When We Were Sisters

Author: Fatimah Asghar
Publisher: One World
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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

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Cover Description

An orphan grapples with gender, siblinghood, family, and coming-of-age as a Muslim in America in this lyrical debut novel from the acclaimed author of If They Come For Us

In this heartrending, lyrical debut work of fiction, Fatimah Asghar traces the intense bond of three orphaned siblings who, after their parents die, are left to raise one another. The youngest, Kausar, grapples with the incomprehensible loss of her parents as she also charts out her own understanding of gender; Aisha, the middle sister, spars with her crybaby younger sibling as she desperately tries to hold on to her sense of family in an impossible situation; and Noreen, the eldest, does her best in the role of sister-mother while also trying to create a life for herself, on her own terms.

As Kausar grows up, she must contend with the collision of her private and public worlds, and choose whether to remain in the life of love, sorrow, and codependency she's known or carve out a new path for herself. When We Were Sisters tenderly examines the bonds and fractures of sisterhood, names the perils of being three Muslim American girls alone against the world, and ultimately illustrates how those who've lost everything might still make homes in each other.

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TL;DR Review

When We Were Sisters is a gorgeously written novel about three Pakistani-American sisters who grow up neglected. I sunk into it and was sad to finish; just beautiful.

For you if: You like novels told in vignettes.

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Full Review

I picked up When We Were Sisters because it was longlisted for the 2022 National Book Award, but I should have known it would be a stunner — we love novels written by poets, do we not? Plus, pretty much anything published by One World is excellent.

Although it’s so beautifully written, this book deals with tough subject matter. It’s told from the POV of the youngest of three Pakistani-American sisters, orphans recently taken in by an uncle who only does it for the government money and to make himself look good. Neglected and left to fend for themselves, all the sisters have is one another. We follow them from childhood through adulthood and see how their bond changes and endures.

I liked the story a lot, even though the ending felt a little abrupt to me. But where this book really stands out is the gorgeous, heartbreaking prose. It’s told in vignettes, which I loved. In true poet-writing-prose fashion, it used the text layout in beautiful, interesting ways. I actually listened to part on audio and read the rest in print, and while I was pleasantly surprised at how well it translated to audio, I still recommend reading or reading along because of the unique, purposeful formatting.

At the end of the day, I was sad when this was over (quickly, as it’s short) and was loathe to pull myself out of Fatimah Asghar’s prose.

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Content and Trigger Warnings

• Death of a parent

• Child abuse/neglect

• Emotional abuse

• Sexual assault

• Racism/Islamophobia

The Town of Babylon

Author: Alejandro Varela
Publisher: Astra House
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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

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Cover Description

In this contemporary debut novel—an intimate portrait of queer, racial, and class identity —Andrés, a gay Latinx professor, returns to his suburban hometown in the wake of his husband’s infidelity. There he finds himself with no excuse not to attend his twenty-year high school reunion, and hesitantly begins to reconnect with people he used to call friends.

Over the next few weeks, while caring for his aging parents and navigating the neighborhood where he grew up, Andrés falls into old habits with friends he thought he’d left behind. Before long, he unexpectedly becomes entangled with his first love and is forced to tend to past wounds.

Captivating and poignant; a modern coming-of-age story about the essential nature of community, The Town of Babylon is a page-turning novel about young love and a close examination of our social systems and the toll they take when they fail us.

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TL;DR Review

The Town of Babylon is a fresh, fascinating novel about suburbia, racism, homophobia, class, and the child-of-immigrants experience. I didn’t fully love it, but I think it has a ton of merits.

For you if: You don’t mind unlikeable main characters in character-driven novels.

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Full Review

The Town of Babylon is a finalist for this year’s National Book Award (which will be announced tomorrow!). I hadn’t heard about it before its nomination, and although it didn’t fully work for me, I think it has a lot of merits and I’m glad I read it.

The main character is a gay Latino-American man named Andrés who travels home from NYC to his small Long Island town to help his mother care for his father post-surgery. His marriage is also going through a rough patch. Despite the fact that he cut off all contact with everyone from his hometown 20 years ago, he decides last-minute to attend his high school reunion. With a special focus on his interaction with three peripheral characters — his former best friend, his first boyfriend, and a person who committed a violent homophobic crime — we watch as his week at home changes the way he thinks about his coming of age as the child of immigrants, his present, and who he wants to be going forward.

This novel absolutely has a ton going for it. It examines the suburban experience with xenophobia, racism, class, and queerness in a sharp, smart way. The prose is excellent, and parts feel very engaging. I have no doubt that this book will resonate deeply with anyone who shares similar experiences with Andrés. And while I liked it, there were a few things that led me to not love it.

First, the structure just didn’t quite work for me. It alternates between present-day first-person chapters and flashback third-person chapters, many of which (especially toward the end) are from the POV of peripheral characters. The problem was that it never really felt fully polyphonic to me, just like a more convenient way to give backstory. I would have preferred to stay in Andrés’ POV more often and have our understanding of the town develop that way. The first half was also a bit slow. Finally, Andrés is sympathetic but not fully likable — he’s self-centered and (although politically liberal) close-minded, and it’s hard to watch his conversations implode, despite the growth we do sort of get to see at the very end.

That said, these criticisms are personal to me, and I know the book works very well for other readers, so don’t let my quibbles stop you if you are considering picking it up!

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Content and Trigger Warnings

• Homophobia and racism

• Hate crime/murder

• Infidelity

• Mental illness (Schizophrenia), institutionalization

• Addiction recovery

• Sexual content

• Infertility/miscarriages (minor)

• Abortion (minor)

• Sexual assault (alluded to in the past, minor)

The Rabbit Hutch

Author: Tess Gunty
Publisher: Knopf
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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

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Cover Description

The Rabbit Hutch is a stunning debut novel about four teenagers—recently aged out of the state foster-care system—living together in an apartment building in the post-industrial Midwest, exploring the quest for transcendence and the desire for love.

The automobile industry has abandoned Vacca Vale, Indiana, leaving the residents behind, too. In a run-down apartment building on the edge of town, commonly known as the Rabbit Hutch, a number of people now reside quietly, looking for ways to live in a dying city. Apartment C2 is lonely and detached. C6 is aging and stuck. C8 harbors an extraordinary fear. But C4 is of particular interest.

Here live four teenagers who have recently aged out of the state foster-care system: three boys and one girl, Blandine, who The Rabbit Hutch centers around. Hauntingly beautiful and unnervingly bright, Blandine is plagued by the structures, people, and places that not only failed her but actively harmed her. Now all Blandine wants is an escape, a true bodily escape like the mystics describe in the books she reads.

Set across one week and culminating in a shocking act of violence, The Rabbit Hutch chronicles a town on the brink, desperate for rebirth. How far will its residents—especially Blandine—go to achieve it? Does one person’s gain always come at another’s expense? Tess Gunty’s The Rabbit Hutch is a gorgeous and provocative tale of loneliness and community, entrapment and freedom. It announces a major new voice in American fiction, one bristling with intelligence and vulnerability.

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TL;DR Review

The Rabbit Hutch is a visceral, engaging novel with especially good prose. I definitely liked it and thought it was an impressive debut.

For you if: You like literary fiction with a dark tone.

