For The Book Obsessed
Should you read that book you’ve had your eye on? Will it totally rock or sink like a stone? Check out these book reviews from book lovers like you to help you find your next great read!
[ad_1] Reports of the death of Donald “Sully” Sullivan are somewhat exaggerated. In Somebody’s Fool, Richard Russo’s terrific new book in his North Bath, NY series, characters talk to Sully’s grave, look for the dead man to join them at the bar, and, when they are in a bind, they ask—maybe against their better judgment— What … Read more
[ad_1] A good short story can feel like a mystical experience, or leave a reader remorseful, longing. Kate Doyle’s debut is a collection of such stories, linked in subtle ways, that perfectly encapsulate what it’s like to reflect on your youth while you’re still in it. The young women in these stories are on the … Read more
[ad_1] Even the terminal dryness of bone hides inside our skin plainly, like dust on a mirror. This can guide us forward or not guide us at all. — Kaveh Akbar, “Portrait of the Alcoholic Three Weeks Sober” In 2017, I started taking notes for a novel I longed to write about a father and … Read more
[ad_1] In July, horror fans are spoiled for choice with the publication of a relative newcomer’s homage to classic horror as well as a new offering from a veteran of the genre. Josh Winning’s Burn the Negative is clearly the work of a horror film enthusiast, with references and tropes a-plenty for slasher buffs to … Read more
[ad_1] It’s fitting that the narrator of Ruth Madievsky’s debut novel, All-Night Pharmacy, is never given a name. Despite the first-person participant point of view, she seems to have sprung fully formed from the functions of those around her, namely her sister, Debbie. Her own traits, her own personhood, are obliterated when Debbie is around. … Read more
[ad_1] On the cover of Ripe, glistening red seeds cling to thin lines of white flesh—pomegranate innards. It is the perfect image for this book: close-up, torn open, almost bloody, almost biblical, impossible to ignore. Inside this cover, a deadly pandemic is creeping across the globe, rents are rising to untenable levels, and men are … Read more
[ad_1] In his debut story collection, The Best Possible Experience, Nishanth Injam creates characters in tight, liminal spaces, between homes and countries, and in transitional phases of life. From a young girl waiting for a gaggle of boys, to a man on a city bus, to a granddaughter and grandfather reflecting on their changing relationship, … Read more
[ad_1] Every month there seems to be another book steeped in the pandemic’s effect. All that time in lockdown must have gone to good use writing pandemic novels and now they’re all getting published, or at least ending up on my desk to review. Caitlin Shetterly’s debut novel, Pete and Alice in Maine, confronts the … Read more
[ad_1] Halfway through Owner of a Lonely Heart, Beth Nguyen writes: “What would it take to make someone, to make you, to make me—leave everything known? The history of my family is also the history of multiple wars, of colonization, of imperialism, of loss and diaspora.” This line characterizes Nguyen’s full body of work, which … Read more
[ad_1] Sarah Viren’s new book, To Name the Bigger Lie, pushes us to re-examine what it means to tell the truth, one gorgeous sentence at a time. The two narratives—one of her high school humanities teacher and his tendency towards conspiracy theories—and the other, a piece about a false Title IX complaint against her wife … Read more