road trip
Last Night by Mhairi McFarlane
This is the fifth novel that I have read by Mhairi McFarlane and it is her best one yet. I said this in my review for her previous novel, If I Never Met You, but McFarlane is always improving as a writer. While Last Night presents readers with her trademark blend of humor of realism, […]
MoreRemote Control by Nnedi Okorafor
“Fear of death is a powerful weapon.” Remote Control is Afrofuturism at its best. Nnedi Okorafor seamlessly blends folklore elements and aesthetics with sci-fi ones, delivering a unique and intriguing piece of speculative fiction. Set in Ghana, Remote Control opens in medias res: the appearance of Sankofa, a fourteen-year girl, and her companion, a fox, […]
MoreCarol by Claire Morgan
“My Angel,” Carol said. “Flung out of space.” Fans of the film adaptation of Carol may find the novel to be not quite as polished or romantic. I, for one, find the novel’s elusiveness and opaqueness to be entrancing. Unlike other books by Highsmith Carol is not a thriller or a crime novel, however, it […]
MoreInfinite Country by Patricia Engel
“What was it about this country that kept everyone hostage to its fantasy?” Infinite Country shares much in common with two of other novels by Patricia Engel, The Veins of the Ocean and Vida. While I do enjoy certain aspects of her storytelling—which at times reminds me of authors such as Alice Hoffman and Isabel […]
MoreSea Monsters by Chloe Aridjis
In spite of its lively premise and its lovely cover art Sea Monsters is one of the most lacklustre books I’ve read this year. Thankfully, Sea Monsters is a slight novel, just around 200 pages. Then again, those 200 pages are a drag. The summary for this novel is somewhat misleading as it promises the […]
MoreI’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid
I should have ended things with this book as soon as I grew irritated by our narrator’s navel-gazing. But, I persevered, hoping against hope that at some point, ideally before reaching the book’s finish line, I would find what I was reading to be even remotely intriguing. At the beginning we have a young woman […]
MoreAmerican Gods by Neil Gaiman — book review
“Gods die. And when they truly die they are unmourned and unremembered. Ideas are more difficult to kill than people, but they can be killed, in the end.” It isn’t surprising that American Gods is regarded as one of the genre-bending novels of all time. Over the course of 500 pages Neil Gaiman deftly blends […]
MoreThe King of Crows by Libba Bray — book review
I hate to say it, or write it, but The King of Crows wasn’t a very satisfying conclusion to The Diviners series. “Who got to decide what made somebody an American? America, the ideal of it at least, was its own form of elusive magic.” While it isn’t as drawn-out as the finale to the […]
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