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
Tag: Reviews
The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom
Sarah M. Broom’s National Book ward-winning debut memoir is many things at once. It is not only a personal memoir, but also a comprehensive family history, a history of the city of New Orleans, a mediation on natural disaster, and an exploration of America’s divestment from its black communities. Broom begins the story with her… Continue reading The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom
The Lightness by Emily Temple
In the years since Donna Tartt’s classic novel, The Secret History, books about young people studying mysterious academic or spiritual traditions to murderous ends have multiplied. This genre, coined “dark academia”, has become a popular narrative and stylistic choice: author’s weave mystery novels from ominous settings and foggy campuses populated by troubled students. Emily Temple’s… Continue reading The Lightness by Emily Temple
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
Lady Romeo by Tana Wojczuk
In a recent interview with them., writer Tana Wojczuk commented on her inspiration for her book Lady Romeo, explaining, “I grew up reading fairy tales and being really frustrated by the female characters in them and how powerless they seemed. They never got to have adventures, and [Charlotte] Cushman’s story is like an adventure story,… Continue reading Lady Romeo by Tana Wojczuk
Luster by Raven Leilani
Purchase a copy for yourself here! In an essay written for Vogue about her departure from her mother’s strict Seventh Day Adventist church, Raven Leilani writes, “It would take years for the questions to develop and still more time for me to admit that I had them: How could an omniscient being create animals capable… Continue reading Luster by Raven Leilani
This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga
Purchase a copy for yourself here! “You feel you are creeping up over the edge of a precipice and that this cliff beckons you; worse… that there is no way to stop that fall because you are the precipice”, writes Tsitsi Dangarembga in This Mournable Body, the final entry in her trilogy surrounding the life… Continue reading This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga
The Guest List by Lucy Foley
Purchase a copy for yourself here! “Will Slater is not the man you think he is. He’s a cheat and a liar. Don’t marry him“, reads a foreboding note received by Jules Keegan, just a couple of weeks before her wedding. Jules is a highly organized and driven businesswoman, the founder and head of The… Continue reading The Guest List by Lucy Foley
How Much of These Hills is Gold by C Pam Zhang
Purchase a copy for yourself here! There is perhaps no subset of literature that feels more emblematic of the white male literary canon than the classic American western novel. In her Booker Prize nominated debut, How Much of These Hills is Gold, C Pam Zhang brings the western novel into a new century. The novel… Continue reading How Much of These Hills is Gold by C Pam Zhang
Department of Speculation by Jenny Offill
Purchase a copy for yourself here! Jenny Offill’s second novel, Department of Speculation, reads more like a diary than a novel. Composed of terse paragraphs and eccentric observations woven together to form a coherent narrative, this novel follows a writer/teacher who falls in love and get married in her twenties. After a painful miscarriage, she… Continue reading Department of Speculation by Jenny Offill