Performative Cultural Awareness
The Goodreads Choice awards list landed in my inbox, and who can resist a list of books? (I had only read one: The Vanishing Half) The best debut novel was a novel I had not heard of, Such a Fun...
Susan
Exercising Opinions
In We need to talk about Kevin, Lionel Shriver featured a chillingly callous teenager who plans and executes a shooting at his school. Big Brother focused on an extremely obese man who is ‘eating himself to death’. So Much For...
Small Town Tensions
Set in a very small area of New Hampshire, Sue Miller’s The Arsonist features as its protagonist Frankie Rowley, a burned-out aid worker just returned from Kenya. Her parents have been summer visitors to the area for years, since Frankie...
Ahistorical craftwork
This well-intentioned novel is set in 1950s India. Independence is in the air, not just for the recently independent country, but for the protagonist Lakshmi Shastri, who escapes an early marriage and domestic violence in a village to make a...
Shattering Ceilings
First woman Vice-President. First black woman Vice-President. First Indian-American Vice-President. First daughter of immigrants to be elected Vice-President. And what a fantastic speech she gave! Calm, confident, capable, tough, conscious of her roots, a special call-out to black women, a...
L’enfant et l’affaire
~ The Margot Affair, by Sanaë Lemoine ~ It is said that the French have more relaxed sexual attitudes than the uptight Brits and Americans. Indeed, French presidents Mitterand, Chirac, Sarkozy and Hollande have all had multiple affairs with various...
Criminal Divination
~ Troubled Blood, by Robert Galbraith ~ The latest Robert Galbraith is quite the tome, clocking in at an impressive 927 pages. Goody, I thought. Many evenings and weekends of reading a capable author showing off her craft, her undeniable...
Lightweight confection
~ Baking cakes in Kigali, by Gaile Parkin ~ Set squarely in Mma Ramotswe territory is Gaile Parkin’s Baking Cakes in Kigali, featuring a plump entrepreneurial African woman who solves human problems along with the cakes she sells. There are...
Existential Coming-of-Age, with an American Multilingual Twist
Coming-of-age millenial stories must be thick on the ground these days. Without seeking them out, several have come my way in the last few months — two by Sally Rooney, one by Naoise Dolan, and now, Elif Batuman’s The Idiot,...
Pythons and Politics
Lifelong Florida resident Carl Hiassen has carved himself a unique niche in the 45-odd years he’s been writing novels. Set firmly in his home state, his novels typically feature a wild cast of environmental activists, law personnel, corrupt politicians and...
Foreign Language
Naoise Dolan’s debut novel, Exciting Times, will inevitably be compared to Sally Rooney’s Normal People and Conversations with Friends. Dolan and Rooney are both young female Irish authors, and both write about young female protagonists who are very self-aware, intelligent,...
Survivor’s Guilt
~ Dear Edward, by Ann Napolitano ~ This well-intentioned novel deals with the aftermath of a tragedy — a plane crash in which only one person survives, an 11-year-old boy called Edward. Edward Adler (known as Eddie), his older brother...
Secrets and Lies
~ The Mothers. By Brit Bennett ~ This astonishingly assured first novel centers on a black community in a small Southern California town, and specifically, three young people: Nadia Turner, beautiful, smart and unhappy; Luke Sheppard, the pastor’s son; and...
A richly satisfying re-read
~ A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth ~ It’s been almost three decades since I, and the world, read and loved this novel. Most beloved books get re-read from time to time, but the sheer size (literally. 4.2 lbs on...
A Tale of Two Sisters
~ My Sister, the Serial Killer. (Oyinkan Braithwaite) ~ A distinctly original addition to the satirical genre, Oyinkan Braithwaite’s first novel is set in her home country of Nigeria. Korede is a capable, accomplished nurse who carries a torch for...
Recent Comments