RaveBookreporterThis book is truly spectacular. Molly is a delightful character with an inspiring outlook on the world around her, even when the world reveals itself to be a somewhat dark and dirty place. Reading her ordinary thoughts is nearly as compelling as the mystery itself. More importantly, with Molly as the narrator, The Maid shines a spotlight on the \'invisible\' among us. Prose gives us a neurodivergent character with the strength to subvert not only antiquated \'the butler did it\' tropes attached to those in the murder mystery service industry, but also the stigma attached to neurodivergence itself as Molly surprises even those who do see her. It’s hard not to love a murder mystery with a nice, tidy ending—and The Maid is nothing if not fastidious. This is a debut novel with sheets that are spotless of errors and folded together just right. Upon finishing the book, anticipate checking dark corners for strangers and your pages for unseemly dog-ear creases.
Akwaeke Emezi
RaveBookreporter... a masterpiece borne of pure magic and jagged pain. It is a lightning rod for the most intimate parts of the soul. It will smack the air from your lungs and catch you in a hazy, literary trance ... Emezi dissects human frailty in prose that is raw, intimate and merciless. They speak with the unapologetic fearlessness of a god speaking to mortals because that is how they identify. That is what they are ... Emezi flays their life wide open for us to read, ink becoming blood in this book that catalogs their tendrils of trauma and the hollow screams of suicidal longing as a spirit in a world built for humans. They unravel everything for their readers, from their metaphysical dysmorphia and modifications to personal spells for success, like a synaptic ball of yarn. Then they weave that metaphorical yarn into something so beautiful that it hurts; so beautiful that it feels like it must have wound itself around some vital organ while you were distracted by the words on the page. Emezi’s ability to string words into sentences, and sentences into spells, is hypnotic ... It is a testament to Emezi’s openness that they can convey the foreign pain of inhumanity to us --- the loneliness of living simultaneously outside and in the in-between, the claustrophobia of inhabiting a human body, the desire to be understood while being something many consider unfathomable. Yet even after they have been harmed by it, even after they have tried to escape it, Emezi approaches life and the world around them with intricate compassion ... takes up space. It has gravity. Upon reading it, I am inclined to say that it even has its own orbit. With this raw and blindingly brilliant work of art, Emezi has certainly carved their name into the fabric of artistic history.
Jennifer Saint
RaveBookreporter... a stunning new spin on a centuries-old story ... With heavy prose and justified conviction, Saint deftly explores the mistreatment of mythologized women and breaks their silence ... Saint weaves the stories of other gods and mythologized mortals into the pages of her debut, breathing an entire world into her words ... she laces a disquieting reminder throughout her novel that be they young or old, peasant or deity, no woman is safe from the objectifying male gaze or its violent consequences ... Saint’s writing is so vivid that her descriptions make it hard to remember where you are ... She paints emotions so expertly that they may mix with the blood in your veins, inspiring ache and anger and coloring the world when you once again realize that there is a world outside of this book.
Helen Oyeyemi
RaveBookreporterHelen Oyeyemi’s Peaces is a brilliantly assembled fever dream of a novel. What begins as a foggy series of stories takes shape into something truly radiant as both readers and characters alike embark on the trip of a lifetime ... an unforgettable journey ... Oyeyemi’s talent for worldbuilding is perhaps unmatched; her storytelling is on its own tier ... Like expanses of window-framed landscapes, Oyeyemi’s descriptions are delightfully meandering. The tone of her writing is both whimsical and discomforting ... Peaces is a wild (train) ride that is just about impossible to disembark.
Sarah Penner
PositiveBookreporterPenner brews a perfectly measured mixture of feminism, friendship and vengeance. With spellbinding prose and meticulous plotting, she ferments the power of female alliances in a world built to give men every advantage at the expense of the women in their lives ... If you are looking for likable male characters, or even male characters with a couple of redeeming qualities, look elsewhere. From the controlling James to the lascivious Mr. Amwell to the conniving Frederick, just about every man in this novel is painted as a caricature of the patriarchy against whom our heroines must rebel in order to be free ... Written with the collective strength of women reclaiming their histories and their futures, The Los Apothecary asks readers what they might be willing to do to live unencumbered, and if that might not include a sprinkle of crushed nux vomica or a spoonful of arsenic.
María José Ferrada, tr. Elizabeth Bryer
RaveBookreporterWritten by María José Ferrada and translated by Elizabeth Bryer, How to Order the Universe fits the vastness of the unknown into a travel salesman’s suitcase ... what initially reads as a story of unconventional father-daughter bonding is actually a coming-of-age tale that tracks M’s disillusionment as she matures into understanding against the backdrop of Augusto Pinochet’s brutal dictatorship. With the strong, stunning honesty of a young mind, M describes the world as she sees it without realizing how much she does not see ... How to Order the Universe is rife with wisdom, lists and wishes, and Ferrada unpacks the strangeness of M’s early years in poetic and simple prose. She juxtaposes the hopefulness of childhood against a dying sales industry and a hostile political regime with an uncommon nostalgia. Using M and her father’s system of typifying phenomena into \'Probable\' and \'Improbable,\' Ferrada has written a novel that would be classified as \'Truly Improbable\' in the very best way.
