Fresh out of college, Mackenzie signs up to be on a millennial-only competition reality TV show. It goes very wrong, she makes a big mistake, and is duly excoriated everywhere. When she meets a tight-knit group of four friends who are as disillusioned with the world as she is, they begin fantasizing what it would be like to leave society behind and create simpler lives for ... Read More...
The Van Apfel Girls are Gone
I’ve recently learned something about my reading taste—which is kind of awesome after seven years of writing reviews. Here it is: I enjoy ambiguity but not in anything purported to have a mystery component. I can be even more specific. If young girls disappearing are the principle premise of the story, then I need to know, for better or worse, what happened to them. Don’t give ... Read More...
Cygnet by Season Butler
The narrator of Season Butler’s debut novel, Cygnet, is known as the Kid. She’s 17 and her parents have dropped her off at her grandmother’s house on an island off the coast of New Hampshire to live while they try and get their lives together. It’s supposed to be for a few weeks, a month at most, but three months later, the Kid’s grandmother has died and she’s never heard from ... Read More...
The Body Lies by Jo Baker
A young, pregnant woman walking home is beaten on a busy street. Only by biting the man’s hand does she escape before he rapes her. This random act of violence is pivotal in her life and, despite a happy marriage and a healthy baby, three years later she still finds herself haunted by the event. A writer, she finds she can’t write, so she takes a job teaching writing at a small ... Read More...
Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner
It’s the 1950s and tradition reigns in America. For the most part the Kaufmans fit in. Except for Jo, who’s more interested in sports and playing with the daughter of their maid, both of which cause her mother no end of aggravation. Her younger sister Bethie was their mother’s favorite—pretty, popular, and destined either to marry well or be a star. For Jo, it’s her father who ... Read More...
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
On Wednesday I reviewed a book that I liked, but thought others might find too odd. I have the same hesitation today, but for a different reason. Ocean Vuong’s debut novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is itself a thing of beauty. His writing is poetical prose. Not surprising, because he is a poet. The novel is ruminations on his life in the form of a letter written to a ... Read More...
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