Book Reviews

Life During an Uncertain Spring in “The Vulnerables” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsNovember 28, 2023 by Mandana Chaffa

Sigrid Nunez’s ninth novel, The Vulnerables, uses the 2020 pandemic as an inciting incident for an examination of the uncertainties and vulnerabilities that we experience … Read More

Finding Freedom and Connection in “absolute animal” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsNovember 27, 2023 by Meredith Boe

Writer and professor Rachel DeWoskin’s second poetry collection, absolute animal, subtly exposes the thin line separating humans from other living things, those inarguable similarities to … Read More

The Prescience of Alba De Céspedes’s “Her Side of The Story” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsNovember 24, 2023 by margarita diaz

In 1948, Alba de Céspedes wrote to her friend, the acclaimed writer Natalia Ginzburg, of a specific kind of affliction that could befall the women … Read More

An Interview with Zuska Kepplová on “The Moon in Foil” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsNovember 22, 2023 by Monika Dziamka

Zuska Kepplová is a Slovak author, editor, and political commentator for the Slovakian daily newspaper SME. In 2011, her book Buchty švabachom was published in … Read More

A Conversation with Gabriel Bump – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsNovember 21, 2023 by Michael Welch

Gabriel Bump has always exuded hopefulness in his writing. The young narrator of his debut novel Everywhere You Don’t Belong quickly became a classic voice … Read More

Traversing Plastic Surgery’s Choppy Waters in “Pilgrims 2.0” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsNovember 21, 2023 by Adam Kaz

Writers searching for a subject ripe with juicy satirical possibilities will find a ready friend in plastic surgery. It’s a fleshy-flashy-multibillion-dollar industry which profits off, … Read More

Stories Within Stories in “Baumgartner” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsNovember 20, 2023 by Steve Nathans-Kelly

Paul Auster’s best novels balance intricate and absorbing stories, with deconstructions of the art of narrative in a manner that rarely detracts from the flow … Read More

Chin-Sun Lee on the Search for Home – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsNovember 20, 2023 by Sara Lippmann

Upcountry, Chin-Sun Lee’s debut novel, is an enchanting, intertwining tale of three lonely women in the fictional, gossip-hungry Catskills town of Caliban. The story opens … Read More

Naming Monsters in “The Night Parade” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsNovember 17, 2023 by Brian Truong

As a child, amidst familial turbulence, I prayed to my mouse plush toy, asking existential questions through wordless telepathy. My family was not religionless—we were … Read More

The Mystery of Consciousness in “The Apple in the Dark” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsNovember 17, 2023 by Max Gray

We like to think we are masters of our bodies and minds and, for the most part, we possess total agency and comprehension of our … Read More

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