Category: Literary Fiction.

Book Review: The Waiting Hours by Shandi Mitchell

Book Review: The Waiting Hours by Shandi Mitchell

There’s always a few jobs out there that one knows for certain they could never handle. Personally, I could never be a teacher because I can barely manage my own two children and I find all their questions annoying (sorry not sorry). But for some reason the...
Book Review: Lampedusa by Steven Price

Book Review: Lampedusa by Steven Price

Dear reader; I wanted so much to like Lampedusa by Steven Price. At the time I’m writing this, it was announced as a shortlist contender for the Giller Prize, and because so many people in Canada are forming their reading lists based on this prize alone, I may...
Book Review: Frying Plantain by Zalika Reid-Benta

Book Review: Frying Plantain by Zalika Reid-Benta

Can I get a hurrah for linked short story collections? Frying Plantain by Zalika Reid-Benta is a quiet yet decisive book that doesn’t gloss over the first and second generation immigrant experience in Canada. And instead of getting a disjointed look at these...
Book Review: The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

Book Review: The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

I wasn’t really planning on reading The Testaments by Margaret Atwood for a few reasons; it had been ages since I’d read The Handmaid’s Tale, I hadn’t seen the television adaptation of it, and I figured everyone else would be reading this book,...
Book Review: Sleepless Night by Margriet de Moor

Book Review: Sleepless Night by Margriet de Moor

Written by the “grand dame of Dutch literature”, Sleepless Night by Margriet de Moor is 122 pages of reminiscing and remembrance. Translated from the Dutch by David Doherty, it follows a widow over one sleepless night as she bakes a Bundt cake in the dead of winter,...
Book Review: Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

Book Review: Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

Bafflingly, Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams has been called “A black Bridget Jones” by Kirkus Reviews, which in my mind, does a huge disservice to this taut, intelligent and dark read. Although the protagonist is searching for Mr. Right, men are clearly...