So THAT’S why life on earth sucks: A review of There Is No Dog, by Meg Rosoff
This book is, overall, a delight to read. Rosoff pulls of the surreal with grace and ease. Our God, Bob, is an eternal teenager who sleeps late, mixes up Africa and America and then blames the...
View ArticleEndless heartbreaks: a review of Drifting House by Krys Lee
Drifting House by Krys Lee is a spare, lyrical, heartbreaking collection of short stories about the Korean and Korean diaspora experience. The book presents a mosaic, each tile a sad portrait of unique...
View ArticleKicking Ass and Accounting for Cash: a review of The Water Rat of Wanchai by...
Ava herself is one of my favourite new characters. She’s just got it together, and I love that she can by turns break noses and charm foreign diplomats, that if she needs to promise hundreds of...
View ArticleThe smell of chai and sadness: a review of Everything was Good-bye by...
The writing is lush and elegant. Basran really is “one to watch,” as she was proclaimed by the Vancouver Sun. Her characterization is superb, and her descriptions of smells are particularly evocative....
View ArticlePrairie endings and beginnings: a review of Napi’s Dance by Alanda Greene
Snake Woman and Eleanor Donaldson live in two very different versions of the Canadian prairie in Alanda Greene’s debut novel Napi’s Dance. Snake Woman grows up at a time of upheaval. The palefaced...
View ArticleA few of her favourite things: a review of Mrs Queen Takes the Train by...
Sometimes, it’s not easy being the Queen of England. In William Kuhn’s Mrs Queen Takes the Train, set in the days before the latest jubilee and the 2012 Olympics, Her Majesty Elizabeth II finds herself...
View ArticleGetting a callback: a review of Someday, Someday, Maybe by Lauren Graham
It’s the mid 90s, and Franny Banks is in New York City, trying to make it as an actor. She’s had a few successes–getting into a coveted acting class, working on a commercial, doing some theatre. But is...
View ArticleAll the hovering possibilities: a review of Frog Music by Emma Donoghue
Violent political realities in Sierra Leone and their lasting physical and psychological traumas form the backdrop of Michael Wuitchik’s gritty debut My Heart is not My Own. neck. “By evening, the heat...
View ArticleAudiobook review: Veronica Mars: The Thousand Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas...
“’I thought you wanted information, Lamb. I thought you wanted to find these girls.’ He looked at the picture again, a conflicted expression flitting across his face. ‘Do you have any proof that this...
View ArticleSimultaneously conspicuous and invisible: a review of The Book of Unknown...
Different motivations prompt immigration to the United States in Cristina Henríquez’s ambitious novel The Book of Unknown Americans. “I couldn’t help but think of how in Pátzcuaro Arturo used to come...
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