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Full Review

The Rabbit Hutch is an impressive debut novel that was shortlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction. (It may win; as of the time of this writing, the award hasn’t been announced yet.) It was one of the few books on this year’s longlist that had previously been on my radar, so I was glad for a (good) reason to pick it up. It’s dark, visceral, and at times disturbing, but I thought quite good.

The main character in this book is a former foster child named Blandine who lives with three boys (also former foster children) and idolizes Hildegard of Bingen. However, we also meet (briefly) several of the other tenants who live in The Rabbit Hutch (a low-income housing complex), as well as the son of a recently deceased famous actress. The book opens mid-act of violence and flashes back to the few days leading up to the pivotal moment, plus Blandine’s time in high school.

Some reviewers disliked the use of periphery characters in this book, wanting either more from them or wishing they’d been removed, but I actually really liked it and thought it worked. In many ways they felt atmospheric to me, and I liked the way Gunty used them in the first and last sections to emphasize Blandine’s state at the time. I know some also thought the ending was too tidy, and although it didn’t surprise me, I actually also liked that and thought it was satisfying. Overall I was impressed with how deep we got into Blandine’s mind and character, with just enough touches of how the outside world is complicit in the systems and circumstances that led to not only the violence, but also the ways she responded and coped and changed.

Where Gunty stands out most is in her prose; the sentences are excellent and I found the book overall to be super engaging (I read the whole thing in just a couple of days). It does work quite well on audiobook, but FYI, there are some in-book illustrations you’ll miss if you only experience it in that format.

If you like literary fiction with a dark tone, this could be a good one for you.

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Content and Trigger Warnings

• Murder

• Rape (alluded to in the past)

• Teacher/student sexual relationship

• Bad experience in the foster care system

• Animal killing for no reason

• Drug and alcohol use

The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories

Author: Jamil Jan Kochai
Publisher:
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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

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Cover Description

A luminous meditation on sons and fathers, ghosts of war, and living history that moves between modern-day Afghanistan and the Afghan diaspora.

Pen/Hemingway finalist Jamil Jan Kochai ​breathes life into his contemporary Afghan characters, exploring heritage and memory from the homeland to the diaspora in the United States, in the spiritual and physical lands ​these unforgettable characters inhabit.

In playing Metal Gear Solid V, a young man's video game experience turns into a surreal exploration on his own father's memories of war and occupation. A college student in Hungry Ricky Daddy starves himself in protest of Israeli violence against Palestine. Set in Kabul, Return to Sender follows a doctor couple who must deal with the harsh realities of their decision to stay as the violence grows and their son disappears. And in the title story, The Haunting of Hajji Hotak, we learn the story of a man codenamed Hajji, from the perspective of a government surveillance worker, who becomes entrenched in the immigrant family's life.

The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories is a moving, exploration and narrative of heritage, the ghosts of war, and home--​and one that speaks to the immediate political landscape we reckon with today.

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TL;DR Review

The Haunting of Hajji Hotak is a fantastic collection featuring characters either from or in Afghanistan. I found it both wrenching and full of heart.

For you if: You like great short stories and/or want to read more Afghan-American literature.

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Full Review

The Haunting of Haaji Hotak is a finalist for this year’s National Book Award, and after reading it, I’m not surprised. It’s a masterful collection, equally wrenching and full of heart. I liked it a lot and am glad I read it.

Each of the stories in this collection focuses on characters who are either living in Afghanistan (usually the province of Logar), or else Afghan / Afghan Americans living in California. Some of them are loosely connected, orbiting around a man who built a life in California before an injury led to a workers’ compensation battle and financial hardship. Many of the stories also have different formats, which gave the collection overall more texture and helped each story stand out.

As he explores the ideas of survival, family, home, and the generational trauma of war, Kochai engages with the war on terror but purposefully calls attention to stereotypes by refusing to either refute or acknowledge them at all — his characters simply be, their stories simply are.

Kochai’s writing pulses with life, and there were a lot of stories here that really impressed me. The first one and the last one are especially noteworthy, as other reviewers have said, but I also really loved “Enough.” I actually listened to that one on audio while out for a run, and as soon as I finished it, I rewound and started it over from the beginning. Gutting.

If you’re a short stories person, this one is worth picking up.

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Content and Trigger Warnings

• Islamophobia

• Death of a child

• War

The Marriage Portrait

Author: Maggie O’Farrell
Publisher: Knopf
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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

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Cover Description

From the author of the breakout New York Times best seller Hamnet—winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award—an electrifying new novel set in Renaissance Italy, and centering on the captivating young duchess Lucrezia de Medici.

Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo: free to wonder at its treasures, observe its clandestine workings, and to devote herself to her own artistic pursuits. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding to the ruler of Ferrara, Moderna and Regio, Lucrezia is thrust unwittingly into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage, and her father just as quick to accept on her behalf.

Having barely left girlhood behind, Lucrezia must now make her way in a troubled court whose customs are opaque and where her arrival is not universally welcomed. Perhaps most mystifying of all is her new husband himself, Alfonso. Is he the playful sophisticate he appeared to be before their wedding, the aesthete happiest in the company of artists and musicians, or the ruthless politician before whom even his formidable sisters seem to tremble?

As Lucrezia sits in constricting finery for a painting intended to preserve her image for centuries to come, one thing becomes worryingly clear. In the court’s eyes, she has one duty: to provide the heir who will shore up the future of the Ferranese dynasty. Until then, for all of her rank and nobility, the new duchess’s future hangs entirely in the balance.

Full of the drama and verve with which she illuminated the Shakespearean canvas of Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell brings the world of Renaissance Italy to jewel-bright life, and offers an unforgettable portrait of a resilient young woman’s battle for her very survival.

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TL;DR Review

The Marriage Portrait is an immersive, engrossing novel that fictionalizes the life of an Italian Duchess in the 1550s. To put it simply, Maggie O’Farrell has done it again.

For you if: You like literary historical fiction.

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Full Review

Thank you, Knopf, for the gifted copy of this book! I loved loved loved Hamnet and couldn’t wait to read Maggie O’Farrell’s latest. While Hamnet still has the #1 place in my heart, I also loved The Marriage Portrait and absolutely recommend it.

The story is a fictionalization of the life of Lucrezia di Cosimo de’ Medici d’Este, Duchess of Ferrara. At the age of 15, she was married to Duke Alfonso d’Este, who was 27. As we learn on the first page, she died within the year. But the book traces all the way back from her childhood (daughter of the Grand Duke of Tuscany) and then into her marriage, which is very quickly revealed to have a very ugly side.

While The Marriage Portrait isn’t as witchy as Hamnet was, it’s just as immersive and cinematic and engrossing. O’Farrell will pick you up and place you right inside any scene she writes. The sense of doom and tension mixed with beauty was super impressive.

Come for the prose, though, and stay for the story: It had a very exciting ending, and even though I more or less guessed what was going to happen from some early hints, it didn’t lessen my enjoyment at all. But most importantly, the way O’Farrell writes Lucrezia’s descent into the darkest parts of abuse and gaslighting — the confusion, the justification, the awakening, the despair, the resolve — was excellent. Lucrezia’s emotional whiplash and her determination to adapt and continue to retain her own internal power, all while having very little external power, was very well done.

If you loved Hamnet (or even if you didn’t), read this one too!

