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Love in Case of Emergency

April 16, 2021

emergency

Can I just say I love this cover and leave it at that? Probably not, but I really love this cover and wanted to feel the same way about the book. This is also an admission on my part that I don’t have a magical formula or innate gift for picking outstanding reading. Sometimes, I’m hoping the cover ties directly to the contents—at least as a metaphor.  In Love in Case of ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary life, literary, relationships, women

Of Women and Salt: A Novel

April 9, 2021

women

Jeannette is first-generation American in her Cuban family, but feels she knows nothing about her mother’s life or family left behind in Cuba. When asked, Carmen goes quiet. The only life she cares about is the comfortable one she has now in Miami. Ana is an 8-year-old girl who arrives home from an overnight stay at a babysitter’s house to find their home locked and no one ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, cultural, debut, historical fiction, literary

The Arsonists’ City by Hala Alyan

March 15, 2021

arsonists

From the nucleus of one family, The Arsonists’ City is a novel that spins out between decades and countries. Idris and Mazna met in the 1970s. He lived in Beirut and was studying to be a doctor and she was a young actress living with her family in Damascus. Decades later they are settled in America with three grown children. The death of Idris’s father means he’s inherited the ... Read More...

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

Sparks Like Stars by Nadia Hashimi

March 12, 2021

sparks

When Sitara is 10 years old her life is flipped upside down. She goes from being the beloved only daughter of a high-ranking Afghan advisor to the country’s president to an orphan on the run. It’s 1982 and Communist backed forces stage a military coup in Nadia Hashimi’s new novel, Sparks Like Stars. Sitara’s family is killed in front of her, but she manages to hide from the ... Read More...

3 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: cultural, Middle East, war

No Heaven for Good Boys

January 29, 2021

heaven

In Senegal, young boys are often sent from their rural villages to Dakar, a city where they have opportunities for religious and secular education not found at home. Most often it begins when the child is ten, but in the case of seven-year-old Ibrahimah when Marabout Ahmed saves his life, his father, Idrissa, agrees to let the holy man take his son and begin his education ... Read More...

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: Africa, cultural, debut, literary, social issues

What Could Be Saved

January 18, 2021

saved

The word “normal” ceases to exist in families who lose a child. Either they re-form together into a new unit or they separate. After 8-year-old Philip disappears in What Could Be Saved, the Preston family is the latter. They shatter, with the four remaining members—father, Robert; mother, Genevieve; daughters, Beatrice, and Laura, leaving Thailand to return home to the U.S. ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: cultural, family, Southeast Asia

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