Industry Reviews
"[Human Blues] takes off with magnificent speed and never lets up... [an] explosively hip, funny and heartfelt book." -The New York Times Book Review "[From] one of our most fearless chroniclers of the trials of womanhood... Human Blues follows a musician over the course of nine menstrual cycles, captured with a rollicking rhythm that would make Carrie Brownstein proud." -Chicago Review of Books "Revolutionary." -Rachel Martin, NPR's Morning Edition "Fast, fiery, and often funny... Albert has created a relatable and, at times, irresistible character, whose own empathy offers us insight into the life of an artist who also happens to be unhappy." -The Boston Globe "Motherhood is an awe-inspiring rite of passage in which no two experiences are alike. Few writers have captured its radical challenges better than the novelist Elisa Albert... Human Blues is a crackling and bighearted novel that doesn't shy away from hard conversations.... Guided by Aviva's ecstatic, exuberant voice, Human Blues is a powerhouse... [that] echoes with the truth that we find harmony when we listen first to ourselves." -Oprah Daily "Few contemporary writers embody feminine swagger like Elisa Albert, a novelist whose work is equal parts Philip Roth, Sarah Silverman, and, well, her. Albert is in a rarefied group of writers... who use their considerable charisma and delight in transgression to draw attention to unsung and unseen parts of life in a female body, or a body outside the norms of conventional masculinity." -Lily Meyer, Gawker "[A] thought-provoking and multi-faceted contribution to the discourse on bodily autonomy and reproductive choices... The novel is a potent reminder that the body and the voice are inseparable, and that both demand autonomy." -Ploughshares "Darkly funny [and] tongue-in-cheek... Human Blues revolves around Aviva's physical body and fertility, but Albert quietly shines in laying bare topics crucial to many women-societal expectations, the push-pull between ambition and parenthood and the question of what it means to truly want to be a mother." -Hadassah "Human Blues is filled with personality as Albert merges questions of fame and fertility into a thought-provoking exploration of agency and expression... Albert's prose [has] distinct rhythm: It's fast and sweet, with enough attitude to put Sleater-Kinney or even Lizzo to shame... [A] life-affirming howl into a wild world." -BookPage "[A] bighearted and riotously funny performance from Albert... The depth of feeling, range of ideas, and spiky provocations amount to a Bellow-worthy wave of blistering prose. By the end, it pummels the reader into submission." -Publishers Weekly *starred review* "Poignant, hilarious, and scathing... [A] rollicking journey to self-acceptance in a culture obsessed with motherhood." -Booklist *starred review* "Albert cataloges the nitty-gritty rise and fall of each menstrual cycle... each yoni stream and psychedelic journey undertaken in service of a dream that feels like a birthright denied, and traveling alongside Aviva on the long, fraught road of infertility can induce in the reader a feeling of claustrophobic recrudescence, like you're trapped in it all in real time." -Kirkus "In Elisa Albert's engrossing new novel, Aviva [Rosner's] struggles with fertility, her questions about parenthood, her ambivalence about fame, and her obsession with a gone-too-soon rock star combine to make a heartfelt, funny, brutal story about the things we choose to be and the things we end up becoming." -Town & Country "Thrilling." -Lit Hub "Provocative, fast-paced and darkly funny... [Human Blues] an energizing read for anyone who's ever been told, 'Oh, you're just on your period'" -Good Housekeeping "Darkly funny." -Cosmopolitan "Hilarious." -Nylon "Elisa Albert brings a wealth of wit, humor, and righteous rage to her latest, Human Blues, in which she reckons with expectations imposed on the bodies of anyone with a uterus, the predatory nature ...
