“You liked animals, too, Helen. They are dreams made of flesh.” I loved Yann Martel’s Life of Pi. I read it while traveling to Cambodia back in 2003, and that paperback remains one of my most prized possessions. When I run my thumb over the red-dirt stained edges, I’m immediately transported back to when IContinue reading “SON OF NOBODY – Yann Martel”
Tag Archives: reading
TAILBONE – Che Yeun
“The redness in her eyes reminded me of the lipstick she hadn’t worn in a while. I wanted to ask her out to the street vendors again, to eat skewers together, to become two jobless mindless dipshit girls wandering the city together. To feel how surely she took each footstep, how her heels smacked theContinue reading “TAILBONE – Che Yeun”
YESTERYEAR – Caro Claire Burke
“This is the last day of the life I imagined for myself.” Caro Claire Burke’s Yesteryear (Knopf 2026) is certainly one of the buzziest books of the year. Buzzy books can be hit or miss for me, so I was already approaching it from the standpoint that it probably wouldn’t live up to the hype.Continue reading “YESTERYEAR – Caro Claire Burke”
THE SEVEN DAUGHTERS OF DUPREE – Nikesha Elise Williams
“Everything don’t need to be voiced. Everything don’t need to grow wings, ride the air, and visit folk you don’t know with stories they got no stake it.” “She knew some deceptions deserved the dirt.” In the vein of The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois comes Nikesha Elise Williams’s The Seven Daughters of DupreeContinue reading “THE SEVEN DAUGHTERS OF DUPREE – Nikesha Elise Williams”
THE FOUNTAIN – Casey Scieszka
“She touches the barrel to her chin, to her temple, back to her chin. She braces herself for the shock of it. She hopes for the thousandth time, millionth time, for some relief.” Emma Straub called Casey Scieszka’s debut novel, The Fountain (Harper 2026), “like Tuck Everlasting for grown-ups,” and that perfectly sums up thisContinue reading “THE FOUNTAIN – Casey Scieszka”
TRANSCRIPTION – Ben Lerner
“You call this fiction, but it is more.” “I felt eight and eighteen and forty-five all at once, my grasp on reality was tentative, an extreme form of the effect his presence always had on me, a nightmarish form of what others so loved about him – how he seemed from the future and theContinue reading “TRANSCRIPTION – Ben Lerner”
ERADICATION: A FABLE – Jonathan Miles
“The problem is that history leaves a slime trail, like a snail.” Jonathan Miles’s Eradication: A Fable (Doubleday 2026) is next up on my Booker eligible reads. Even before realizing Maria Reva had written one of the blurbs, I was calling it Endling meets Seascraper meets Stone Yard Devotional. Despite some pretty graphic scenes ofContinue reading “ERADICATION: A FABLE – Jonathan Miles”
CRUCIBLE – John Sayles
“They came, says Santos, they tried to beat the jungle, they lost, and they left. They left some good things. Tell me one. They educated my son here. He can speak English… Let’s hear some. Flavio – show him… ‘A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H’ —he chants, ‘I’ve got a gal – in Kalamazoo –‘” It’s rare that I’ll sayContinue reading “CRUCIBLE – John Sayles”
THE TEN YEAR AFFAIR – Erin Somers
“The mountain that saw everything turned from green to rust, from rust to brown, from brown to green again.” Erin Somers’s The Ten Year Affair (Simon & Schuster 2025) was on my radar simply because of my goal of reading more Booker eligible litfic. While I could see this being listed, I didn’t like it. Continue reading “THE TEN YEAR AFFAIR – Erin Somers”
CURSED DAUGHTERS – Oyinkan Braithwaite
“She was a mermaid – queen of song and sea, goddess of the gill-bearing vertebrates, mistress of the hearts of men.” After a couple of “meh” BOTM reads (I’m trying to clear a backlist), I read one that reminded me why I keep the membership. Oyinkan Braithwaite’s Cursed Daughters (Doubleday 2025) gave me absolutely everythingContinue reading “CURSED DAUGHTERS – Oyinkan Braithwaite”
A Girl Named Tommi 