Category Archives: tales_praise

In the second person of these relentlessly gritty stories, you are not a spectator, but a participant, as the far-from-ordinary lives of The Hunger of the Cheeky Sisters sweep you up and unspool in their own surprising, dream-like logic. In stories that catalog and collage images so precise and visceral, the “hard, clacking bodies” of…

In The Hunger of the Cheeky Sisters: Ten Tales, Laura Madeline Wiseman introduces us to characters that possess tenderness, believable vulnerability, and a touch of grittiness. As we journey through a world of flea-ridden apartments, weekend fishing trips, locker rooms, and a loveless marriage, the reader witnesses young women struggling with self-acceptance, approval from peers,…

Laura Madeline Wiseman is one of the most exquisite writers I know. Her work is delicious with revelation and sensuality. Now, Wiseman’s Ten Tales has made me remember and feel that final bit of space between woman and girl. – Asha Veal Brisebois

This book is filled with the shame of girlhood and the grit of poverty in America. It is dripping with delight in femininity. Wiseman invites the reader into scenes from a woman’s life—of poverty, puberty, familial history, and love—relating the truth with honesty so discomforting it’s refreshing. – Blake Lee Pat