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Recent Reviews
Gayl Jones
Mixed The New York Times Book Review Almost every detail is freighted with double meaning. And like much of Jones’s work, The Unicorn Woman also toys with time, dreams and memory, which crash into the narrative. I found it all sophisticated, rich, insightful — and frustratingly measured ... An exercise in restraint ... This novel doesn’t feel as alive as her previous books. The Unicorn Woman is smart, and immaculately constructed, but compared with the other titles in Jones’s catalog, this one feels minor, secondary.
Aysegül Savas
Rave The New York Times Book Review Utterly enchanting ... Even the most humdrum events resonate with importance when viewed through Savas’s meticulous and layered prose and plotting. Her storytelling is subtle but deliberate ... Savas has invited us to praise the unremarkable grace of Asya and Manu’s lives, and in the process, to pause and appreciate the beautiful textures of our own.
Claire Oshetsky
Rave The New York Times Book Review \"...beautiful, terrifying ... This setup frames Poor Deer like a thriller, but the novel is less a mystery about what happened on that fateful day, and more a psychological deep dive into how Margaret, and all those who orbited the girls, grapple with the tragedy ... Grief is a well-trod territory in fiction, but in Oshetsky’s hands, this familiar topic becomes fresh and strange. The book’s narrative structure mirrors the grief-stricken mind—starting, stopping, looping back, stuttering, marching grimly forward ... With Poor Deer, Oshetsky proves themself the bard of unruly psyches. They show how loss warps our realities, and how that distortion can be both a coping mechanism and a destructive force.\
Monica Brashears
Positive The New York Times Book Review The novel shifts into something delightfully unusual ... It’s a lot, and occasionally it feels as if the novel meanders — story lines emerge and then fall away, superseded by yet another narrative development. But it’s a testament to Brashears’s enchanting storytelling that the deluge of plot doesn’t overwhelm the book. Just the opposite ... As the plot thickens, so do the questions the novel raises: What does support look like? To whom is it offered and why? At what cost does it come, and how do you step away when the price is too high? House of Cotton meditates on these moral dilemmas in fresh, haunting ways.
E Lockhart
Positive The New York Times Book Review As a prequel, Family of Liars has a difficult task — it needs to tap into the fervor of the original novel for returning readers, without confusing new ones. It’s a delicate dance, and Lockhart mostly pulls it off: Family offers insights into Beechwood and familiar characters, enriching understanding of the first book, but it never feels like a side dish to a We Were Liars entree ... In Carrie, Lockhart has crafted her most relatable Liars character yet ... But Family of Liars fumbles. Though Carrie is rendered vividly, the other denizens of Beechwood feel vague and indistinct. And the plot meanders, dropping characters and story lines for chapters at a time. That means some of the book’s big reveals land intellectually instead of emotionally. Still, I remained invested in Family of Liars even when it lagged because, having read We Were Liars, I anticipated that at some point a shocking twist would come. And, wow, does it ever.
Ruta Sepetys
Rave New York Times Book Review Sepetys expertly blends historical details into the story and shares archival photos at the back of the book, creating a tale that is as educational as it is thrilling. When you think the story is going to zig, it zags and makes you question everything, and everyone, anew. And that’s the power of I Must Betray You — it doesn’t just describe the destabilizing effects of being spied on; it will make you experience them too.