Percy first sets out, making this slim novel surprisingly vicious and taut.
Bookriot.com


Sweetgirl works on so many levels, it’s difficult to know how to classify it…hilarious, heartbreaking and true, a major accomplishment from an author who looks certain to have an impressive career ahead of him.
NPR


[Y]ou can’t help but smile at this disarmingly original novel.… Travis Mulhauser traverses a wobbling slack line across a moral crevasse that few of us will experience. Yet there’s a devastating credibility to the events he creates.
Minneapolis Star Tribune


So good that I read a few paragraphs aloud to my podiatrist…. Though meth and drugs infest almost every page, this debut novel is chillingly lyrical and filled with a love so raw and fierce it takes your breath.
Charlotte Observer


[S]mart, taut, and believable writing.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch


Mulhauser evocatively describes the bleak landscape and starkly degraded social mores of an isolated community after the tourists have departed..… Yet the novel succeeds as a coming-of-age story when Percy, having survived grisly violence and abysmal loss, experiences a realization about how to shape her future.
Publishers Weekly


A self-sufficient 16-year-old girl searches for her meth-addicted parent in the deep woods…. Verdict: Though it never fully escapes the shadow of Woodrell's famous novel [Winter's Bone], this title boasts fine writing and memorable characters. —Michael Pucci, South Orange P.L., NJ
Library Journal


Percy, certainly, is an established type. She's wise beyond her years, committed to doing the right thing despite.…the hardships she has endured. And, like every other character in this novel, she speaks with a folksy eloquence that requires strenuous suspension of disbelief.
Kirkus Reviews