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All in Fiction
Maria, Maria is a playful, witchy collection of short stories written in different experimental formats. While I didn’t fall head over heels, I had a lot of fun reading this one.
The Birdcatcher is a slightly challenging but engaging novel that explores friendship, creative expression, and mental illness. Gayl Jones is a master, and it shows here.
Best of Friends is a quieter, lower-stakes novel than Home Fire, but it still crackles with scenic electricity. The character work here is also excellent. I liked it a lot.
If I Survive You is a strong, compelling collection of connected stories about a family of Jamaican men living in Miami. I enjoyed it quite a lot.
Age of Vice is a super-readable literary crime novel set in India. While I didn’t love it as much as some others (crime isn’t my genre), I definitely read it quickly and enjoyed it.
Stories From the Tenants Downstairs is a seriously impressive debut story collection. I’m particularly partial to linked story collections, but still. No skips.
The Spear Cuts Through Water is a sweeping, imaginative, gorgeously and uniquely told story that completely knocked my socks off. I highly recommend listening to the audiobook as you read along in print.
Never Let Me Go is a quietly eerie, thought-provoking book with a strong first-person narrator. It’s engaging and will stick with you long after you finish it.
Book Lovers is a compulsively readable, super smart book that takes a common trope (small-town romance) and and subverts every single element. Reading it was very fun.
The Overstory is a sprawling, beautiful novel about trees, activism, and interconnectedness — both between us and the planet, and with one another.
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within ends the Wayfarers books on a strong note, although it also feels the most like Chambers’ Monk & Robot books. I liked it and recommend it!
A Taste of Gold and Iron is a standalone fantasy with a queer central romance, and it hooked me HARD. The characters and their arcs are so exquisitely crafted that I didn’t even mind the slow burn. LOVED.
Record of a Spaceborn Few is yet another emotional little space story from our liege, Becky Chambers. I loved how this one explored cultural grief.
How High We Go in the Dark is a heartfelt, unsettling book set in a near future riddled with plague and climate change. I enjoyed some chapters more than others, but liked the book overall.
Babel is the standalone, low fantasy, dark academia, alternative history of our dreams. R.F. Kuang has written a great story that looks unflinchingly and creatively at the devastation of colonization.
Tomb of Sand, translated to English from the Hindi, is a masterpiece of both storytelling and translation. I’ve simply never read anything like it.
Nightcrawling is a brutal, heartbreaking, beautifully written book that just as often feels like poetry from an astounding young talent. I, like everyone else, can’t believe Leila Mottley published this at 19.
An Island is a tense, layered story about trauma, agency, and loneliness during political upheaval. I appreciated it more than enjoyed it, but it’s a quick and impactful read.
Second Place is one I respected more than enjoyed, but I definitely didn’t hate it. It has a strong, resonant, effective narrator voice that impressed me.
Project Hail Mary is a fast-paced, fun read. The prose isn’t particularly special, but it’s very exciting, and the math/science/plausible sci-fi premise really makes it stand out.
