Category: Books

Barbara Kingsolver good cop bad cops her way through Unsheltered. Sometimes she’s playfully nudging us in the ribs, ‘Isn’t that a sweet human universality?’ Others, she’s Birdbox-ing us, demanding that we look at her monsters of climate change and the GOP. Our author has been accused of presenting la-di-da political

Let’s get it out of the way: The Hazards of Time Travel by Joyce Carol Oates is a novel featuring a brave young girl in a dystopian future. I’m as surprised as you are. No, I don’t know why she didn’t market this YA. (Probably as a buffer against ready

Zoje Stage takes the electra complex to another level in Baby Teeth. In this article I explore whether this novel adds anything worthwhile to the burgeoning genre of “creepy kids.” Of course, parenting is a joy. It’s also costly, sleepless, and full of anxiety. The whole experience can bring up

How are you doing, Mr. Murakami? I finished Killing Commendatore last week. It’s classic you: narrated by a milquetoast,  jazz-loving, Everyman who just happens to fall in with some weird stuff. References to music, art, and breasts abound. The Great Gatsby was more than a reference in this book, huh? Critics

Another day, another female dystopian novel. Christine Dalcher’s Vox, the newest in ranks, joins Future Home of The Living God by Louise Erdich (birth crisis), Sleeping Beauties by Owen and Stephen King (sleep crisis), The Power by Naomi Alderman (zappity crisis), and Red Clocks by Leni Zumas (abortion ban crisis) in

I’m going rogue and pitting Florida by Lauren Groff against Fight No More by Lydia Millet for this review. These are similar short story collections: heavily influenced by locale and featuring a recurring female character. While both have their merits, one world is better rendered than the other. This post contains affiliate links

From A Low And Quiet Sea exposes the inner lives of three men from contrasting backgrounds, ages, and current circumstances via heartbreaking inner monologues.  Donal Ryan eats, breaths, and writes the universality of the human condition: the secret selves, the joys and fears, the insecurity behind the flex, and, above all,

I read Night Gaunts by Joyce Carol Oates this week and I want to tell you how amazing it is. But I’m not going to give my Literary Mom a bad review. I can’t. I want to be upfront about that. (I’m biased, yes; wrong, no. Joyce Carol Oates is

Did you enjoy the warm fuzzies of Stand By Me but wished that the dead body was something scarier, like a zombie? Or a ghost? Did you wish there was more trash? Then Familiar Things by Hwang Sok-Yong is for you. Familiar Things takes place over thirty years ago, in Seoul, North Korea. Have

Do you like underdog stories? A scrappy protagonist that fights to overcome all odds? Did you wonder why everyone was so scared of that sweet puppy, Cujo? Then Slave Old Man by Patrick Chamoiseau is the book you’ve been waiting for. When The Décharge Hits The protagonist in Slave Old