It’s that time of year again – Man Booker season! As you all know, I’m terrible at sticking to a TBR, so I’ve never managed to read more than two books from any longlist. But for some reason, this is one of the prizes that gets me excited every year, even if I know READ MORE
Category: Fiction
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | WHEN I HIT YOU – MEENA KANDASAMY
This is another of the books on this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction long and shortlists. It’s also the one that, after watching many BookTubers review some or all of the books on the list, I felt was a front-runner to win this year’s prize (it didn’t, Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire did). I decided READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | ELEANOR OLIPHANT IS COMPLETELY FINE – GAIL HONEYMAN
Brief disclaimer: I’ve been working on this review for a month now, and it’s one of the hardest I’ve written. It’s not perfect. I may come back and try to tidy it up a bit in the future. But for now, I just wanted to get something up so I can move on to READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | UNDER COVER – CHRIS RYAN
I adore this series. It’s Young Adult, and it’s a series of espionage thrillers. It’s completely unrealistic – often bordering on absurd – but it is just so much fun to read. This is the fifth book in the Agent 21 series, and the first that doesn’t centre on Zak Darke, a teenager who READ MORE
CANADA READS REVIEW | THE MARROW THIEVES – CHERIE DIMALINE
This is a post-apocalyptic young adult novel that takes place in a world where climate change has destroyed the land. The coastlines have moved inwards, waterways have become polluted, and populations have become more and more dense as people were forced to migrate inland. In this world, white people have lost the ability to READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | ANOTHER BROOKLYN – JACQUELINE WOODSON
I’ve been meaning to read Jacqueline Woodson for a very long time. Her memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming, has been sitting on my shelf, waiting for me to get around to it, for years. I’m very grateful that this book was on sale, and that I decided to pick it up one day because of READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | BAD BLOOD – JENNIFER LYNN BARNES
I’m a huge fan of the TV show Criminal Minds, and this book is like a YA cross between that and The Mentalist. It’s about a group of teenagers with “special” talents – reading people, profiling, analyzing information and detecting lies. It’s a premise I absolutely love and the plots have been real page-turners. READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | LOST FOR WORDS – STEPHANIE BUTLAND
I picked this book up because I’d had trouble sticking with anything for a little while after a few books that failed to really impress me, and I wanted something light. I looked at the cover, saw it was about a bookstore (in England) and thought, great, that’ll do. I didn’t expect much. I READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | RESTLESS – WILLIAM BOYD
I picked this book up because it’s a spy thriller with a twist – it’s the story of Ruth, a young woman discovering that her mother spent years working as a spy for the British government during the early years of WWII. Cool premise, right? It also won the Costa Novel Award in 2006, READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | THE POWER – NAOMI ALDERMAN
This is one of the books I’ve heard most about in the past six months, since it was nominated for (and later won, much to the surprise of many, myself included) the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction. This book is part dystopian fantasy, part sociological speculation. It brings to life a theoretical question many READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | THE TROUBLE WITH GOATS AND SHEEP – JOANNA CANNON
Set against the backdrop of Britain’s 1976 heatwave, this is the story of two young girls who, during a slow-paced summer, decide to look into the sudden disappearance of their neighbour, Mrs. Creasy. But this isn’t just the story of what happened to Mrs. Creasy. In following the amateur detectives, we learn about the READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | REBECCA – DAPHNE DU MAURIER
I remember a battered copy of this book, mass market paperback, yellowed and curling pages, ugly cover, somehow making its way onto my bookshelves when I was a teenager. I can’t remember if I read the first few pages and decided it wasn’t my thing, or if I was put off by the cover. READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | LAST NIGHT IN MONTREAL – EMILY ST. JOHN MANDEL
Last Night In Montreal is Emily St. John Mandel’s debut novel, but you’d never know it. From pretty much the first page, it had me completely under its spell. I went into this not really knowing what it was about. Just a vague idea that it would be your basic relationship story, but a READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | THE LIE OF THE LAND – AMANDA CRAIG
This is only the second Amanda Craig book I’ve read (the other being Hearts and Minds, which was one of my favourite books of 2014) but I already feel like I can count her among my all-time favourite authors. The Lie of the Land is, at its center, about the dissolution of a marriage READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG – MURIEL BARBERY
Do you ever finish reading a book, leave it for a while, and still have no idea what you thought of it? That’s this book for me. I’ve been letting it “settle” for over a month now, and I’m no closer to a succinct, concise review than I was when I closed the cover. READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | AUTUMN – ALI SMITH
I’ve been meaning to read Ali Smith for ages. I have her previous novel, How To Be Both, but was put off by the historic section and never picked it up. I then tried reading some of her short stories, and discovered that I very much enjoyed them – which is why I decided READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | AMERICANAH – CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE
I’m so glad I finally got around to reading this book, after years of guiltily skimming past its spine on my bookshelf. It’s the first novel I’ve read by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, though I’ve read and loved her two short non-fiction works, We Should All Be Feminists (which you must read if you haven’t already) READ MORE
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | THE PARTICULAR SADNESS OF LEMON CAKE – AIMEE BENDER
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is the story of a young girl, Rose Edelstein, who discovers one day that she can taste more in her food than its flavours. She can taste her mother’s restlessness and emptiness, she can taste if the cook was in a rush, or if he was angry. Over READ MORE