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 be one of the few who are…
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 experiences through a raft of different characters, we follow one person, Kara…
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, so why should I? But then, I was offered the opportunity to…
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, recalling the unfortunate and early death of her…
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 not the solution to any of her problems, in fact, the author uses her…
Every Little Piece of Me by Amy Jones is a book that will make you cringe. You’ll cringe because of the character’s actions, you’ll cringe because you’ll recognize the destructive behaviour they consistently engage in, you’ll cringe because you’ll see how your activity on the internet can cause these negative reactions, and you’ll cringe because…
The Last Neanderthal by Claire Cameron is a unique sort of book; one of the two narratives it includes is told from the perspective of a Neanderthal, someone who doesn’t have developed language capabilities or a significant matter of reference that is relatable to us modern-day humans. Aside from a few necessary exceptions, (Cameron allows…
Ok, prepare yourself; this is a heart-wrenching read. Not this review (hopefully!) but this book: Alice & Oliver by Charles Bock. I must have been feeling particularly masochistic when I read the blurb in the publisher’s catalogue and requested it anyway. Alice and Oliver are happily in love and overjoyed at their new baby daughter…
I try to avoid reviewing two or more novels in one post because I like to give each author their due, but these two books were begging to be compared against one another, and quite frankly, I’m reading so much these days that keeping up with my book reviews is getting challenging. I read The…
No doubt this book title and/or author name sounds familiar to you. I’m probably writing this review five months too late because the hype was at a deafening roar during its release in March, but I’ve just finished reading it and am excited to talk about it, so bear with me. Daisy Jones and the…
Stay Up With Hugo Best by Erin Somers is one of those books that takes place over a specific, short period of time; in this case, it’s the Memorial Day long weekend in the United States. This type of timeline usually works to add heightened drama to the proceeding narrative, infusing everything with a time-sensitive…
I love the suspense that a storm brings to the fore in a fictional book; as the winds change, so do our expectations as a reader. This story begins with a storm, and ends with the same storm, pushing the reader in all different directions and time periods, raging through each character and their own…