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Content and Trigger Warnings

• Adult/minor relationship

• Marital rape

• Murder

• Violence

• Animal death

• Trouble conceiving a child

Witches

Author: Brenda Lozano, translated by Heather Cleary
Publisher: Catapult
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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

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Cover Description

The beguiling story of a young journalist whose investigation of a murder leads her to the most legendary healer in all of Mexico, from one of the most prominent voices of a new generation of Latin American writers

Paloma is dead. But before she was murdered, before she was even Paloma, she was a traditional healer named Gaspar. Before she was murdered, she taught her cousin Feliciana the secrets of the ceremonies known as veladas, and about the Language and the Book that unlock their secrets.

Sent to report on Paloma's murder, Zoe meets Feliciana in the mountain village of San Felipe. There, the two women's lives twist around each other in a danse macabre. Feliciana tells Zoe the story of her struggle to become an accepted healer in her community, and Zoe begins to understand the hidden history of her own experience as a woman, finding her way in a hostile environment shaped by and for men.

Weaving together two parallel narratives that mirror and refract one another, this extraordinary novel envisions the healer as storyteller and the writer as healer, and offers a generous and nuanced understanding of a world that can be at turns violent and exultant, cruel and full of hope.

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TL;DR Review

Witches is an absolutely beautifully written (and translated!) novel told in alternating POVs. I was more engaged with the first half than the second, but still enjoyed it overall.

For you if: You like translated novels, and those that examine gender and Indigenous issues.

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Full Review

Thank you, Catapult, for sending me a copy of Witches! I’m slowly making my way into more translated literature, and I was drawn in by the synopsis right away. Verdict: This book is absolutely beautifully written (and translated!). I was a bit more engaged with the first half than the second (although I got very busy so that was almost certainly a ME thing), but I think it was a great literary fiction choice for October.

The novel is told in alternating POVs — one of Feliciana, an Indigenous Oaxacan healer (curandera); and one of Zoe, a reporter who lives in Mexico City. Feliciana’s cousin, Paloma, who is a third gender recognized by her people called Muxe and taught Feliciana everything she knows of being a curandera, has been killed. Zoe travels to interview her about it — but ends up much more changed than she ever expected.

The most noteworthy part of this novel is the language, which speaks to Brenda Lozano’s original as well as Heather Cleary’s translation. I loved Feliciana’s voice, and how Cleary seems to have preserved her looping, lyrical cadence. The whole book is very immersive and culturally rich, even in translation.

I also loved the alternating POV structure. This is one of those books where it really does the work a favor, from a craft perspective. Each narrative needs the other, plays off the other, builds off the other, until we have something greater than the sum of the parts. The story deals with sisterhood, gender and gender roles, tradition vs modernity, Indigenous vs western approaches to life and thought, and above all, the power of the stories inherent to us and how they shape our bodies and lives.

If you’re looking to read more novels translated from Spanish, or if you just love books that feel the tiniest bit witchy, give this one a shot.

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Content and Trigger Warnings

• Homophobia

• Transphobia

• Sexual assault

• Murder/hate crime

Daughter of the Moon Goddess (The Celestial Kingdom Duology, #1)

Author: Sue Lynn Tan
Publisher: Harper Voyager
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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

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Cover Description

A captivating debut fantasy inspired by the legend of Chang'e, the Chinese moon goddess, in which a young woman’s quest to free her mother pits her against the most powerful immortal in the realm.

Growing up on the moon, Xingyin is accustomed to solitude, unaware that she is being hidden from the feared Celestial Emperor who exiled her mother for stealing his elixir of immortality. But when Xingyin’s magic flares and her existence is discovered, she is forced to flee her home, leaving her mother behind.

Alone, powerless, and afraid, she makes her way to the Celestial Kingdom, a land of wonder and secrets. Disguising her identity, she seizes an opportunity to learn alongside the emperor's son, mastering archery and magic, even as passion flames between her and the prince.

To save her mother, Xingyin embarks on a perilous quest, confronting legendary creatures and vicious enemies across the earth and skies. But when treachery looms and forbidden magic threatens the kingdom, she must challenge the ruthless Celestial Emperor for her dream—striking a dangerous bargain in which she is torn between losing all she loves or plunging the realm into chaos.

Daughter of the Moon Goddess begins an enchanting, romantic duology which weaves ancient Chinese mythology into a sweeping adventure of immortals and magic—where love vies with honor, dreams are fraught with betrayal, and hope emerges triumphant.

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TL;DR Review

Daughter of the Moon Goddess is a fun and exciting story that really just checks all the boxes: magic, action, romance, mythology, a plot twist! Can’t wait for book two.

For you if: You like or want to read more Chinese fantasy drama (epic fantasy rooted in Chinese mythology)

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Full Review

The first half of a duology, Daughter of the Moon Goddess has been on my radar since it was published. Book two (Heart of the Sun Warrior) is coming in November, so I figured it was probably about time I finally picked this up! So glad I did; it was a great read.

This book is a Chinese fantasy drama, which is essentially epic fantasy rooted in Chinese mythology. The main character, Xingyin, has a peaceful life as (you guessed it) the daughter of the moon goddess, Chang'e. Except Xingyin is not supposed to exist, and Chang’e cannot leave. When the Celestial Empire starts poking around, she knows she has to go into hiding to protect her mother, but she vows to return and find a way to free her mother from her prison on the moon. Before long, she achieves a place as the Empire’s prince’s companion, learning and training alongside him, and eventually seeks glory in the army. But she never forgets about her ultimate goal of freeing Chang’e.

On the surface, this book has a pretty straightforward magic system and hero’s journey plotline, but Sue Lynn Tan brings them to sparkling life in a way that makes it feel exciting and special. You’ll feel transported to the Celestial Empire of cloud travel, jewels, and palaces. The book is well paced — even though it’s long, I was never bored, and it didn’t take long to read. There’s a great twist that I didn’t see coming at all, but once it was revealed, it felt so natural to the story, which was impressive.

A lot of other reviewers have noted this, but one thing I loved was how romance (note: note steamy) plays an very integral part in the story, and yet never feels like the center of it. There’s a love triangle (one that eventually dissolves itself, for those of us who do not like them lol), but Xingyin’s character development and journey is always the point.

Can’t wait to read the second book!

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Content and Trigger Warnings

• Violence and war

• Threat of sexual assault

• Abduction

• Confinement

• Pregnancy complications

The Trees

Author: Percival Everett
Publisher: Graywolf Press
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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

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Cover Description

Percival Everett’s The Trees is a page-turner that opens with a series of brutal murders in the rural town of Money, Mississippi. When a pair of detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation arrive, they meet expected resistance from the local sheriff, his deputy, the coroner, and a string of racist White townsfolk. The murders present a puzzle, for at each crime scene there is a second dead body: that of a man who resembles Emmett Till.

The detectives suspect that these are killings of retribution, but soon discover that eerily similar murders are taking place all over the country. Something truly strange is afoot. As the bodies pile up, the MBI detectives seek answers from a local root doctor who has been documenting every lynching in the country for years, uncovering a history that refuses to be buried. In this bold, provocative book, Everett takes direct aim at racism and police violence, and does so in fast-paced style that ensures the reader can’t look away. The Trees is an enormously powerful novel of lasting importance from an author with his finger on America’s pulse.

