For The Book Obsessed
[ad_1] It was the cover of Marissa Higgins’ debut novel A Good Happy Girl that initially caught my eye: a young woman in profile, mouth open so wide her jaw nearly distends as she devours a burger. It speaks to the unbridled need in its pages, and I knew, right away, I had to read … Read more
[ad_1] Dolly Alderton’s central narrative preoccupation across all her books has remained the same: depicting the tumult of seeking romantic love in one’s twenties and thirties, with all the attendant anxieties of false promises and disillusioned hopes. In Alderton’s first novel, Ghosts, a thirtysomething food writer, Nina, embarks on a fling that seems to promise … Read more
[ad_1] Censorship is something Thai American author Sunisa Manning is all too familiar with. Her thrilling and heartfelt debut novel A Good True Thai follows three young people whose paths converge at university leading up to the 1970s pro-democracy student movement in Thailand, their lives upended after a massacre of student demonstrators—a historical event that … Read more
[ad_1] There are worse things than a local gangster’s cronies lurking in New Jersey’s wetlands… It was a June night, warm but breezy. Lynn and the kids had gone to bed, and I was sitting out next to the giant rose bush with my neighbor Phil. The back of our house faced across … Read more
[ad_1] The most alluring characteristic of Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀’s new novel, A Spell of Good Things, is its distinct use of Yoruba diacritics. The Yoruba language is tonal, and one senses an innate and appreciable linguistic dexterity in Adébáyọ̀’s sophomore novel. Unapologetically Yoruba and mostly set in Osun state, an unmistakable Nigerian verisimilitude permeates the novel. … Read more
[ad_1] In her new collection of short stories, Almost Deadly, Almost Good: Sins and Virtues, Alice Kaltman crafts a wicked and ribald catechism from the vices and redemptions of contemporary America and its litany of temptations. Neither morality tale nor fable, the collection’s fourteen stories forge hardened hearts and tempered spirits in those crucibles of … Read more
[ad_1] It will surprise few readers of contemporary fiction to learn that George Saunders’ new collection of short stories, Liberation Day, is very good indeed. At this stage, reviews can only confirm his talent, not reveal it, and should consequently focus on other issues. Once one has established that Liberation Day is as good as … Read more
[ad_1] In a climate of planetary crises and collapses of democracy, Aruni Kashyap’s There is No Good Time for Bad News talks about renewed prospects and survival after violence. The poems in this collection are about a landscape that has much catching up to do compared to its nation’s momentum of progression. In “Alpha Ursae … Read more
[ad_1] When I turned forty, my best friend from college, Annette, and I decided to do it up big and have a girls’ weekend in New Orleans. We planned it for months. Being married with kids, this was the getaway we had earned. I was flying in from Phoenix, she was coming from Connecticut. I … Read more
[ad_1] Priyanka Champaneri’s enthralling debut novel, The City of Good Death, winner of the 2018 Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, is a heart-warming read about a city where people come to die in peace and the beauty of being alive, enhanced by the unapologetic presence of death in the lives of its characters. … Read more