CW: Suicide, Incest, Sexual Abuse There’s this seafood restaurant downtown that is pretty pricy, but once my husband and I were given a gift card for it. The first two courses were incredible—fresh, flavorful, succulent. The third was bizarre and borderline inedible, though we may have just thought it was so gross because we’re unculturedContinue reading “‘Paradise’ has 2/3 of a Great Book”
Tag Archives: Fiction
‘Iraq + 100’ Gives Unique View of Future
For longer than I’ve been alive, Iraq has been either at or adjacent to war. In fact, writes editor Hassan Blasim in the introduction to Iraq + 100, “Iraq has not tasted peace, freedom, or stability since the first British invasion of the country in 1914.” A century of war makes it hard to imagineContinue reading “‘Iraq + 100’ Gives Unique View of Future”
‘The Answers’ Raises Questions
Something I’ve noticed in a lot of millennial literature, as it were, is a thread of dystopia interwoven into what begins—and often ends—with the illusion of being contemporary or realistic. Like Ling Ma’s Severance, about a young woman who keeps her dead-end job after the rest of her office flees in a deadly pandemic inContinue reading “‘The Answers’ Raises Questions”
Leave ‘Only Kid Left’ Behind
I did it. I finally did it. Last year, as I was starting this project, I ordered a bunch of the books I couldn’t find at my library and didn’t already have. (Fitting, then, that I’m posting this on the one-year anniversary of this blog.) One of the first to arrive from that inaugural batchContinue reading “Leave ‘Only Kid Left’ Behind”
‘Outlaw’ Lets Characters Ride Free in the Old West
I opened Anna North’s Outlawed expecting a leisurely and thoughtful exploration of misfits forced into a life of crime in the days of cowboys and covered wagons. Outlawed has misfits forced into a life of crime. It has cowboys and wagons a-plenty. But while it does explore misfits of various stripes, it does so in,Continue reading “‘Outlaw’ Lets Characters Ride Free in the Old West”
No Punches Pulled in ‘Indians’
In the opening chapter of The Only Good Indians, Ricky, one of the titular “Indians” has stepped outside a bar to take a leak when a massive and possibly hallucinatory elk appears, stomps on a bunch of cars, and leaves him to the mercy of a bunch of drunk white guys who mete out swiftContinue reading “No Punches Pulled in ‘Indians’”
A Two-for-One Take on ‘Ninth’s
The nice thing about being a little late to the game is that often the books I love already have sequels or the authors have otherwise published other work, so I can linger a little longer in the world or language than I would have if I had read them when the ink was stillContinue reading “A Two-for-One Take on ‘Ninth’s”
‘Space’ Does SciFi Proud
I’m not sure how much Michaiah Johnson knows about architecture, but if The Space Between Worlds is any indication, she sure can construct a plot. The debut novel has an immaculately constructed plot with parallels upon parallels to itself and real life—which, as it happens, you almost forget exists after being immersed in Johnson’s world.Continue reading “‘Space’ Does SciFi Proud”
A Quest Fulfilled, with a Disappointing End
For the last several years, I have been on a Quest. Something like twenty summers ago, my precocious, scrawny little-kid self would go to the bookmobile library at every opportunity and come home with a stack of books practically as tall as I was (which wasn’t that tall then, but still). The picture books, earlyContinue reading “A Quest Fulfilled, with a Disappointing End”
‘Liars’ is Nothing Short of Magic
Early on in the pandemic, I sat in the antiseptic-drenched donation room of the Red Cross and tried to read The Butchering Art. It was, as I said at the time, a fascinating and exceptionally well-written book, but something about the written depictions of surgery theater and infection contrasting with the new fears of theContinue reading “‘Liars’ is Nothing Short of Magic”
Ring Reads 