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TL;DR Review

The Trees is a super-smart, darkly satirical novel about racial lynching in the US. Very few writers could have pulled this off — I liked it a lot and respected it even more.

For you if: You liked Hell of a Book.

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Full Review

Before The Trees was shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize (will it win? we will know by the end of the day today!), it wasn’t even on my radar. I’m glad the prize put it there, because wow, what a book.

This is a super-smart, darkly satire novel about racial lynching in the US, both historical and present-day. At the beginning, we meet the (now old) woman who accused Emmett Till and her family living in Money, Mississippi. One, then two, then three people turn up brutally murdered alongside a corpse that looks a lot like Emmett Till — and then it quickly spreads across the country. Two Black men police officers from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and one Black woman from the FBI are sent in to help solve the case.

When I say it like that, you’d think “of course this is a heavy book.” But this is satire, and Everett’s dark humor, levity, and wit make the heaviness feel a bit sneaky, like it comes at you sideways. For example, the lack of tone shift when he depicts white nationalists discussing a race war means it doesn’t really hit you right away (until it DOES). I don’t think just anyone could have pulled this off — because yes, it WORKS. Everett’s talent is next level.

One thing I just want to mention quickly is the US cover. At first glance, it seems pretty boring. One might not even notice the wall of text in the background behind the giant yellow letters of the title. But now having read it, I can’t imagine a different cover — this is absolutely the right one.

Last thing I’ll say: This book is extremely readable, with ~100 or so short (sometimes super-short) chapters and an excellent audiobook narrator. I think you should read it. (Especially, perhaps, if you liked Hell of a Book by Jason Mott — they’re admittedly quite different but feel sort of linked in my mind in tone and impact.)

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Content and Trigger Warnings

• Racism, racial slurs

• Lynching

• Murder, gore

• Fatphobia

Liberation Day: Stories

Author: George Saunders
Publisher: Random House
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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

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Cover Description

MacArthur genius and Booker Prize winner George Saunders returns with a collection of short stories that make sense of our increasingly troubled world, his first since the New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist Tenth of December

The "best short story writer in English" (Time) is back with a masterful collection that explores ideas of power, ethics, and justice, and cuts to the very heart of what it means to live in community with our fellow humans. With his trademark prose--wickedly funny, unsentimental, and perfectly tuned--Saunders continues to challenge and surprise: here is a collection of prismatic, deeply resonant stories that encompass joy and despair, oppression and revolution, bizarre fantasy and brutal reality.

"Love Letter" is a tender missive from grandfather to grandson, in the midst of a dystopian political situation in the not-too-distant future, that reminds us of our obligations to our ideals, ourselves, and each other. "Ghoul" is set in a Hell-themed section of an underground amusement park in Colorado, and follows the exploits of a lonely, morally complex character named Brian, who comes to question everything he takes for granted about his "reality." In "Mother's Day," two women who loved the same man come to an existential reckoning in the middle of a hailstorm. And in "Elliott Spencer," our eighty-nine-year-old protagonist finds himself brainwashed--his memory "scraped"--a victim of a scheme in which poor, vulnerable people are reprogrammed and deployed as political protesters.

Together, these nine subversive, profound, and essential stories coalesce into a case for viewing the world with the same generosity and clear-eyed attention as Saunders does, even in the most absurd of circumstances.

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TL;DR Review

Liberation Day is just plain short story writing at its best. George has given us a deeply human collection of unforgettable characters and plenty to think about.

For you if: You like slightly weird short stories.

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Full Review

TY, Random House, for the gifted copy of this book! George Saunders is undoubtedly one of the best short story writers of our day, and so when I saw that he had a new collection coming out, I couldn’t let it pass me by. Thank goodness I didn’t! It’s just as good as we expected it to be (and maybe more).

All nine stories here are deeply human and fun to read, even when the topics are heavy. They’re also imaginative, sometimes dipping a pinky toe into sci-fi in the best way (the title story is about a man, pinned up on a wall and fed lines as entertainment for guests, who falls in love with his “owner’s” wife). They ask us: what is our reality? What is our responsibility inside that reality? What is the true self? Is control over others ever ethical? What does it mean to have hope in defiance of the world around us?

One other thing I loved was that a few of these stories played with multiple narrators, which you so rarely see in short fiction. But George and his incredible character and voice work pulls it off and then some, spinning us to greater depth and unfolding the plot like a puzzle.

Finally, let me implore you to please listen to the audiobook WHILE you read along with the print copy! Like with Lincoln in the Bardo, the cast of narrators is too good to miss (I especially loved Tina Fey’s performance of the second story), but there are some (especially the first and eighth stories) that will be hard to follow on audio alone. BOTH is the way to go, just trust me!

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Content and Trigger Warnings

• Gun violence

• Physical violence

• Infidelity

• Fatphobia (minor)

• Alcoholism (minor)

• Police brutality (minor)

Seven Empty Houses

Author: Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

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Cover Description

A blazing new story collection that will make you feel like the house is collapsing in on you, from the 3 time International Booker Prize finalist, "lead[ing] a vanguard of Latin American writers forging their own 21st-century canon." —O, the Oprah magazine

The seven houses in these seven stories are empty. Some are devoid of love or life or furniture, of people or the truth or of memories. But in Samanta Schweblin's tense, visionary tales, something always creeps back in: a ghost, a fight, trespassers, a list of things to do before you die, a child's first encounter with a dark choice or the fallibility of parents.

This was the collection that established Samanta Schweblin at the forefront of a new generation of Latin American writers. And now in English it will push her cult status to new heights. Seven Empty Houses is an entrypoint into a fiercely original mind, and a slingshot into Schweblin's destablizing, exhilarating literary world.

In each story, the twists and turns will unnerve and surprise: Schweblin never takes the expected path and instead digs under the skin and reveals uncomfortable truths about our sense of home, of belonging, and of the fragility of our connections with others. This is a masterwork from one of our most brilliant writers.

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TL;DR Review

Seven Empty Houses is a powerful, slim set of translated stories that take a common motif (the house) and use it to pack a fresh-feeling punch. I liked it very much.

For you if: You like short stories with an acutely unsettling vibe.

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Full Review

Thank you, Riverhead, for the advanced copy! This book is out in the US on 11/18.

I've always meant to read Samanta Schweblin, and now I’m very glad to say that I have (and really enjoyed the experience). Seven Empty Houses is a set of short stories originally published in Spanish in 2015 and now translated into English by Megan McDowell. As of this writing, it’s also a finalist for the National Book Award for translated literature.

While “seven empty houses” isn’t a literal description of these stories, as you might expect, there are seven of them. Each one also calls to mind an absence of some sort and a sense (or lack) of home. They explore loss and grief, the definition of home (especially as a traditionally feminine place). And while they aren’t linked, they felt like they easily could have been, especially given some recurring motifs (a love of washing dishes, a lost child, etc).

The stories are written quietly and economically; they also feel like empty houses themselves, with a consistent unsettled, foreboding tone. They were impressive from both a writing and a translation perspective. I really enjoyed so many of them. There is one story that’s much longer than the others that I struggled with in the middle, but ultimately the wait paid off emotionally at the end and I loved that one too.

If you’re a fan of translated literature, short stories, or writing with a disquieting vibe, pick this one up.

