About Book Marks
Recent Reviews
Dizz Tate
Positive The Skinny (UK) Teenage girlhood is a special kind of hell, one that is expressed with precision and claustrophobia in Dizz Tate’s debut novel ... Tate’s writing is expressive and sharp as the girls navigate a world that now perceives them as women ... Occasionally, the narrative lurches a little heavily into timeworn tropes, but Brutes is an impressive, atmospheric debut, told with stylish ferocity.
Nuar Alsadir
Positive The Skinny (UK) \"Animal Joy is Alsadir’s ode to the bodily sensations that escape us, told through bursts of fragmented memories, jokes and psychoanalysis. Like any good clown, Alsadir shakes the reader from their stupor in order to intrigue, repulse and, most importantly, entertain. \
Ruby Tandoh
Rave The Skinny (UK) The appeal of the book lies in Tandoh’s openness, in her charming and sympathetic voice. She tells of her family’s relationship to food and the conflicting feelings she had as a child towards that of her Ghanaian inheritance (relatable for any child of an immigrant whose lunchbox was the source of ridicule in school), laments contemporary food writing’s diet-culture and the gentrification of food by the middle-class, and emphasises the importance of feeding your heart, mind and body ... She effortlessly brings together old-school food writing, pop culture, and personal anecdotes, as she moves through a sprawl of influences from The Very Hungry Caterpillar to The Qu’ran to Sex and the City. Tandoh’s writing is so rich and charismatic that when a section stops for a quick recipe interlude, it’s an almost irritating distraction to get back to Eat Up!’s meaty prose. If you’ve ever felt ashamed of your hunger, cultural inheritance, or weird eating habits then this is the food book for you. Just don’t read it on an empty stomach.
Mieko Kawakami, trans. by Sam Bett and David Boyd
Rave The Skinny (UK) With her piercing and unhurried prose, deftly translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd, Kawakami unravels the image of modern womanhood, pulling apart its insecurities, its complexities and its bewilderments, until only threads remain.
Sang Young Park tr. Anton Hur
Rave The Skinny On this messy and moving journey, Park weaves in social and political commentary, from LGBTQ+ rights and abortion access, to class dynamics and gender roles in contemporary Seoul ... Anton Hur’s gorgeous translation captures the wit and bite of Park’s voice, which cuts through the novel’s romantic tenor like a blade. A runaway bestseller in South Korea, Love in the Big City is destined to be a global, queer cult classic. This is a bold, sparkling novel that encompasses what it feels like to be young and in love with life itself, surrounded by strangers and yet completely, wrenchingly alone.
Mieko Kawakami, tr. David Boyd and Sam Bett
Rave The Skinny (UK) Heaven’s exploration of casual cruelty won’t be for everyone—there are passages which rival Stephen King in their depiction of young characters’ depravity—but the short novel is a poignant and unsettling look at what makes a friendship and, on a macro level, what makes an unequal society. Kawakami’s writing is meticulous and assured, and Heaven leaves a bruise.
Madeleine Watts
Rave The Skinny (UK) With great skill that is both meticulous in detail and vast in ambition, Watts constructs a claustrophobic, sweltering dome over her protagonist, one that captures contemporary anxieties around ideas of identity, femininity and the environment. The Inland Sea is a welcome addition to the new era of the ecological novel, but Watts goes further than commenting on her protagonist’s environment, instead using the genre to explore apathy, cruelty and repercussions across generations ... a warning and atonement for our future and our past.
Robert Jones Jr
Rave The Skinny Each of Empty’s occupants is bestowed with empathy, depth and care by Jones and particularly notable are the female characters who are as complexly drawn as the men at the heart of the story ... Excruciatingly detailed and ambiguously lyrical, this is a novel tackling big ideas: the nature of love, the body without agency, religion without justice. The prose is so poetic that when actual poetry is introduced later in the book, it feels somewhat futile and unnecessary ... shades in this history that has been erased and whitewashed in America. This is historical fiction that feels essential, like a prayer to the past.
Molly Aitken
Positive The Skinny (UK) For a debut novelist, Aitken has an impressive command of language, capturing the spirit of Inis in lush, sea-sprayed descriptions of the Irish coast ... Tone is clearly Aitken’s strongest asset as careful attention is given to characterising the island’s atmosphere, more so than to the inhabitants themselves. While Oona’s complicated love/hate relationship for the island is well articulated, other characters are often reduced to cardboard cutouts, propped up to support Oona’s own story and voice ... Firmly rooted in Irish folklore and tradition, The Island Child delicately touches on the community’s tensions with motherhood, gender, religion and guilt. While its supporting characters needed some expansion, Aitken beautifully captures the push and pull of homecoming and homegoing through her protagonist. The Island Child is an impressive debut.
Hwang Sok-yong Trans. by Sora Kim-Russell
Positive The Skinny Gently told ... The book is on the verge of something, and despite the gentle care in Hwang’s storytelling, there is an urgency to his words. Dusk is a short-lived time of reflection when pink clouds split the dying sunlight. Aptly named, At Dusk is made up of this gorgeous setting light as Minwoo pauses to look around at a Seoul he no longer recognises; just enough time to take it all in before everything goes dark.