sexual assault
Aftershocks: Dispatches from the Frontlines of Identity by Nadia Owusu
“To heal, I would need to look inward as well as outward. I would need to examine my memories. I would need to interrogate the stories I told myself—about myself, about my family, about the world.” Unflinching and elegant Aftershocks is an impressive, engrossing, and deeply moving memoir by a promising author. In her memoir, […]
MoreBefore the Ruins by Victoria Gosling
“To sleep on? Or to wake? This was the question facing me. To sleep, or to wake and face the reckoning, to find out what had been lost.” Although by no means an incompetent debut Before the Ruins does not offer a particularly innovative take on this subgenre (usually we have big houses, a group […]
MoreA Complicated Love Story Set in Space by Shaun David Hutchinson
Although I enjoyed the premise of this one, it kind of lost me halfway through. A Complicated Love Story Set in Space follows Noa, an American teenager, who one day just opens his eyes to find himself in space. On the spaceship, named Qriosity, with him are two other teens, DJ and Jenny. I thought […]
MorePretend I’m Dead by Jen Beagin
Pretend I’m Dead was 50 shades of fucked up but boy was it funny. “When he went to order their drinks, he asked, “What’s your poison?”“Oven cleaner,” she’d said with a straight face.Her sense of humor sometimes made people—herself, included—uncomfortable.” This novel is divided in four chapters, each one focusing on a particular relationship of […]
MoreNinth House by Leigh Bardugo
Ninth House can be best described as: “talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique, completely not ever been done before…” Leigh Bardugo sure showed me. I went in to this expecting the worst (most of my GR friends panned this book, and their less-than-impressed reviews are hilarious) and soon found […]
MoreThe Ten Loves of Mr. Nishino by Hiromi Kawakami
Considering that Hiromi Kawakami is one of my favourites authors this was a big letdown. The Ten Loves of Mr. Nishino lacked the zing that made Strange Weather in Tokyo and The Nakano Thrift Shop into such fun and engaging reads. Nishino, the novel’s central character, is a boring creep and I could not for […]
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 […]
MoreCardiff, by the Sea: Four Novellas of Suspense by Joyce Carol Oates
As I highly rate Joyce Carol Oates I was quite looking forward to Cardiff, by the Sea, a collection of four novellas ‘of suspense’. While I have only read a few of Oates’ works Patricide, a novella of hers, is a favourite of mine. The novellas collected in Cardiff, by the Sea have more in […]
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