Nikki’s begrudging agreement to help her sister, Mindi, “find a husband the traditional way” takes her to Southall, a predominately South Asian immigrant neighborhood in west London, to post a discreet marriage advert at the gurdwara (Sikh temple). Unlike Mindi, Nikki considers herself modern and...
The Recovered & The Unrestored Let me begin with a reader’s confession: Without a doubt, Shobha Rao’s debut, An Unrestored Woman, is the best short fiction collection I’ve read this year. These dozen stories are savage and empathetic, brutal and lyrical, mournful and celebratory as well. At...
*STARRED REVIEW Presenting her dozen stories in six interlinked pairs, Shobha Rao uses the savage 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan as her narrative center, with reverberations moving outward beyond borders, cultures, countries, and generations. A 13-year-old's would-be widowhood spent in a refugee camp is the best...
China's infamous one-child policy lasted just 35 years. Forced sterilizations, gruesome late-term abortions, an overseas adoption boom, and baby trafficking emerged as by-products of the draconian law. What was touted as a "necessary step in [China's] Herculean efforts to lift the population…from abject poverty" resulted in...
"A girl cannot be brave, or clever, or skilled as a boy can. If she is not good, she is nothing," an angry Reverend Erasmus Sunderly admonished his usually obedient 14-year-old-daughter, Faith. His words are harsh, but in Victorian England, not without societal support. He...
*STARRED REVIEW Ruth Bader Ginsberg (b. 1933) is legend: she was Columbia University's first female tenured professor; she published the first casebook on sex discrimination; she was the second woman to sit on the nation's highest court; and she was the first Supreme Court justice to...
Thank the stars for all the women who never succumbed to 'you can't' and 'you're not allowed,' and the constant cacophony of insistent 'no's. Meet another such hero: drum dream girl. In spite of her strikingly diverse heritage – Chinese, African, and Cuban! – all her elders agree...
*STARRED REVIEW Han Kang, a South Korean writing professor with Iowa Writers Workshop training, makes her English-translation debut with this spare, spectacular novel, in which a multigenerational, seemingly traditional Seoul family implodes. Yeong-hye, the youngest of three adult children, repeatedly announces "I had a dream," violent, bloody,...
Married at 14 to a much older man, Sonabai spent the first decade of wifehood cooking and cleaning for her demanding in-laws. When the couple moved to a tiny village to be on their own, Sonabai had far less to do, but she became a prisoner in her...
When Pulitzer-ed MacArthur 'Genius' Katherine Boo's first (and thus far only) book debuted in January 2012, I predicted it would be found alongside the nominees/finalists for all the Very Important Literary Prizes that year – indeed, among many, many honors, Boo won the 2012 National Book Award for Nonfiction. What...
Flood of Fire brings the astounding, exceptional Ibis Trilogy to a close Readers of this review will fall into two categories: (1) Those who are already two-thirds invested in the Ibis Trilogy, and (2) Newbies who might be wondering if continuing the perusal of this review...
What I know about cricket is not so much about how the game is actually played, but that it's a cultural phenomenon that can actually save lives. Two favorite Indian films come immediately to mind: Lagaan, which was Oscar-nominated for Best Foreign Language Film in 2002,...
Daughters of the Samurai profiles three remarkable women who influenced modern Japanese history Set aside ample time: You won’t welcome intrusions while reading this unprecedented, true story featuring young Japanese girls who arrived stateside without language or cultural training, and matured into three of the most...
By age 4, Liz Prince knew something important about herself: she could be "totally happy as long as [she] didn't have to wear a dress." Before you pass any judgments, Prince explains at age 31, "I look like a total tantrum-throwing brat, which I wasn't...
In real life, Linda Lavin (known to a certain generation as TV's Alice, also known to others for her almost-half-century of on-stage success) isn't quite as old as the titular Boston Girl, but she absolutely epitomizes the ideal narrator here. The year is 1985, and...
A girl is born: "She is perfect, down to her tiny, grasping fingers." But here's what her life will probably look like: "...
Girls on the Edge Adolescence without instant uploads, 140-character confessions, and constant connectivity was just so last century – survival in the 21st means a whole new set of unfamiliar, unpredictable challenges. In four recent, better-not-miss novels for young adults, four diverse women writers amplify the modern...
If I were to choose the one book that affected me most this year – the one that ran the entire spectrum from giddiest to maddest, from eye-opening in wonder to eye-scrunching in horror – this is it. Bad Feminist has forever changed the way I read,...
Readers with groupie-tendencies (like me), take careful note: Hattie Ever After is positive proof that if you ask an author enough times for more, you just might receive. "When I left Hattie at the end of Hattie Big Sky," confesses Kirby Larson in her ending "Author's...
