Better Luck Next Year

by Ally Malinenko

At the relatively young age of thirty-seven, Ally Malinenko was diagnosed with breast cancer. Better Luck Next Year is a revealing portrait of a young woman fighting for her life. As Malinenko writes, "Please don't call it a journey". At once harrowing and funny Better Luck Next Year is a vital statement; Malinenko's is a much-needed voice crying out. Ally Malinenko is the author of the poetry collections The Wanting Bone and How To Be An American (Six Gallery Press) as well as the novel This Is Sarah (Bookfish Books). She lives in Brooklyn with her husband.

126 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2016

About the author

Ally Malinenko is the author of several poetry collections as well as Ghost Girl, the Bram Stoker nominated This Appearing House both from Katherine Tegen Books. She is also the author of The Other March Sisters (Kensington) as well as the forthcoming Broken Dolls (Harper Collins). She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and blogs at allymalinenko.com. She can also be found blathering about Doctor Who and David Bowie at @allymalinenko.

Reviews

[Hosho · Rating 5 out of 5]

You'd think it would be an angry book...but it's so much more, so much better than that. Sure, there's anger -- as rightly there should be in a collection of poems about cancer -- but it's given equal treatment right along with the fight, the heart-thumping, unconquered fight, and the sadness, and the looming, unholy doom, and the furious determination, and even (most dangerous of all) -- the hope. This is a world-weary and wise book, one vastly beyond its years, one supremely recommended for anyone touched by cancer, but also for anyone caught in a fight for their own survival -- in whatever form that might take. It's a bloody, undaunted triumph from Malinenko...and another thundercrack of a pocket-sized surprise from Low Ghost Press.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

These plain spoken poems are sometimes painful to read. Ally Mallinenko grabs hold of you on the first page and never lets you go. You are right there every step of the way, through chemo and radiation, and her most intimate moments. Better Luck Next year is a beautiful collection, courageous & sad, and in the end triumphant.

[Mike Good · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better Luck Next Year offers a candid first-person account of the poet’s breast cancer diagnosis and her life after the diagnosis. The speaker and Malinenko appear as interchangeable as speaker and author can be. This book represents author’s third collection of poetry and the sixth release from Pittsburgh’s Low Ghost Press.

Check out my full review on the After Happy Hour Review Blog:

https://afterhappyhourreview.com/2017...