In one of those “dorky old composition notebooks,” seventh-grader Natalie is “supposed to observe something that interests us and spend all year applying the scientific process to our capital-Q Question.” While she struggles to formulate that ideal Q, Natalie fills the pages with much more...
Class, gender, and religious differences in post-WWII Manhattan drive this debut novel from the pseudonymous Zeldis in which two worlds literally collide in the opening chapter. Caught in a fender bender, Eleanor Moskowitz and Patricia Bellamy emerge from their respective taxis in a rare chance...
*STARRED REVIEW Casting a male narrator for a female-protagonist-driven novel might seem initially ill-fitting, but Daniel Weyman, who also narrated Zafón’s Marina (2015), makes sure Alicia Gris gets well heard in the stupendous, well-worth-the-long-wait finale of Zafón’s Cemetery of Forgotten Books tetralogy plus short story. Anglicized by...
Without glossing over more difficult subjects – fat shaming, homophobia, parental (non)acceptance, matters of consent – Amy Spalding's (The New Guy [and Other Senior Distractions]) latest is a charming contemporary love story, complete with blogs, social media, rating apps, and more. For the summer before senior...
*STARRED REVIEW Reseng, 32, has been a professional assassin for 15 years, minus a short factory-worker stint at 22, while playing house with the love of his life. That he’s survived this long – never mind his risky career, he’s also a two-pack-a-day smoker with a...
“No matter how many books you’ve read, no one has ever told you a story like this one.” The prologue’s emphathic statement is not exactly accurate. Tara Westover’s Educated (2018) and Anouk Markovits’ I Am Forbidden (2012) feature women trapped by religion and culture who...
Insurrecto by Gina Apostol With shrewd insight, inventive plotting, and stinging history lessons, Gina Apostol, who received the PEN Open Book Award for Gun Dealers’ Daughter (2012), puts the “unremembered” Philippine-American War on literary display. Adjectives such as humorous, playful, and ingenious seem almost disrespectful when describing a book anchored...
The Tale of Cho Ung introduces Korean classic tale to English speakers Despite being “the best-selling fictional narrative during the late Chosŏn period” (1392-1910) of pre-modern Korea, little is known about the provenance of The Tale of Cho Ung. The author remains unknown and its initial composition...
When he was just 11 years old, George Washington inherited ownership of 10 human beings. By the time he died in 1799, Washington's estate on the Potomac River, Mount Vernon, was home to 317 enslaved African American men, women, and children: 123 people owned by...
Blood ties spanning almost a century connect Emma, an Indian Residential School runaway, to her great-granddaughter, Ella, a struggling actor. In 1890 Maine, Emma – born to a Passamaquoddy Native father and an African American mother, is violently uprooted and trapped in a tortuous school...
Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s dozen stories are disturbingly spectacular, made even more so by how he magnifies and exposes the truth. On first reading, the collection might register as speculative fiction, but current headlines about racism, injustice, consumerism, and senseless violence prove...
*STARRED REVIEW At 12, Artemisia Gentileschi loses her mother, but not before "Prudentia Montone spent/ the last of her strength/ to burn into [Artemisia's] mind/ the tales of women/ no one else would/ think to tell" – including biblical heroines Susannah and Judith, who thwarted male...
Lauren Groff (Fates and Furies, 2015) lives in Florida and is married with two sons – not unlike five of the protagonists among the 11 stories here. Unlike with her previous titles, Groff narrates, adding a layer of intimacy to further enhance the first-person perspective...
When she was 25, Forbes named Khalida Brohi to its 2014 "30 Under 30: Social Entrepreneurs" list for founding Sughar Foundation, which trains and empowers rural Pakistani women. Brohi makes both her authorial and performance debuts as she chronicles her journey from a rural Pakistani...
In many ways, Kali and Ponna's lives couldn't be more fertile. Their fields and their cows keep them well nourished. Their playfulness and passion feed their souls. But after 12 years of marriage, they remain childless, leaving the couple helpless against the disdain disguised as...
'All You Can Ever Know' is a sensitive examination of transracial adoption Here’s a memoir by a transracial adoptee about being a transracial adoptee – and unless you're a transracial adoptee yourself, you're probably thinking, “eh, I'll pass.” And that would surely be a mistake. Because...
In one of the most inexcusable examples of careless casting or lazy producing or both, David Peace (Red or Dead) gets utterly short-changed by Ric Jerrom's exasperating performance, from grievous mispronunciations of the majority of the Japanese names and words – including even Peace's protagonist...
*STARRED REVIEW Chameleonic narrator Sneha Mathan amplifies Thrity Umrigar’s already spectacular new novel, the long-awaited sequel to the best-selling The Space Between Us (2005). While Umrigar focused on the complicated relationship between employer Sera and servant Bhima in Space, Secrets Between Us shifts from Mumbai’s haves...
That Curtis Sittenfeld bookends her first short story collection with references to Trump seems to signal that bad behavior – dishonesty, betrayal, resentment, even hatred – will be plentiful in between. The agitation she immediately incites with the opening story, “Gender Studies,” about a recently...
Narrators Joy Osmanski and Jacques Roy prove to be convincing partners in propelling two awkward misfits toward each other. Osmanski’s Penny Lee is slightly detached. UT-Austin might be less than 80 miles away, but 18-year-old Penny imagines she’s headed for a whole new world –...
