Valentine (Wetmore) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
This is the story of… [life] in a backwater oil town in the mid-1970s, which Wetmore seems to know with empathy so deep it aches…. Several of these chapters are masterful short stories in their own right, but Wetmore knits them together with increasing intensity…. Wetmore has written something thrilling and thoughtful. Don’t let the launch of this novelist’s career be drowned out. Someday book clubs will meet again, and this would be a rousing choice.
Ron Charles - Washington Post


Valentine is an angry novel, a blast of feminist outrage against a toxic culture that breeds racism and violence against women. The narrative hurtles forward with urgency of a thriller, and it emulates the darkest spy fiction by making it painfully apparent that the good guys are… as likely as the bad guys to be punished. Elizabeth Wetmore’s… not painting a pretty picture here, but it’s palpably real, and her characters’ grit and resilience infuse the novel with a spirit of hard-won resolution…. [A] gripping, galvanizing tale from a strong new voice in American fiction.
Wendy Smith - Boston Globe


[G]ripping and complex…. Each of these women is up against inequalities and injustices, and Wetmore treats their struggles with the gravitas they deserve. But so too is her narration lively and comic, interjecting her characters’ perspectives with humor…. Wetmore delivers… a scalding critique of a… system that excuses male rapaciousness and greed…. With its deeply realized characters, moral intricacy, brilliant writing and a page-turning plot, Valentine rewards its readers’ generosity with innumerable good things in glorious abundance.
Kathleen Rooney - Chicago Tribune


Amid the harshness, Wetmore also crafts amazing beauty in the book…. [It] feels like a flower growing out of pavement… a difficult read because the inevitability of the outcomes is so depressingly predictable. Wetmore, like Harper Lee before her, has little interest in preserving the illusions of people who believe that justice and love will always prevail…. It’s an incredibly moving and emotionally devastating piece of work that heralds great things from Wetmore. There’s nothing in the pages but the world we Texans have built. If the mirror makes you uncomfortable, well, change the person in it.
Jef Rouner - Houston Chronicle


Elizabeth Wetmore's sunbaked prose can read more like a writer's rich imagination than real life, but as the story goes on it becomes a monument to a sort of singular grace, and true grit.
Entertainment Weekly


(Starred review) Stirring…. Wetmore poetically weaves the landscape of Odessa and the internal lives of her characters, whose presence remains vivid after the last page is turned. This moving portrait of West Texas oil country… [features] strong, memorable female voices.
Publishers Weekly


Drawing comparisons to Barbara Kingsolver and Wallace Stegner, Wetmore writes with an evidently innate wisdom about the human spirit. With deep introspection, she expertly unravels the complexities between men, women, and the land they inhabit. Achingly powerful, this story will resonate with readers long after having finished it.
Booklist


(Starred review) [H]arrowing, heartfelt…. As these women navigate what is decidedly a man’s world with feminine grace, Valentine becomes a testament to the resilience of the female spirit. Wetmore’s prose is both beautiful and bone-true.
BookPage