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Content and Trigger Warnings

• Dementia (first-person perspective depicted)

• Death of a spouse

• Death of a child

• Grief

Nobody Gets Out Alive: Stories

Author: Leigh Newman
Publisher: Scribner
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

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Cover Description

From a prizewinning author comes an “electric...stunning” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) debut story collection about women navigating the wilds of male-dominated Alaskan society.

Set in Newman’s home state of Alaska, Nobody Gets Out Alive is an exhilarating collection about women struggling to survive not just grizzly bears and charging moose, but the raw legacy of their marriages and families.

Alongside stories set in today’s Last Frontier—rife with suburban sprawl, global warming, and opioid addiction—Newman delves into remote wilderness of the 1970s and 80s, bringing to life young girls and single moms in search of a wilder, freer, more adventurous America. The final story takes place in a railroad camp in 1915, where an outspoken heiress stages an elaborate theatrical production in order to seduce the wife of her husband’s employer.

“Rich with wit and wisdom, showing us that love, marriage, and family are always a bigger and more perilous adventures than backcountry trips” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), these keenly observed stories prove there are some questions—about love, heartbreak, and the meaning of home—that can’t be outrun, no matter how hard we try. Nobody Gets Out Alive is a dazzling foil to the adventure narratives of old.

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TL;DR Review

Nobody Gets Out Alive is my absolute jam of a short story collection. It’s atmospheric, character-driven, and deliciously layered. I was hooked from the first one.

For you if: You like stories that transport you to a different place.

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Full Review

I am endlessly grateful for the National Book Award longlist for putting this short story collection in my hands, because I’m not sure the synopsis would have alone, and I really loved it! I’m a big fan of a story that wears its heart on its sleeve and makes its metaphors just obvious enough for me to feel clever when I spot them — and this definitely fits the bill.

These eight stories are loosely dotted rather than connected, with a few recurring characters but every story easily standing on its own. They all take place either in Alaska or on the way to Alaska, and almost all of them center women. But don’t get it twisted — these stories are character first, Alaska (close) second. Newman merges the idea of survival, not just in the darkness of wild lands but when our lives feel dark and difficult and rough terrain; the title, when you discover it in the text, ties this idea of life as wilderness together too.

I was hooked by the first story — Newman says so much without saying it, leaves the spaces in between information rife with meaning. She evokes humor and grief and joy and loneliness in a way that just really captured my heart.

I’m sad this one isn’t shortlisted, because it’s going to be one of my favorites from the list!

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Content and Trigger Warnings

• Death of a spouse

• Grief

• Suicide (minor)

• Abandonment

• Alcoholism (minor)

All This Could Be Different

Author: Sarah Thankam Mathews
Publisher: Viking
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

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Cover Description

Graduating into the long maw of an American recession, Sneha is one of the fortunate ones. She's moved to Milwaukee for an entry-level corporate job that, gruelling as it may be, is the key that unlocks every door: she can pick up the tab at dinner with her new friend Tig, get her college buddy Thom hired alongside her, and send money to her parents back in India. She begins dating women--soon developing a burning crush on Marina, a beguiling and beautiful dancer who always seems just out of reach.

But before long, trouble arrives. Painful secrets rear their heads; jobs go off the rails; evictions loom. Sneha struggles to be truly close and open with anybody, even as her friendships deepen, even as she throws herself headlong into a dizzying romance with Marina. It's then that Tig begins to draw up a radical solution to their problems, hoping to save them all.

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TL;DR Review

All This Could Be Different is a very millennial novel (in a good way) that takes a lot of what works in many successful books today, mashes it, and adds to it to creates something that feels wholly fresh and original.

For you if: You like sad girl novels but want a protagonist who isn’t just another white woman.

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Full Review

All This Could Be Different is a smart, impressive debut, and I’m very glad that the National Book Award put it in my hands. Think sad girl literature, but but make it a queer, first-gen immigrant, South Asian protagonist. Mathews takes a lot of the things that modernly successful books do well and builds on them in a way that feels fresh and novel.

The story is about Sneha, a young woman who graduated college into the midst of the 2008 recession. Her parents have moved back to India and she’s found a contract job as a corporate consultant in Milwaukee. When she’s not working, she’s on dating apps or finding girls to take home in bars, but also looking for new friends to forge connections with. Eventually she meets a dancer named Marina and they hit it off. Things are good — until they’re not.

This is — and I mean this in the best way — a very millennial book. It’s a bildungsroman (early adulthood novel) that nails the entry-level corporate hustle, the way it asks you to tie your identity to your job while you try to figure out who you are outside it; trying to climb a ladder while exploring friendship and love and holding onto yourself even if you don’t always know who you are. I think all young women understand this struggle. But of course, Mathews brings so much more here with Sneha being a first-gen, non-citizen immigrant. I don’t have those experiences personally, but I’ve seen a lot of reviewers say they felt deeply seen.

I also loved that Mathews allows Sneha to be young and imperfect and immature and a little ugly — she has some sexist thoughts and transphobic moments that wouldn’t have been uncommon in 2008. We get to see her grow and change in a way that feels true to her age and experiences, and that feels sort of rare nowadays.

This was a good one. Give it a go!

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Content and Trigger Warnings

• Racism

• Xenophobia

• Transphobia

• Addiction

Shutter

Author: Ramona Emerson
Publisher: Soho Crime
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

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Cover Description

This blood-chilling debut set in New Mexico’s Navajo Nation is equal parts gripping crime thriller, supernatural horror, and poignant portrayal of coming of age on the reservation.

Rita Todacheene is a forensic photographer working for the Albuquerque police force. Her excellent photography skills have cracked many cases—she is almost supernaturally good at capturing details. In fact, Rita has been hiding a secret: she sees the ghosts of crime victims who point her toward the clues that other investigators overlook.

As a lone portal back to the living for traumatized spirits, Rita is terrorized by nagging ghosts who won’t let her sleep and who sabotage her personal life. Her taboo and psychologically harrowing ability was what drove her away from the Navajo reservation, where she was raised by her grandmother. It has isolated her from friends and gotten her in trouble with the law.

And now it might be what gets her killed.

When Rita is sent to photograph the scene of a supposed suicide on a highway overpass, the furious, discombobulated ghost of the victim—who insists she was murdered—latches onto Rita, forcing her on a quest for revenge against her killers, and Rita finds herself in the crosshairs of one of Albuquerque’s most dangerous cartels. Written in sparkling, gruesome prose, Shutter is an explosive debut from one of crime fiction's most powerful new voices.

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TL;DR Review

Shutter is a fast-paced, character-driven paranormal thriller that doesn’t quite knock it out of the park, but does some interesting things and definitely holds your attention.

For you if: You don’t mind gore and want to read more genre fiction by Indigenous authors.

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Full Review

Shutter is a fast-paced, Indigenous, paranormal thriller that was longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction this year. While a lot of people are ranking it last on the list (including, probably, me) and scratching their heads about its nomination, I do think it does some interesting things that are worth talking about.

The story is about a Navajo woman named Rita who takes forensic photos for the Albuquerque police department for a living. She can also see and talk to ghosts — has for her whole life. We jump back and forth between the present day, where one woman’s ghost pushes Rita into the thick of some dangerous corruption in order to solve her murder, and the past, as Rita was raised by her grandmother on a reservation, fell in love with cameras, and struggled with a gift that was feared (and often, understandably, disbelieved) by her community.

