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The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner

May 23, 2018

mars

  There isn’t any status in it unless you’d be impressed to know that the Mars Room is not a middling or mediocre strip club but is definitely the worst and most notorious, the very seediest and most circuslike place there is. In stark contrast to all that was warm and lovely in Monday’s book, Tin Man, I’m back today with a book that probably worked because it was ... Read More...

12 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary life, Scribner, social issues, women

The Favorite Sister by Jessica Knoll

May 16, 2018

favorite

There is a book for every mood and sometimes, your subconscious knows what you need better than your thinking mind. I had no idea how hungry I was for flat-out over-the-top drama until I finished Jessica Knoll’s newest novel, The Favorite Sister. I was drawn to the book by its premise—a reality TV show about a group of high achieving, self-made, female millennials whose life ... Read More...

6 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary life, mystery, New York City, pop culture, satire, Simon & Schuster, women

The Map of Salt and Stars

May 14, 2018

map

Making maps is the fulcrum for Jennifer Joukhadar’s debut novel, The Map of Salt and Stars. Rawiya and Nour are young women who tell their stories side by side even though they are separated by almost a thousand years. Rawiya is a sixteen-year-old in ancient Ceuta who longs to see the world beyond her village so she leaves home in the guise of a young man and becomes an ... Read More...

3 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: coming-of-age, contemporary life, cultural, Middle East, mythology, Touchstone, war

It’s Not You, It’s Me: Laura & Emma

March 21, 2018

Me

The whole point of this feature is that it’s for books that did not come together for me, but this is one of the first times I’m doubting myself, because two of the bloggers I know and trust loved Laura & Emma. I did not. I didn’t even like it. I disliked it, but gladly admit that maybe I was in the wrong mood for the novel and am wrong in my assessment. In that spirit, ... Read More...

9 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: debut, literary, New York City, relationships, Simon & Schuster

Self-Portrait with Boy: A Novel

February 23, 2018

self-portrait

  A startlingly unique and uncomfortable premise is at the heart of Self-Portrait with Boy: an artist is in the midst of taking a series of self-portraits against a window of her apartment when she hears a commotion and learns that the 9-year-old son of her upstairs neighbors, has fallen to his death from the roof. When she develops her film, she discovers one of the ... Read More...

1 Comment
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: art, contemporary life, debut, literary, Scribner

Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday

February 14, 2018

asymmetry

  Asymmetry is a novel split into three separate and seemingly unrelated parts. I know, sounds like short stories, but there is supposed to be a thread connecting the three. The question is whether I was able to find it or not. The first section is Folly, wherein 27-year-old Alice meets Pulitzer Prize winning author, Ezra Blazer, in Central Park. They talk and after ... Read More...

7 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary fiction, debut, family, Iraq, literary, Manhattan, relationships, Simon & Schuster

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