war Archives - The Gilmore Guide to Books

Call Her Freedom

Catherine — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 07:49:23 +0000

A small village in the Himalayan foothills is the setting for Tara Dorabji’s debut novel, Call Her Freedom. Aisha’s mother is a midwife and teaches Aisha all about childbirth and herbal remedies when Aisha is not in school. An outstanding student it’s been her mother’s dream to see her go to university in the city. […]

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Peach Blossom Spring

Catherine — Fri, 25 Mar 2022 04:43:37 +0000

I’ve done my fair share of fictional reading about World War II. What I’ve never heard much about is Chinese history at the time. Peach Blossom Spring goes some way towards rectifying that as it spans one family’s journey from mainland China in the mid-20th century all the way up to America in 2015. In that […]

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Sparks Like Stars by Nadia Hashimi

Catherine — Fri, 12 Mar 2021 05:35:13 +0000

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 […]

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Homeland Elegies: A Novel

Catherine — Mon, 05 Oct 2020 04:06:07 +0000

These days, I’m attuned to fiction that takes my mind off reality. Not necessarily easy or soothing, but novels that grab me with their drama (Against the Loveless World) or distract me with their lovely prose (Monogamy). It’s with some surprise then that I’m reviewing Homeland Elegies, a complex novel I’m still not sure I […]

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Against the Loveless World

Catherine — Fri, 04 Sep 2020 04:38:51 +0000

Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa is about Nahr, whose name means “river”, in Arabic. She has been in solitary confinement for 16 years in a cell she calls the Cube somewhere in modern-day Israel. For her, time has no meaning. Her environment is so strictly controlled that she doesn’t know when the shower will […]

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September Misses: Mini-Reviews

Catherine — Thu, 26 Sep 2019 07:57:04 +0000

I’m not sure when exactly something can be considered the home stretch, but I think we’re getting there with our move. We have a closing date on our Ann Arbor house and we’ll be moving east at the end of October. However, there is still so much to be done that I’m not able to […]

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A Door in the Earth

Catherine — Fri, 20 Sep 2019 07:35:15 +0000

Parveen is like most young women her age—graduating college, but not sure what she wants to do with her degree in medical anthropology. Until she reads a memoir, written by a man who goes to Afghanistan and after a traumatic incident that left a woman dead from giving birth, founds and funds a women’s health […]

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Mothers’ Week: The Island of Sea Women

Catherine — Mon, 06 May 2019 07:41:36 +0000

This coming Sunday is Mother’s Day so this week my reviews are focused on three books with very different perspectives on motherhood. Each offered something important in its own way and reminded me how, like so much of what women do, it is impossible to fit the role of mother into one finite slot. […]

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Dark Fiction: Waiting for Eden

Catherine — Mon, 03 Dec 2018 08:38:03 +0000

Much of Elliot Ackerman’s Waiting for Eden takes place in a hospital room. A room where Eden Malcolm has been in a coma for three years. He was a young man so full of life that He treated the whole world, too, like it was a series of cliffs that existed for no other […]

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What I’m Reading This Week (10/19/18)

Catherine — Mon, 29 Oct 2018 07:39:14 +0000

This is a very interesting reading week for me. For the first time in several months I don’t have any upcoming releases I plan on reading. I’ve finished with October and there is nothing in November until the middle of the month. All of which means I’m left to my own devices—which could be a […]

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