The thing about this book is that it doesn’t quite feel like literary fiction but also doesn’t quite feel like a thriller, which is why I think it’s leaving readers on both sides a little underwhelmed. It wasn’t really a mystery, at least not to us as readers; there’s no big twist to the present-day storyline, just a steady build to an explosive ending. Still, it does have momentum (I read it in one afternoon, aided by the audiobook).

I think the chapters set in the past are the ones that earned this book its NBA nomination; Emerson really explores a lot in these sections about home and community, childhood trauma, an absent mother, and how we can escape our ghosts (literally and metaphorically) while still carrying our loved ones with us — especially using photography as a way to do both.

One last thing to note: Be aware that the opening chapter of this book has some pretty lengthy, graphic descriptions of pieces of a dead body scattered all over the ground. It was a notable opening, but kind of a lot.

Anyway, if you’re curious about this one, I think it’s worth picking up just to challenge your notion of genre and look for the things the NBA judges found. It’s a quick read regardless!

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Content and Trigger Warnings

• Murder, including a child and baby

• Gore

• Violence

• Racism against Native Americans

• Drug and alcohol use

Maria, Maria and Other Stories

Author: Marytza K. Rubio
Publisher: Liveright
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

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Cover Description

“The first witch of the waters was born in Destruction. The moon named her Maria.”

Set against the tropics and megacities of the Americas, Maria, Maria takes inspiration from wild creatures, tarot, and the porous borders between life and death. Motivated by love and its inverse, grief, the characters who inhabit these stories negotiate boldly with nature to cast their desired ends. As the enigmatic community college professor in “Brujería for Beginners” reminds us: “There’s always a price for conjuring in darkness. You won’t always know what it is until payment is due.” This commitment drives the disturbingly faithful widow in “Tijuca,” who promises to bury her husband’s head in the rich dirt of the jungle, and the sisters in “Moksha,” who are tempted by a sleek obsidian dagger once held by a vampiric idol.

But magic isn’t limited to the women who wield it. As Rubio so brilliantly elucidates, animals are powerful magicians too. Subversive pigeons and hungry jaguars are called upon in “Tunnels,” and a lonely little girl runs free with a resurrected saber-toothed tiger in “Burial.” A colorful catalog of gallery exhibits from animals in therapy is featured in “Art Show,” including the Almost Philandering Fox, who longs after the red pelt of another, and the recently rehabilitated Paranoid Peacocks.

Brimming with sharp wit and ferocious female intuition, these stories bubble over into the titular novella, “Maria, Maria”—a tropigoth family drama set in a reimagined California rainforest that explores the legacies of three Marias, and possibly all Marias. Writing in prose so lush it threatens to creep off the page, Rubio emerges as an ineffable new voice in contemporary short fiction.

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TL;DR Review

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.

For you if: You like short (occasionally really short!) stories steeped in metaphor and magic.

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Full Review

Longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction, Maria, Maria and Other Stories is a playful, witchy collection that experiments with form and steeps itself in metaphor and Latine culture. As anyone who even loosely follows my reviews will know, this kind of thing is extremely my sh*t. And while I didn’t fall head over heels in love, I definitely had a lot of fun reading it.

These stories, set mostly in Latin-American cities, take all different shapes. We have a teacher conducting a class on witchcraft, an art exhibit showcasing art by animals, a woman who travels to Brazil to plant her deceased husband’s head in the earth, a dystopian future described in location-specific vignettes, and more. The last story is a novella and shares a title with the book.

In many ways, this is a collection of opposing forces: levity and darkness, life and death, love and grief, magic and the mundane. Rubio explores them all in ways that can be either enjoyed quickly or contemplated more deeply — which one depends on the reader. I found myself drawn to linger on the metaphors in some stories and happy to read and then move on from others. I thought the opening story was one of the strongest. I also really loved “Paint by Numbers,” which is practically microfiction and almost more like narrative poetry than a story.

If you’re open to experimental formats and love a witchy vibe, pick this one up.

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Content and Trigger Warnings

• Death of a spouse

• Violence/murder

• Kidnapping and sexual violence (off-screen, not described)

• Gun violence

The Birdcatcher

Author: Gayl Jones
Publisher: Beacon Press
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

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Cover Description

Gayl Jones, the novelist Toni Morrison discovered decades ago and Tayari Jones recently called her favorite writer, has been described as one of the great literary writers of the 20th century. Now, for the first time in over 20 years, Jones is publishing again. In the wake of her long-awaited fifth novel, Palmares, The Birdcatcher is another singular achievement, a return to the circles of her National Book Award finalist, The Healing.

Set primarily on the island of Ibiza, the story is narrated by the writer Amanda Wordlaw, whose closest friend, a gifted sculptor named Catherine Shuger, is repeatedly institutionalized for trying to kill a husband who never leaves her. The three form a quirky triangle on the white-washed island.

A study in Black women's creative expression, and the intensity of their relationships, this work from Jones shows off her range and insight into the vicissitudes of all human nature - rewarding longtime fans and bringing her talent to a new generation of readers.

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TL;DR Review

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.

For you if: You like novels that feel a bit like literary puzzles.

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Full Review

The Birdcatcher was written by Gayl Jones in the 80s, in English, but at the time it was curiously only published in German. Now it’s finally been published in English, and it’s a finalist for the National Book Award. What a unique experience, to have a book older than me up for this year’s prize, lol.

Anyway! The Birdcatcher is a raw, honest, disturbing, and somewhat absurd little novel about a romance author named Amanda who goes to stay with her married friends in Ibiza. The wife, Catherine, is routinely institutionalized for calmly and inexplicitly attempting to murder her husband. Catherine is also a sculptor, and she’s working on a long-term piece called the Birdcatcher. Throughout the book, we flash back and forth between Amanda’s time in Ibiza and how she spent the years immediately leading up to it, which is presented as a bit of a puzzle.

This is one of those books I think I appreciated and respected more than enjoyed, per se (although I would NOT to so far as to say that I didn’t enjoy it at all). It’s definitely a bit more challenging — more “literary,” perhaps — than other books on the NBA on the list. The ending in particular lost me a bit, and it left me feeling like I wasn’t *quite* smart enough for this book (which probably just means I need to reread it, tbh!).

Still, there’s no denying that Gayl Jones is a master. You can feel it in her sentences, in the way she plays with structure and point of view. Here she explores sanity and art and women and friendship and freedom in a way I’ve never seen before. Catherine is an enigma. Amanda surprises us. Jones shocks us. It’s a whole experience.

If you don’t mind a little bit of readerly elbow grease to puzzle through a novel, definitely give this a shot.

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Content and Trigger Warnings

• Mental illness, institutionalization

• Violence

• Body shaming

• Death of a child

Best of Friends

Author: Kamila Shamsie
Publisher: Riverhead
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

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Cover Description

From the acclaimed author of Home Fire, the moving and surprising story of a lifelong friendship and the forces that bring it to the breaking point

Zahra and Maryam have been best friends since childhood in Karachi, even though--or maybe because--they are unlike in nearly every way. Yet they never speak of the differences in their backgrounds or their values, not even after the fateful night when a moment of adolescent impulse upends their plans for the future.

