“Because we were not in our country, we could not use our own languages, and so when we spoke our voices came out bruised.” Having a stamp of approval from Junot Díaz is not a small deal to me. In my mind he is one of the most authentic–not to mention best–authors working today. He … More Book Review: We Need New Names, by NoViolet Bulawayo
“You never know what’s in a person’s heart until they’re tested, do you?” I’ve been a fan of the movie adaptation Fried Green Tomatoes for a great many years. I also enjoyed Fannie Flagg on countless episodes of The Match Game thanks to reruns on The Game Show Network, so it was with great joy and … More Book Review: Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, by Fannie Flagg
“The only love that feels like love is the doomed kind. (Fun fact.)” Dept. of Speculation first caught my eye when The New York Times Book Review called it one of the top 10 books of 2014, but it wasn’t until I read more about it in The Morning News‘ Tournament of Books that I really felt … More Dept. of Speculation, by Jenny Offill: Book Review
“Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.” At the risk of overstating things, All the Light We Cannot See is far and away the most sumptuous, beautiful, and heartfelt book I’ve read in a great while. This is a book to get swept away in. Werner Pfennig is … More Book Review: All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr
“We are part of a long tradition of suffering.” Books about war–and particularly short story collections about war–always suffer in my mind because they inevitably get compared to what I believe is the greatest war collection of all time: The Things They Carried. It is to Phil Klay’s enormous credit that much of Redeployment stands ground with … More Book Review: Redeployment, by Phil Klay
Hanya Yanagihara is truly a literary talent to watch for. The People in the Trees, her debut novel, is a disquieting, affecting, gorgeously written tale sprawling in both scope and ambition. In it, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist by the name of Norton Perina is accused of pedophilia and sexual abuse among the forty children he adopted … More Book Review: The People in the Trees, by Hanya Yanagihara
When I first picked up Adam, I confess I was simultaneously intrigued and repulsed by its premise. You see, Adam has the audacious idea to take the standard rom-com premise where someone pretends to be someone/something they’re not, and throw in gender norms and sexuality as a twist. It all starts when 17 year-old Adam goes to … More Book Review: Adam, by Ariel Schrag
“So much of life was the peeling away of illusions.” I had been very much looking forward to reading this book, but unfortunately it has been quite a disappointment. The first hundred pages, about the childhood and teen years of Eileen Tumulty, fly by and are quite promising. But something curious happens as she becomes … More Book Review: We Are Not Ourselves, by Matthew Thomas
Lilian Shang has been haunted by her father for many years. A Map of Betrayal is both of their stories, and in typical style for Ha Jin, it’s an elegant, restrained exploration of family, loyalty, and patriotism. Lilian’s father Gary immigrated to the US as a translator with the CIA, where he earned a stellar … More Book Review: A Map of Betrayal, by Ha Jin
I am instantly suspicious when dust jackets or book blurbs declare someone “the next …” The comparison rarely ever works, and usually only does the new author a disservice–establishing a comparison they just can’t hope to live up to. So you can imagine how my senses started twitching when I saw blurbs describing this book … More Book Review: The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing, by Mira Jacob
Supposedly Fun 