Melissa Broder’s Milk Fed is an ambitious exploration of desire in all its forms. We meet our narrator, Rachel, in a state of intense repression. She has restricted her eating to the barest minimum, i.e. salads without dressing, small yogurts, etc., while also working out obsessively, in an attempt to burn all of the calories… Continue reading Milk Fed by Melissa Broder
Tag: newfiction
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
Transcendent Kingdom is the second novel by Yaa Gyasi, who burst onto the scene a couple of years ago with her brilliant and celebrated historical fiction novel, Homegoing, which followed several generations of a Ghanian family experiencing slavery in Europe and America. Gyaasi’s sophomore novel has a narrower focus than Homegoing, which spanned decades and… Continue reading Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
Torrey Peters’ buzzy new novel, Detransition, Baby, reclaims the rare phenomenon of detransition, a tool used by transphobes to question the legitimacy of transitioning in the first place. Peters’ novel includes a character, named Ames, who has detransitioned, not because he had made a mistake transitioning to living as a female, or because he doesn’t… Continue reading Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
The Boy in the Field by Margot Livesey
The Boy in the Field begins like most great whodunits: with a body. Siblings Matthew, Zoe, and Duncan Lang stumble upon the body of an unconscious boy in an empty field on their walk home from school one day. Through their efforts at getting help, the three siblings manage to save the life of this… Continue reading The Boy in the Field by Margot Livesey
Little Family by Ishmael Beah
“They had an unspoken understanding not to press one another about the past and its pain, but to keep trying to live in the present, offering silent understanding and respect.” ‘They’ being the five members of the family at the center of Ishmael Beah’s novel, Little Family: a group of five young people from different… Continue reading Little Family by Ishmael Beah
Writers and Lovers by Lily King
Purchase a copy for yourself here! In Lily King’s fifth novel, she takes up the task of writing about the experience of writing a novel. The protagonist of Writers and Lovers, thirty-one-year-old Casey Peabody works as a waitress at an upscale restaurant outside of Boston, spending her time off working on her novel. Casey is… Continue reading Writers and Lovers by Lily King
Weather by Jenny Offill
Purchase a copy for yourself here! Weather, the latest novel from Jenny Offill, leans into the impending doom. Like Offill’s bestselling Department of Speculation, the novel is structured in diary-like paragraphs, or quick thought bursts featuring some of Offill’s classic one liners. (A woman who nearly hits a family of pedestrians with her car mumbles,… Continue reading Weather by Jenny Offill
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
Purchase a copy for yourself here! The community of Shaker Heights, Ohio was the first fully planned community to spring up in America. The Shakers built a town beholden to strict aesthetic and moral codes, laying out residential streets, schools, and businesses according to rigorous family-friendly standards. This suburban oasis is the setting for Celeste… Continue reading Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
The Immortals of Tehran by Ali Araghi
Purchase a copy for yourself here! Few nations experienced as much political turmoil as Iran did in the twentieth century. Colonialist interests and corrupt government robbed the country of its main natural resource and profit generator, oil, sparking years of unrest and bloody conflict. For a brief history lesson: after the Second World War, Iran… Continue reading The Immortals of Tehran by Ali Araghi
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
Purchase a copy for yourself here! Kiley Reid’s debut novel, Such a Fun Age, is concerned with the rise of “woke” culture, a self obsessive tendency of privileged white liberals to perform progressive ideals of racial and gender equality. The novel is told from the perspectives of two women, one of whom is Alix, a… Continue reading Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid