The List

The List is a fun, funny, scary, dark, vicious, and ultimately liberating ride. Tara Ison has written a smile-across-your-face, hand-over-your-eyes story of love and bigtime woe. Funny and hurtful, wonderfully crafted, filled with film history, boozy days, sleepless nights, and two human magnets pushing and pulling at each other until either they or the magical force between them is finally broken. It's love gone to hate and back again, a story of a heart surgeon in training and a once-upon-a-time filmmaker who together trace the literal and figurative movements of the heart in their own illuminating and devastating ways. The List bleeds, laughs, ruminates, and can't live without love. A toxic love story that is a joy to read, with two characters who follow you long after the story closes. Read it, and hold on.

I like clean breaks. If someone breaks my heart, I want `em out of my life. Why continue the pain? I guess I'm more martyr than masochist, but Tara Ison's new novel, The List, makes me think the masochists are having more fun. The ride is definitely bumpy and there are no safety belts, air bags or shocks to soften the rough terrain, but with Ison at the steering wheel, you're in good hands. Diving into the perverse, obsessive end of someone else's relationship seemed a dicey proposition until I got caught up in Ison's scalpel-sharp descriptions; the writing is frankly voluptuous in detail. Ison has an unflinching ability to get inside her characters' heads. It all rings too true, disturbingly so, and yet she still manages to thread suspense throughout. There are a lot of popular books out there that have good stories, but those of us who like to read well-written books are in for a salty treat with this one.

This is a great read. I've read a lot of Tara Ison's short fiction and am so glad that her new novel is now available. She never fails to get inside the heads of her characters, in this case, a man and woman embroiled in a failing yet compelling relationship. It's universal, that agonizing internal tug of war where you know someone is wrong for you, but you can't help but want/love them anyway. In her usual fashion, Ison takes a fairly common human experience and turns it on it's head. Her punchy style and twisted eye make for a real treat. Loved it!

As an inveterate list maker myself, I came to Tara Ison's novel with built-in interest and skepticism. Fortunately, "The List" transcends my wildest expectations. This is a deceptively simple tale told with layered, psychologically complex characters, humor, and verve. Her original voice is sublime, as she uncannily constructs and deconstructs a dysfunctional love-hate relationship, shrewdly steering what could have been a familiar journey into surprising, uncharted waters. Ms. Ison's razor sharp wit and indelible prose are intricately woven together, and she expertly alternates between points of view, creating a a delicious tapestry that rings true from start to finish -- with a surprising ending that's definitely worth the price of admission. I was a big fan of Ms. Ison's debut novel, "A Child Out of Alcatraz" (which I also wholeheartedly recommend), but "The List" demonstrates this stellar author's evolving talent through a contemporary lens, and anyone who's ever loved and lost and gathered the courage to love again should place this book at the top of his or her reading list. It's a real gem.

This is definitely one of those books that keeps you up all night. The characters are multidimensional: idiosyncratic, troubled, wanting to be be happy, and also consumed by sex, longing, jealousy and unable to break it off with one another. Sound like anyone you know? That's what's most interesting about this book: the characters are totally strong, very believable, and the situations they put themselves in are downright filmic, sometimes shocking. If you ever had a bad breakup, or you were with someone you just could NOT get out of your head, check this out. It's pretty wild to imagine the lists you could have made with all of your ex-loves...