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Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid
“Everything I could see looked unreal to me; everything I could see made me feel I would never be part of it, never penetrate to the inside, never be taken in.” From the very first page, I was enthralled by Lucy’s deceptively simple narration. To begin with, I was struck by the clarity of her […]
MoreThe Eighth Detective by Alex Pavesi — book review
The Eighth Detective is not quite the “thrilling, wildly inventive nesting doll of a mystery” it’d be promised to be. I approached this novel hoping for something in the realms of Anthony Horowitz. Sadly, The Eighth Detective seems closer to The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, in that both novels are hellbent on ‘confusing’ the […]
MoreLittle Family by Ishmael Beah – book review
“Almost everything in this country is on its way to losing itself.” Little Family is a deeply felt novel. Set in an unnamed African country, the narrative revolves around five young people whose makeshift home is a derelict airplane. Ishmael Beah’s paints a sobering landscape: government corruption, extreme social divide, the malignant vestiges of colonialism, […]
MoreThe Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht — book review
“He was alone and hungry, and that hunger, coupled with the thunderous noise of bombardment, had burned in him a kind of awareness of his own death, an imminent and innate knowledge he could neither dismiss nor succumb to.” To begin with I was intrigued by Téa Obreht’s The Tiger’s Wife. Obreht’s writing is both […]
MoreEverything Inside: Stories by Edwidge Danticat
“The difference between her and them was as stark as the gulf between those who’d escaped a catastrophe unscathed and others who’d been forever mutilated by it.” This was such a wonderful and poignant collection of short stories.In a interview on LitHub Edwige Danticat said that one of the reasons why she loves the short […]
MoreThe Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa
“But our memories were diminishing day by day, for when something disappeared from the island, all memory of it vanished, too.” The Memory Police reminded me of a book I recently read, called Amatka. Given that the former was first published in 1994 and the latter is a fairly recent release I wouldn’t be surprised […]
MoreSWING TIME: BOOK REVIEW
Swing Time by Zadie Smith ★★✰✰✰ 2 of 5 stars I feel cheated. The beginning of this sprawling and pointless narrative promised something. It gave me certain expectations. So, when I found myself questioning the direction of this novel, I told myself that surely, by the end, this would all make sense. Turns out I […]
MoreBel Canto by Ann Patchett
A moving tale in which language is key. Patchett’s lyrical prose vividly renders a – somehow – surreal situation by focusing on the mundane: we see terrorists and hostages take part in ordinary everyday things (such as cooking, listening to music, playing chess…). A whimsical and absorbing story where characters albeit being limited by ‘language’ […]
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