Atavia Reed, author at Chicago Reader

The cover is bright blue with black type with a yellow drop shadow. In the center is a large organ triangle, with a man and woman standing at the center, their backs to us, and their arms around each other.

The couple at the center of Wellness are in love with an illusion

by Atavia Reed September 7, 2023September 7, 2023

On a bone-chilling night in 1993, Elizabeth Augustine stands in a cramped Ukrainian Village venue sipping cheap beer, counting down the seconds until her date with a boy she has a razor-thin connection with can finally end. As the aforementioned man, with middle-parted hair and John Lennon glasses drones on—because she may like music, but […]

a white woman with red hair and her reflecting in a mirror with an ornate gold frame

Film

Review: Sharper

by Atavia Reed February 16, 2023February 20, 2023

Whether a hijinks film successfully works out its kinks or not, it will always contain a fun mystery game with unscrupulous characters—and that is where Sharper occasionally finds its magic. Four stories unfold in a monotone, cloudy New York, beginning with Tom (Justice Smith), a cozy sweater-wearing, nervous bookshop owner. He meets Sandra (Briana Middleton), […]

Arts & Culture

Super Sad Black Girl plumbs the highs and lows of life

by Atavia Reed January 25, 2023September 6, 2023

Under a south-side el station, in a space small enough to blink and miss, there’s a door to a world where Black girls can live the fullness of an impossible, earthly bliss. Suppose you listen close enough, past the sound of the ghost train speeding by. You might hear Black girls laughing, crunching down on […]