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 MoreThe crushing, powerful and moving story of a survivor of domestic violence in Trinidad and Tobago, The Bread the Devil Knead nevertheless manages to find glimmers of light, love and wit in the aggressively and painfully patriarchal world inhabited by our protagonist.
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 MoreWhen I picked up Nghi Vo’s debut novel The Chosen and the Beautiful, I was excited to get a more femme retelling of one of my favorite books of all time, The Great Gatsby. What I ended up getting was a new mantra: if white men can rewrite history, women of color can rewrite their books. Let’s face it, literature has stood the test of time better than history, anyway.
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 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 MoreAgatha of Little Neon is an unusual debut. The author, Claire Luchette, has described her book as a story about falling out of love, but not with a person, with a vocation.
Read MoreDoes the novelty of This is How You Lose the Time War lie in the authors who penned it, the feminine and LGBTQ themes, the lack of male characters in sci-fi, or the fun reimaging of the time travel subgenre? Yes to all of the above.
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 MoreIt is not easy to write a review of a publishing sensation like Sally Rooney, who has captured the hearts of readership in Europe and worldwide. Her latest book, however, has triggered me and I feel, in my small way, that I have a word to say about this publication, so I have decided to dedicate a space to Beautiful World, Where Are You.
Read MoreBuild Your House Around My Body by Violet Kupersmith is one of the best books I’ve read in recent years. It is a brilliant, symbolic exploration of colonialism, generational trauma, women’s bodies, and the history of place. And it’s all told as a ghost story. Yes, I am obsessed. No, I will not stop recommending this book to my friends.
Read MoreI Was Born For This by YA author and illustrator Alice Oseman is a heartwarming and eye-opening look at the often misunderstood world of fandom and online culture, which brings to life a delightful and very human set of characters with compassion and nuance.
Read MoreReading Berlin is like getting punched in the face. She forces you to look at the ugliest parts of humanity while writing in such a direct and entrancing way you can’t escape it. From the first few stories, you’ll realize you’re in for a ride. And even though they’re not obviously connected, many themes repeat along the 470-pages, including alcoholism, racism, abuse, trauma, and pain.
Read MoreNo One Is Talking About This is not your typical novel. It’s among many books that make me ask, “When can we get a subgenre for novels written by poets?” Laced in metaphor to mirror the confusing layers of information one gets from the internet and told in two main parts rather than three acts, it’s the kind of book you finish in an afternoon, as long as you can get past the daunting and dizzying first few pages. I’ve never gone from laughing to sobbing the way I did reading this book.
Read MoreGirls Will Be Girls by Emer O’Toole is that sparkling book we need. O'Toole brilliantly explains the difficulty of eradicating society's misconceptions about gender and sexual orientation (i.e. the structure), and in particular how they shape our choices (i.e. our agency, our performance) and how they have changed standards of normality.
Read MoreThe Service intertwines the stories of three very different women whose lives are connected by the sex industry. The book shows just how much the sex workers involved in the industry rely on this work, with many living from payment to payment to cover rent, childcare, food, upkeep and other necessities. While a few are high-end call girls, these for the most part are the exception.
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 MoreReleased in 2020, this slim novel of just 182 pages is part horror, part psychological thriller, with a serving of the supernatural thrown in for good measure. Focusing on two sisters, September and July, who are born ten months apart, there's a good chance that this book will get under your skin and stay there.
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