Reviews & press
In Us: Americans Talk About Love, John Bowe uses first-person accounts to uncover the incredible range of human experiences with love…No aspect of lust, greed, need or devotion is ignored…It is as compelling as literary fiction…[b]ut it also functions as a kind of self-help manual, forcing readers to examine their own longings, failings and assumptions about love. —The New York Times
[Starred review] While the more dramatic stories will likely stick with readers longest, plenty of accounts chronicling the deep, gentle bonds of long-lived romance, or the intense burn of young love, strike satisfying chords. Bowe allows each of his subjects the space to tell their stories, and each one proves compelling in itself… This hard-to-put-down take on love is surprisingly substantial. —Publishers Weekly
Bowe and his colleagues interviewed people with backgrounds and experiences as wide-ranging as the country is diverse, and whittled those dialogues down to short stories told in the subject’s own voice…It’s a dream book for anyone with a respectable sense of voyeurism. —Washington Post
[The] stories are amazing. Quirky, moving, despairing, transcendent. Not prisoner to fashion. —NPR’s “On Point with Tom Ashbrook”
The stirring, humorous, altogether addictive Us: Americans Talk About Love… —NBC New York
Oh good God this book’s a dazzler … Like the best oral history books…Us reads totally unmediated slash natural and, therefore, mildly voyeuristic—you’re a few lines into each chapter, each person’s individual story, before you realize two things: 1) how much you want to know what happens next, and 2) how unwilling you’d be, if you were just a stranger sitting next to that person, to ask … Read it now. —Cordury Books
If there’s an overriding theme to this book, it is of love’s enormous power — to push, prod, change, humiliate, thrill and infuriate … Taken together, these stories are almost overwhelming in their emotions — betrayal, depression, giddiness, confusion, fury. —Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune
Journalist John Bowe and his coeditors jack us with uncanny directness into the Great American Eros—and in some cases the Id … This gaggle of voices from all walks of life will have you giggling, crying, and muttering to yourself in alarmingly rapid succession. —Elle Magazine
Bowe edited Us in what reads like an effort to uncover the real stuff—to seek out the good, the bad, the boring, and the Revolutionary Road so that we have something more useful than news magazine exposés and Julia Roberts movies to lend insight to our own relationships. —Elle.com news blog
The book resembles a great work of literary fiction…I opened it up and got sucked right in. —MarieClaire.com dating blog
Unlike the typical anthology filled with essays by familiar authors, “Us” offers love stories by nonliterary types, told in their own voices…[E]ditor John Bowe takes the pulse of American experiences of love won and lost…Although Bowe claims to have no special expertise on the subject, he’s quite articulate in describing love’s endlessly surprising nature. —The Christian Science Monitor
Great mystery of life, perhaps author John Bowe has found you. —New York Post
I’ve read this book, and it’s really charming… If you’ve had a bad week, this reading could make it better. —The Stranger
[T]he literary version of a box of chocolates from your sweetheart… a Valentine’s gift made to last. You could read one short, sharply edited story per day, just as you could pick one chocolate a day from your 2-pound heart-shaped box. But not every tale in this oral history is sugary-sweet…Some of them are beautiful. But many of them are painful — even if only with the bittersweet twinge of an unrequited first crush. —Louisvile, KY/Southern Indiana Courier-Journal
[A] novel and fascinating approach to the problem of writing about love. —Glamour.com daily dating blog, “Single-ish”
Us doesn’t sugarcoat romantic relationships… Instead, it’s refreshingly honest in a way only first-person narratives can be–think of it as an Ira Glass radio show in book form…each and every tale is compelling…Seriously, I read through this in, like, two days over the Christmas vacation. —The Frisky
A romantic at heart, I’m moving this collection of 44 stories about Americans in love to the top of my list. —Chicago Now’s “Sex and the Windy City” blog
A collection of narratives about the ups, downs and in betweens of love from Americans of all ages and backgrounds, this thick tome has enough awww moments to make even the most hard-hearted among us go weepy. Don’t worry, though. Us is a smart, frank read. What, did you think we were going to suggest a romance novel?—YourTango
Every day is Valentine’s Day in this profound, touching work of social anthropology. —Los Angeles Times Magazine
[F]un and interesting … Following the tradition of oral historian Studs Terkel … each respondent provides an honest and deeply personal view into the passions and foibles of love … reads like a compilation of short stories. —Library Journal
Walt Whitman asked, ‘Who speaks of miracles? I know of nothing but miracles.’ Like the best of Studs Terkel, the detail and power of the voices in these pages remind us that a kind of miracle is unfolding every day, all around us. —Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City
The extraordinary stories in these pages illuminate the absurd wonder of the ever hopeful human heart. —Isabel Gillies, actress, “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and author of Happens Every Day: An All-Too-True Story