Three decades later, Zahra and Maryam have grown into powerful women who have each cut a distinctive path through London. But when two troubling figures from their past resurface, they must finally confront their bedrock differences--and find out whether their friendship can survive.

Thought-provoking, compassionate, and full of unexpected turns, Best of Friends offers a riveting take on an age-old question: Does principle or loyalty make for the better friend

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TL;DR Review

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.

For you if: You like books about friendship between women.

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Full Review

Like pretty much everyone else, I was a big fan of Kamila Shamsie’s last novel, Homefire (which won the Women’s Prize in 2018). If you’re looking for a repeat experience, this isn’t it — Best of Friends is a quieter, lower-stakes novel — but it still crackles with in-scene electricity and explores similar ideas.

The story is told in two parts. In the first, Zahra and Maryam are unlikely life-long best friends living in Karachi, Pakastan. At 14, they’re each testing the limits of childhood and dipping a toe in rebellion in their own way. Then something happens that leaves them both affected and steers the direction of their lives. The second part picks up nearly 30 years later, with both women wildly successful in London. They’re still friends, but it’s a friendship that dances around the way their lives (and political views) have come to differ. And when a reminder of that long-ago incident comes to visit, those splinters become cracks.

There are a lot of signature Shamsie themes at play here — split loyalties, what it means to be a citizen, misogyny vs justice for women, xenophobia in the UK — but it’s mainly about the fight to keep a friendship strong despite being very different people from who you were as kids. Because they know you best, because they are all that’s left in your life of home, because their presence has always been a constant.

While it’s not a perfect book, I was still so impressed by Shamsie’s ability to create suspense in both everyday and climactic scenes. They make her books bingeable and give them life, even when the overall plot is lower stakes. She’s also given us two characters who are simultaneously sympathetic and not; flawed in different ways and the way they care for each other and their friendship. The tension and love between them (aka the whole point of the novel) was expertly done.

I’m eager to see what more readers come to think of this one!

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Content and Trigger Warnings

• Xenophobia and racism

• Hate crime

• Dictatorship

• Gender-based violence/trauma

If I Survive You

Author: Jonathan Escoffery
Publisher: MCD
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

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Cover Description

A major debut, blazing with style and heart, that follows a Jamaican family striving for more in Miami, and introduces a generational storyteller.

In the 1970s, Topper and Sanya flee to Miami as political violence consumes their native Kingston. But America, as the couple and their two children learn, is far from the promised land. Excluded from society as Black immigrants, the family pushes on through Hurricane Andrew and later the 2008 recession, living in a house so cursed that the pet fish launches itself out of its own tank rather than stay. But even as things fall apart, the family remains motivated, often to its own detriment, by what their younger son, Trelawny, calls "the exquisite, racking compulsion to survive."

Masterfully constructed with heart and humor, the linked stories in Jonathan Escoffery's If I Survive You center on Trelawny as he struggles to carve out a place for himself amid financial disaster, racism, and flat-out bad luck. After a fight with Topper--himself reckoning with his failures as a parent and his longing for Jamaica--Trelawny claws his way out of homelessness through a series of odd, often hilarious jobs. Meanwhile, his brother, Delano, attempts a disastrous cash grab to get his kids back, and his cousin, Cukie, looks for a father who doesn't want to be found. As each character searches for a foothold, they never forget the profound danger of climbing without a safety net.

Pulsing with vibrant lyricism and inimitable style, sly commentary and contagious laughter, Escoffery's debut unravels what it means to be in between homes and cultures in a world at the mercy of capitalism and whiteness. With If I Survive You, Escoffery announces himself as a prodigious storyteller in a class of his own, a chronicler of American life at its most gruesome and hopeful.

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TL;DR Review

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.

For you if: You like very connected short stories that could almost be called a novel.

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Full Review

If I Survive You is a buzzy debut story collection that got longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction. I’m writing this before the finalists are announced, but I gotta say, it feels like a strong contender.

This set of linked stories gives us a glimpse into the lives of the men of one Jamaican family living in Miami, particularly the younger son, Trelawny. He’s the protagonist of most of the stories, although we also get to hear from his father, his brother, and even a cousin. Trelawny is the only one who was born in the US and struggles with feeling like an outsider in every aspect of his life, including his family; the opening story, “In Flux,” sets this stage perfectly.

I do love linked stories, and these are very linked. In fact, seeing as they got away with calling How High We Go in the Dark and Disappearing Earth novels, I think this one could have snuck over that border, too. We get the stories near-linearly, following Trelawny and his family from his childhood, through Hurricane Andrew, into the Great Recession, and beyond. We come to know them, feel for them, understand their shortcomings, and hope for their futures. (In fact, the amount of time we spend with the same few characters could also give those who feel like they “always want more” from short stories the satisfaction they’re looking for.)

This is such a strong debut collection; it’s deeply heartfelt and compelling, looking at all the in-between places of race and heritage and belonging and family and survival. It’s a love letter to Jamaican families and immigrants living in Miami, and it speaks to our current moment and the last few decades alike.

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Content and Trigger Warnings

• Racism

• Homelessness

• Infidelity

• Death and grief

Age of Vice

Author: Deepti Kapoor
Publisher: Riverhead
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

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Cover Description

This is the age of vice, where money, pleasure, and power are everything, and the family ties that bind can also kill.

New Delhi, 3 a.m. A speeding Mercedes jumps the curb and in the blink of an eye, five people are dead. It’s a rich man’s car, but when the dust settles there is no rich man at all, just a shell-shocked servant who cannot explain the strange series of events that led to this crime. Nor can he foresee the dark drama that is about to unfold.

Deftly shifting through time and perspective in contemporary India, Age of Vice is an epic, action-packed story propelled by the seductive wealth, startling corruption, and bloodthirsty violence of the Wadia family — loved by some, loathed by others, feared by all.

In the shadow of lavish estates, extravagant parties, predatory business deals and calculated political influence, three lives become dangerously intertwined: Ajay is the watchful servant, born into poverty, who rises through the family’s ranks. Sunny is the playboy heir who dreams of outshining his father, whatever the cost. And Neda is the curious journalist caught between morality and desire. Against a sweeping plot fueled by loss, pleasure, greed, yearning, violence and revenge, will these characters’ connections become a path to escape, or a trigger of further destruction?

Equal parts crime thriller and family saga, transporting readers from the dusty villages of Uttar Pradesh to the urban energy of New Delhi, Age of Vice is an intoxicating novel of gangsters and lovers, false friendships, forbidden romance, and the consequences of corruption. It is binge-worthy entertainment at its literary best.

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TL;DR Review

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.

For you if: You like gangster movies like The Sopranos or The Godfather (but this time, make the story written by a woman!).

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Full Review

First, big thanks to Riverhead for sending me an advanced copy of this book — it comes out in January, and the amount of early hype that’s being built around it tells you just how successful they think it’s going to be. I’m inclined to agree with them — Age of Vice is a super-bingeable, decadent, brutal read.

This book is set mostly in Delhi, India in the early 2000s. The story revolves around the Wadias, a powerful gangster family who run pretty much everything. We have three main characters: Ajay, who ends up working for them; Sunny, son of the patriarch; and Neda, a journalist who gets herself very personally involved. There’s a deadly car crash at the beginning, and we flash back and forth to not only learn what happened but also see how it shaped what will come next for these characters.

