Literary Titan praised Samantha Kolber’s debut novel, What She Stole, as “a thoughtful, sensory novel for readers who enjoy getting close to a character’s mind. Its strongest achievement is making Eloise’s longing feel specific enough that you can understand it, even when she’s struggling to understand it herself.” Congratulations!
The reviewer writes:
Samantha Kolber’s What She Stole makes the desire for a gold sequined purse feel much bigger than the object itself. Its central character, seventeen-year-old Eloise Goldstein, lives in a comfortable New Jersey suburb, where her parents’ insistence that she has everything clashes with her daily experience of fear and loneliness. A shoplifting incident leaves her waiting in a mall security room, and that enforced pause gives her restless mind room to wander through childhood, friendships, and the complicated business of growing up. Kolber builds an intimate novel around those wandering thoughts, showing how wanting something beautiful can become tangled with wanting affection, safety, and a little control over your life. It’s an absorbing approach because Eloise’s impulsiveness and sharp observations come from the same person, and both feel convincing. The writing is especially good at making emotion physical. Wool scratches, cigarette cases snap, knitting needles clack, and sunlight becomes something Eloise almost wants to hold in her hands. These details give her world a recognizable texture while showing how closely she watches everything around her. … The family dynamics brought Jeannette Walls’s The Glass Castle to mind, particularly its combination of affection, humor, and painful honesty about a troubled childhood. Both books understand how a child can recognize a parent’s cruelty and still treasure a moment of tenderness.
Read the full review here.