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Under the Udala Trees

October 5, 2015

under the udala trees

  In Under the Udala Trees Ijeoma is only twelve years old when the civil war in Nigeria begins and her mother must leave her behind while she tries to establish a life for them in the north, a safer part of the country. It is 1968 and they live in Biafra, a southern state that has seceded from the nation. The war has already claimed her father and now her mother asks a ... Read More...

6 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: Africa, book clubs, cultural, debut, historical fiction, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, literary, nigeria

In the Language of Miracles

August 31, 2015

in the language of miracles

The American Dream is portrayed in any number of novels, often from the perspective of the struggle to reach it, but In the Language of Miracles Samir and Nagla Al-Menshawy are Egyptians who have already achieved the dream. He is a doctor and they live in a nice New Jersey suburb with their three children. They have been close friends with their next-door neighbors the ... Read More...

3 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: American life, book clubs, contemporary fiction, cultural, debut, literary, Viking

The Ambassador’s Wife

August 3, 2015

ambassador's wife

Miranda is a free-spirited artist and explorer living in Mazrooq, a country that is not open to either. That she also has a girlfriend makes her the most suspect of women, right up until she meets Finn, the British ambassador who steals her heart and gives her a life considered by all around her to be safe and normal. This not a romance novel—far from it. It is Jennifer Steil’s ... Read More...

3 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, cultural, Doubleday, Middle East

The Star Side of Bird Hill

July 29, 2015

star

  It’s time for summer vacation but rather than spend it at home in Brooklyn Dionne and her sister Phaedra have been shipped off to Barbados, which may sound like paradise to many of us, but not for Dionne. At sixteen this was going to be the summer she broke out of childhood and into the fun life of leading the cool group of girls at her school. Instead, she is stuck ... Read More...

5 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: Barbados, coming-of-age, cultural, debut, Penguin Press

Girl at War: A Novel

June 24, 2015

girl

Ana is from Croatia but now lives in America and attends college in New York. Despite having been in the U.S for a decade she suddenly finds herself overcome by memories of her life in Croatia in 1991—the beginning of the Yugoslavian civil war. These memories increase in intensity until she can no longer sleep at night. In desperation, she decides to go back to Croatia to try ... Read More...

7 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: cultural, debut, Eastern Europe, historical fiction, war

China Rich Girlfriend

June 15, 2015

china rich

  As summer appears in all its sweltering glory China Rich Girlfriend is the sumptuous equivalent of a decadent ice cream in book format. The novel is Kevin Kwan’s follow-up to his biting and over-the-top debut Crazy Rich Asians about people with more money than brains and taste. In China Rich Girlfriend, much of the original cast is back, along with some new stereotypes ... Read More...

11 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: chick lit, China, contemporary life, cultural, Knopf, satire, wealth

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