Amal Ghandour’s writing is intimate, gripping, and so wonderfully done. Not only does she seamlessly weave in actual historical moments with her more personal back story, but it’s also an eye-opening read into the lives of a group of young people who grew up as the Middle East begin to change into a place of political turmoil.
Read MoreSmall Deaths begins with death: a murder inside a brothel in the red light district in Calcutta called Shonagachi. A woman named Maya is murdered and no one seems to know who did it. The local authorities don’t care and brush it off as an everyday occurrence in such a neighborhood. Soon it’s up to the other women in the brothel to get to the bottom of whodunit.
Read MoreI had the honor of receiving an advanced copy of Someday Mija, You’ll Learn the Difference Between a Whore and a Working Woman by Yvonne Martinez. Intrigued by the title alone, I gladly ate it up. It tells the story of author Martinez’s tumultuous childhood and young adulthood, as well as what happens after she distances herself from her family.
Read MoreI Let You Fall tells the story of Eve Chapman, an art teacher who leads a seemingly normal life until she finds herself in a coma after an accident. She wakes up in a hospital room and watches in horror as a group of surgeons attempt to save the life of a woman with a terrible head injury. As she takes a closer look, she realizes that the woman on the operating table is none other than herself. It’s an out-of-body experience moment at its finest.
Read MoreFor those of you who love memoirs as much as I do, I encourage you to read An Accidental Parisian. It chronicles author Juliet Young’s journey from Toronto resident to expat in Paris.
Read MoreGahl’s style ranges throughout the book, making it interesting and enrapturing to read. She moves from stream of consciousness to sonnets to free verse to alternate rhymes and beyond. The thread that brings the entire collection together, however, is the theme of dance. Dance clearly holds a special place in the author’s heart. In a lot of ways, it makes sense. Poetry can give you the feeling of dancing across the page as you read.
Read MoreJanet Frame is famed as “New Zealand’s most famous writer,” and she has a profoundly interesting back story. I want to share a bit about Frame before I jump into why I loved her collection of short stories The Lagoon so much.
Read MoreHailed as Japan’s answer to the #MeToo movement, Black Box by Shiori Ito is an at times chilling, at times uplifting story of Ito’s experience of when she was raped by a prominent Japanese reporter in 2015. She came forward with her story in 2017 after she was told by the police that they could not (and would not) help her in pressing charges.
Read MoreThe Lying Life of Adults is also set in Naples. The book follows Giovanna as she navigates puberty, her parents’ failing marriage, changing friendships, and issues among estranged family members. The story begins with a bang — Giovanna overhears her father calling her ugly and the world around her begins to crumble (understandably at 13 years old).
Read MoreAcross countries and continents and borders and oceans, women feel, wonder, think, experience, regret, worry, and are faced with issues that feel all too familiar. Under Red Skies, told across three generations in China, touches on this (among other things), which is comforting and disheartening all at once.
Read MoreThe book takes place in a small town in Arizona in 1976 - already I’m sold because I love reading anything set in the 1960s or ‘70s. The story is centered around Melanie Chaffee, the 13-year-old main character. Melanie decides that she wants a new pair of platform sandals, but her “uptight” mother won’t let her have them. Melanie comes up with a plan: she’ll buy the shoes herself with her own money. But how is a middle-school girl supposed to get a job?
Read More
