Top-notch déjà vu
After the triumph that was Shuggie Bain, I was super keen to read Stuart’s next novel, and was thrilled not to have to wait long – just 2 years – for Young Mungo to be released. But diving into it...
Lisa
Mothers and Daughters, tensions and connections
This is a collection of short stories, and like most collections, the first story is the strongest one. It is also the title story – The Return Journey – which is the one I will review, because it was quite...
Love, food and ethnicity
Essentially, most of this novel is a paean to the author’s dead mother, and the negotiation of a mixed race child (Korean American) of her Korean identity. The novel starts by telling us “Ever since my mom died, I...
Traditional crime-fiction with a massive historical background
Although I began to read this book with eagerness, it is with reluctance that I am reviewing it. I had enjoyed several of Khan’s other novels featuring Inspector Chopra and the baby elephant, mostly set in Mumbai, a lighthearted set...
Fear and Poverty
It seems a deeply ironic title – probably intentionally so – given this novel tells 5 stories of lives of Indians which seem mostly to be trapped in a state of fear and want and poverty. One of its protagonists...
Three Women
Having enjoyed Jessie Burton’s first novel, The Miniaturist, I was happy enough to pick up her next, The Confession, when I saw it. However, maybe it was my enjoyment of the period she invoked in The Miniaturist – 1680s Amsterdam...
The sensation-laden internal life of a young teen
I honestly had no idea what to expect from this book having never heard of Megan Abbott, but the front cover had a blub from Kate Atkinson, ‘Deft, intelligent and enthralling’, so I thought well now, if such an accomplished...
Class and suffrage in Victorian England
This is one of Chevalier’s earlier novels – her third actually, after Girl with the Pearl Earring and Virgin Blue – and for some good reason I can no longer recall, I began to read it but didn’t get far...
Another novel where the ‘locals’ serve as background colour
It was more than 10 years ago when I read a few Rose Tremain novels (The Road Home, Restoration, Letter to Sister Benedicta), so when I came across this Islands of Mercy published in 2020, and saw from the blurb...
Deceptively simple and beautifully rendered
This most recent of Ishiguro’s novels contains a futuristic take on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in our domestic/personal lives. Klara is an AF – Artificial Friend – a sort of human-like robot who is intelligent and even unique, but nevertheless a...
Sexuality and judgement
Having been impressed by A Parchment of Leaves, I was keen to try another Silas House novel, and when I got back to DC, I found several in the Martin Luther King Jr Library. Southernmost begins with a flood in...
Unapologetic, chic, and capable — the perfect spy
I wasn’t sure at first whether this would be my kind of book since the protagonist, Nancy Grace Augusta Wake, is a leader in the French Resistance in WWII, and war stories are usually not my favourite genre. However, the...
Enchanting layers upon interlinked layers
I start this review with an apology to the reader; I hardly know how to begin to review such a book. An apology is needed all the more because this is such a remarkable book that I couldn’t hope for...
Self-awareness and angst
Ava is a young Irish woman who manages to get out of Ireland by taking up teaching English to children in Hong Kong. She has no vacation for teaching and very little interest in Hong Kong, but manages to be...
Miles to go, during a pandemic
A very topical novel indeed, written from the perspective of itinerant migrant labourers in India who journeyed home on foot when the national Covid lockdown gave them no other option. This is the (fictional) story of 15-year old Meher’s family,...
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