A couple things to know about this book: First, it’s book one of a planned trilogy, which I didn't know until later, but was very glad to hear after I finished it. Second, this kind of crime novel set in India and written a woman is a rare thing, and the kind of attention this book is getting is an excellent, boundary-pushing thing. We love to see it, and it’s well-deserved.

While I don’t think I fell quite as head over heels for this one as much as some other early reviewers — simply because this kind of antihero crime fiction is not my genre; I don’t really like things like The Sopranos or The Godfather — I did really like it, and I did read it very quickly. To me, the three main characters make the book especially notable; they are beautifully, exceptionally morally gray. Some of them are better people than others, and their degree of goodness changes wonderfully over the course of the novel, but Kapoor has made sure that we always at least nugget of sympathy for all three of them.

I’m eager for more readers to get their hands on this book and to see what they think, and I’m definitely looking forward to book two!

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Content and Trigger Warnings

• Rape (off screen)

• Hard drug use

• Alcohol use

• Murder

• Violence and death

• Abortion

• Suicidal thoughts

Stories From the Tenants Downstairs

Author: Sidik Fofana
Publisher: Scribner
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

Click above to buy this book from my Bookshop.org shop, which supports independent bookstores (not Amazon). You can also find it via your favorite indie bookstore here.

Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

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Cover Description

Set in a Harlem high rise, a stunning debut about a tight-knit cast of characters grappling with their own personal challenges while the forces of gentrification threaten to upend life as they know it.

Like Gloria Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place and Lin Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights, Sidik Fofana’s electrifying collection of eight interconnected stories showcases the strengths, struggles, and hopes of one residential community in a powerful storytelling experience.

Each short story follows a tenant in the Banneker Homes, a low-income high rise in Harlem where gentrification weighs on everyone’s mind. There is Swan in apartment 6B, whose excitement about his friend’s release from prison jeopardizes the life he’s been trying to lead. Mimi, in apartment 14D, who hustles to raise the child she had with Swan, waitressing at Roscoe’s and doing hair on the side. And Quanneisha B. Miles, a former gymnast with a good education who wishes she could leave Banneker for good, but can’t seem to escape the building’s gravitational pull. We root for these characters and more as they weave in and out of each other’s lives, endeavoring to escape from their pasts and blaze new paths forward for themselves and the people they love.

Stories from the Tenants Downstairs brilliantly captures the joy and pain of the human experience and heralds the arrival of a uniquely talented writer.

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TL;DR Review

Stories From the Tenants Downstairs is a seriously impressive debut story collection. I’m particularly partial to linked story collections, but still. No skips.

For you if: You like linked short stories with super strong characters.

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Full Review

Stories From the Tenants Downstairs is a buzzy recent release with a premise that caught my eye: eight loosely connected short stories, each told from the perspective of a different person living in a single Harlem highrise. Many of them are facing eviction as rapid gentrification prices them out of homes they’ve lived in for years, sometimes decades.

I’m so glad I pulled this to the top of my TBR pile; this is character-driven short story writing at its best. Every character was just so deeply human, with such distinctive, strong voices. This paired really well with the full cast of audiobook narrators, who quite literally bring the collection to life. “Little Feet,” which takes the form of a letter penned by a 12-year-old boy to his friend’s mother, was possibly my favorite. (Oof, that one hurt.)

This is a collection that goes deeper than the primary themes of class, race, gentrification, and the cyclical trap of financial struggle. It’s about people, and choices, and survival, and humanity, and community.

What an impressive debut. No skips.

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Content and Trigger Warnings

• Child death

• Children taken by CPS

• Drug use

The Spear Cuts Through Water

Author: Simon Jimenez
Publisher: Del Rey
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

Click above to buy this book from my Bookshop.org shop, which supports independent bookstores (not Amazon). You can also find it via your favorite indie bookstore here.

Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

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Cover Description

The people suffer under the centuries-long rule of the Moon Throne. The royal family—the despotic emperor and his monstrous sons, the Three Terrors—hold the countryside in their choking grip. They bleed the land and oppress the citizens with the frightful powers they inherited from the god locked under their palace.

But that god cannot be contained forever.

With the aid of Jun, a guard broken by his guilt-stricken past, and Keema, an outcast fighting for his future, the god escapes from her royal captivity and flees from her own children, the triplet Terrors who would drag her back to her unholy prison. And so it is that she embarks with her young companions on a five-day pilgrimage in search of freedom—and a way to end the Moon Throne forever. The journey ahead will be more dangerous than any of them could have imagined.

Both a sweeping adventure story and an intimate exploration of identity, legacy, and belonging, The Spear Cuts Through Water is an ambitious and profound saga that will transport and transform you—and is like nothing you’ve ever read before.

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TL;DR Review

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.

For you if: You like books with experimental storytelling styles and epic prose.

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Full Review

“Once, the Moon and the Water were in love. … And though they occupied different spheres, they were able to visit one another through less direct means, for there is no barrier in this life that love cannot overcome. The Water would send up to the skies plump storm clouds, swollen with its essence, its cool mist and salty breath kissing the Moon’s dry and cracked surface. And the Moon, when it wished to visit the Water, would cast its reflection into the Water’s surface, and in the Inverted World that lies suspended below our own, in glass and still water, they would meet, and dance, and make love. … It was in that world of reflection where they built the theater that is the locus of our tale.”

You know that feeling when you read the first few pages of a new book and you’re just like…wow? The Spear Cuts Through Water did that for me, and then some. I started the audiobook in the car and was so hypnotized by the opening chapter I felt like I was driving through a dream. And it just kept getting better from there.

This book’s cover blurb says it’s like nothing you’ve ever read before, but that’s not just a gimmicky marketing line. On one level, we have the book’s narrator, who speaks to us in the second person and remembers the old stories about the Old Country (unnamed, but Jimenez is Filipino-American) that his lola used to tell him as a boy — she’s the one speaking in the quote above. But he is also sitting in a magical theater, watching a play that tells an epic tale of ancestry, battle, a god, a throne, and yes — love. And even as the narration melts into the recounting of that story, we get (sometimes single-sentence) interjections from the characters, adding their voices to what becomes a chorus.

It’s this experimentation with form and narration — combined with breathtaking but slower-moving prose — that makes me say that this book will be perfect for those who like to read both literary fiction and fantasy; the book requires a bit of a close read, a bit more engagement. But it’s very much worth the effort.

I listened to the audiobook as I read along in print, which I do often. But with this book, I can’t imagine NOT experiencing it in both formats. The way the text is laid out on the page adds so much to the storytelling style (and could be a bit confusing if you’re listening only), and Joel de la Fuente’s audio performance is just so rich and beautiful. (You may recognize his voice from Interior Chinatown or How Much of These Hills Is Gold.) Please take my advice and do this one both ways.

I loved this reading experience. I loved the story. I loved the characters. I loved the queer elements. I loved its homage to ancestry and myth. I loved how hypnotized I felt. I just loved it. You bet your bottom I’m going to go back and read Jimenez’s The Vanished Birds now. And literally anything he writes in the future.

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Content and Trigger Warnings

• Violence and death

• Cannibalism

• Animal death

• Alcoholism (minor)

• Sexual content (minor)