Reads A Lot – Page 41 – For The Book Obsessed

Ancient Lands and New Wounds in the “Cash Murder Mystery Series” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsOctober 11, 2022 by Marcie McCauley

[ad_1] Marcie Rendon’s mystery novels simultaneously inform and entertain readers, presenting current Native American issues through her heroine’s efforts to solve crimes perpetrated against society’s more vulnerable members in the early 1970s. When the Cash Blackburn series’ third volume opens, a body surfaces in the Red River Valley’s meltwater; the spring floodwaters on this North … Read more

Abundantly Queer Horror in “Helen House” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsOctober 6, 2022 by Michael Colbert

[ad_1] How well can we ever know the people we love? Are there limits to healthy affection? Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya makes literal in her fiction the questions we might be afraid to ask. With her debut novelette, Helen House, these questions take a sinister turn. The story’s narrator and her girlfriend, Amber, share an intense … Read more

Surviving Racism in Erin E. Adams’s “Jackal” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsOctober 4, 2022 by Devi Bhaduri

[ad_1] In her debut novel, Jackal, Erin E. Adams creates a horror story inspired by a tragically familiar and yet neglected issue in America—the epidemic of disappearing Black girls—and authorities’ and media’s lack of concern or coverage. The best social horror stories allow the inherent darkness of the social phenomenon at their hearts to show … Read more

The Subtext of Friendship in “Best Of Friends” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsOctober 3, 2022 by aliyafs

[ad_1] The best thing about Kamila Shamsie’s eighth novel, Best of Friends, is the story isn’t hinged on a friendship gnarled with sexual, bodily, or intellectual envy. The conflict is more nuanced, primarily marred by a class difference, but more implicitly by the contradictions that exist within a life-long friendship. At times, the characters feel … Read more

Shuffling the Gothic Cards in “One Dark Window” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsSeptember 30, 2022 by Archita

[ad_1] The opening chapter of Rachel Gillig’s debut novel One Dark Window, is itself a dark window, inviting readers to look into the misty woods where shadows stalk, explore the medieval town of Blunder with its superstitions and prejudices, and collect the arcane “Providence” cards (not unlike a Tarot deck or a set of Oracle … Read more

An Interview with George Prochnik on “I Dream with Open Eyes” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsSeptember 29, 2022 by Ryan Asmussen

[ad_1] “And now,” writes George Prochnik in his new memoir, I Dream with Open Eyes, “I have left America because the country became alien to me, or because I believe that somewhere out there in the great beyond I might still find a place that sings home?” On that subtle “or” hangs an inquiry. After … Read more

A Prismatic Centennial – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsSeptember 28, 2022 by Gina Nutt

[ad_1] This year marks one hundred years since a Viennese newspaper first serialized Felix Salten’s novel Bambi. A new translation by Jack Zipes emerged from Princeton University Press earlier in the year. This fall, a reissue from New York Review Books Classics—translated by Damion Searls, with an afterword by Mark Reitter—offers readers another look at … Read more

The Urgency of Existence in “I Fear My Pain Interests You” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsSeptember 27, 2022 by Grace Linden

[ad_1] Margot Highsmith is 30,000 feet in the air, crammed into the airplane bathroom dabbing at a bloody lip she hadn’t realized was bleeding. Behind in New York: family despair and romantic anguish that might actually just be humiliation. (Sometimes it’s hard to disentangle the two.) But outside of Bozeman, Montana is an empty house … Read more

The Law of Desire in “Getting Lost” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsSeptember 27, 2022 by Brianna Di Monda

[ad_1] During the year I lived in France, I read Annie Ernaux insatiably. For months, I returned to the library to get her books, one copy after another. Faced with the loneliness of living abroad, I threw myself into reading. Into Ernaux. I liked the way she juxtaposed a detached style with intimate stories. Those … Read more

An Interview with Chelsea Martin on “Tell Me I’m an Artist” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsSeptember 26, 2022 by Abigail Oswald

[ad_1] When Joey is tasked with creating a self-portrait at art school, she decides to remake Wes Anderson’s Rushmore. Slightly complicating matters is the fact that she’s never actually seen the movie, but Joey’s not one to be dissuaded. Over the course of the semester, readers follow Joey through deeply relatable stages of creation and … Read more