“We all have our hiding places. Not just physical ones. Places deep inside where we put away the things we don’t want others to see. The less palatable parts. Our St. Peter’s box, I call it. The one we pray he won’t find when we’re trying to sneak in through the pearly gates.” THE BURNING…
Category: fiction
The Removed
“Go follow the trail lined with cherry blossoms,’ he told me. ‘It is not a trail of tears, son. It is a trail leading westward, without sadness or sickness or death. It is a trail to your home.” THE REMOVED by Brandon Hobson is a lyrical story about a Cherokee family coping with loss, grief,…
Klara and the Sun
“There was something very special, but it wasn’t inside Josie. It was inside those who loved her.” The brilliant Kazuo Ishiguro’s KLARA AND THE SUN is a slow-burn, page-turner that explores humanity, mortality, and love through the perspective of a sentient AI. In this genre defying dystopian sci-fi story Ishiguro questions whether or not there…
Infinite Country
“What he wanted to say was that something is always lost; even when we are the ones migrating, we end up being occupied.” Patricia Engel’s INFINITE COUNTRY is a soaring story about a family torn apart by borders and immigration status. Set in Colombia and the US, the book explores not only the trauma undocumented…
Milk Fed
“Life was a lot less bleak when you were staring straight down the barrel of a burrito.” Melissa Broder’s MILK FED is a compulsively readable book about food, sex, and Judaism. Though the concept may sound bizarre, MILK FED is an absurdly funny, remarkably clever, and surprisingly emotional read. Trust me, once you get a…
Land of Big Numbers
LAND OF BIG NUMBERS is the debut collection of short stories by Te-Ping Chen that compassionately portrays the uniqueness and complexity of life in modern China. With a blend of realism and surrealism, the ten stories provide sharp social commentary on China while giving a strong voice to the diverse Chinese people. I loved that…
Detransition, Baby
Torrey Peters’s DETRANSITION, BABY is a novel that everyone needs to be reading and talking about! It is a provocative, raw, and wholly original exploration of gender, sexuality, motherhood, and the expanding definition of family. Witty and sexy as well as emotional and vulnerable; DETRANSITION, BABY is unlike any other book out there! Trust me,…
Shuggie Bain
“To have marked her sobriety in days was like watching a happy weekend bleed by: when you watched it, it was always too short. So he just stopped counting.” “Ah think the more ye love someone the more they take the piss out of that. They will do less and less of what ye want…
The Vanishing Half
“The hardest part about becoming someone else was deciding to. The rest was only logistics.” THE VANISHING HALF by Brit Bennett is one of the most buzzed about bestsellers of 2020 and let me just say it lived up to the hype! Without a doubt this is one of my most entertaining, unputdownable books I’ve…
Transcendent Kingdom
“I’m no longer interested in other worlds or spiritual planes. I’ve seen enough in a mouse to understand transcendence, holiness, redemption. In people, I’ve seen even more.” TRANSCENDENT KINGDOM by Yaa Gyasi is an intimate story about grief, addiction, and mental illness told through the experiences of a Ghanaian family living in Alabama. The story…
Booky Nooky 