RaveThe Toronto Star (CAN)Transfixing ... A thoughtful, character-based reckoning with time and fate, destiny and free will ... While at times the novel reads like a thriller, and a coming-of-age story, every page is imbued with complex questions and even more complex answers.
Michael Crummey
RaveToronto Star (CAN)Stunning ... \'Masterpiece\' is a glib word and one that is thrown-around all too casually, but here it seems to fit: The Adversary is a masterpiece, plain and simple.
Hisham Matar
RaveToronto Star (CAN)The problem with reading a book like Hisham Matar’s powerful new novel My Friends in the first week of January is that it sets the bar incredibly high for the year of reading to come. It is, quite simply, dazzling (and, by the same token, dazzlingly quite simple) ... Feels like a personal, deeply felt work.
Don Gillmor
RaveThe Toronto Star (CAN)Prickly and compelling ... Within a few pages, Bea establishes herself as a powerfully drawn character. While the novel isn’t a propulsive narrative, readers will find themselves compelled to continue reading ... Every aspect of the novel feels true.
Silvia Moreno-Garcia
RaveThe Toronto Star\"The novel is a tightly constructed mystery-thriller, with occult overtones and some fantasy elements, but it is also a sprawling overview of a half-century of Mexican history, including the arrival of Nazis following the Second World War, home-grown fascism and racism, and the native film industry, carving out a place for itself in the shadow of Hollywood, and in the transition to home video in the early 1990s ... It’s not just that “Silver Nitrate” is as strong as her previous novels; Moreno-Garcia’s great strength as a writer is that every book is so different, in terms of genre and approach, as to make any side-by-side comparison utterly superfluous. Suffice it to say, this is another great book from Moreno-Garcia, exactly what we have come to expect.\
Laura Trethewey
RaveToronto Star (CAN)Transfixing and eye-opening ... The shape of the book, and Trethewey’s character-focused approach, results in a powerful, almost thrilling reading experience despite the complexity of its scientific material ... Something of a page-turner, a book that is open to the excitement of exploration, but also keenly aware of the potential dark future on the horizon. After having read of the wonders of the ocean floor, and the lengths to which explorers have gone to discover them, the chapter on the logistics and legalities of undersea mining is heartbreaking, with images of destroyed ecosystems, only newly discovered, which will haunt your dreams.
Ashley Audrain
RaveToronto Star (CAN)Stunning ... Audrain has taken command of what might be called the suburbs-and-secrets genre ... The result is a powerful, immersive story, with a surprising level of tension and suspense. Audrain has discovered the truth that many writers overlook: the highest stakes often seem tiny, or inconsequential, rooted in intimacy and domesticity.
John Vaillant
RaveToronto Star (CAN)Stunning and powerful ... Scrupulously and thoroughly researched ... Horrific ... Fire Weather is...an essential book, if not a call to arms then, at the very least a survey of where we stand.
Cherie Dimaline
RaveThe Toronto Star (CAN)An absolute thrill ride of a book, a page-turner of the highest order ... Socially, historically, and politically astute ... Self-acceptance, relationships, and love are at the core of this novel’s magic ... A powerful and unique reading experience, threaded through with humour and peril.
Michael Hingston
RaveThe Toronto Star (CAN)... enthralling and delightfully odd ... The book is either a cautionary tale about literary obsession or a gleeful exploration of bibliophilic fetishism, depending on how you read it ... Along the way, Hingston also builds an often transfixing, frequently head-shaking history of the micronation and its royals ... That spirit, the tongue-in-cheek mock seriousness of the whole endeavour, and the playfulness of its participants, is a keen factor in Try Not to Be Strange. The book is a delightful reading experience, utterly unexpected and unlike anything you are likely to read this year. Hingston cannily balances between writerly fidelity to the truth and the sheer absurdity he so often finds.
Clark Blaise, Fore. by Margaret Atwood
RaveToronto Star (CA)A stunning literary command...[Blaise] should, by rights, be a CanLit icon, on par with the likes of Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood ... Elements and concerns repeat themselves compulsively ... Blaise writes with a plainspoken immediacy ... The stories seem to blur the line between fiction, memoir, and personal essay, creating a deep intimacy with the characters and their situations ... A powerful approach ... One could open the book anywhere and be engulfed in the frank, carefully observed quality of Blaise’s work ... The closing paragraphs of \'A North American Education\' are sheer perfection, the sort of writing any author dreams of, and which, it seems, comes so easily for Blaise. This Time, That Place is not only a stunning collection of fiction, it is one of considerable importance.
Leonard Cohen
PositiveToronto Star (CAN)A Ballet of Lepers isn’t particularly revelatory; nor is it simply an exercise in looting the archives. It is a relatively strong collection of fiction. Uneven in places, and undeniably young (from an artist who always seemed prematurely aged and sagacious), it’s definitely worth reading ... A Ballet of Lepers, the novella, is the most substantial work in the volume, an existential exploration of violence and beauty, love and cruelty, obsession and renunciation. The piece itself is spare and taut ... The novella carries a flair which, even in a work this early, is recognizably Cohen’s own ... In the end, A Ballet of Lepers is a valuable, if relatively minor, addition to the Cohen canon, the traces of a writer in his twenties not discovering his voice so much as affirming it, and in the process creating a blueprint for the decades of work to follow.
Kate Atkinson
RaveThe Toronto Star (CAN)Breathtaking... A sprawling kaleidoscope of a novel — both giddy and glamorous, despite being rooted in squalor and violence. It’s an impressive feat, one which Atkinson achieves with seeming effortlessness.
Kate Atkinson
RaveToronto Star (CA)Breathtaking new book by Scottish writer Kate Atkinson, is a sprawling kaleidoscope of a novel — both giddy and glamorous, despite being rooted in squalor and violence. It’s an impressive feat, one which Atkinson achieves with seeming effortlessness ... Shrines of Gaiety is truly a buffet of dark delights, all of it handled with Atkinson’s light, deft touch. Despite more than a dozen major characters and more interlocking storylines than one can easily delineate, the novel never falters and, crucially, the reader never loses their place. Instead, they are swept up into a heady portrait of a time, guided by one of the most remarkable writers at work today.
Sarah Weinman
RaveToronto Star (CAN)\"... [a] powerful new book from Ottawa-born writer and editor Sarah Weinman ... Unlike many true crime accounts, Scoundrel isn’t a whodunnit, and doesn’t rely on twists or withholding information for its considerable power. It is, instead, an examination of relationships shaped and twisted by the words and actions of a master manipulator and killer ... Rooted in archival work and interviews, with extensive quoting from letters and other documents, Scoundrel demonstrates the full potential of the true crime genre: expansive and incisive, with deep attention (and respect) given to those affected by the crimes, rather than focusing on salacious detail. It makes for an unsettling, and enthralling, reading experience, and an important one.
Marlon James
RaveThe Toronto Star (CAN)James, who won the Man Booker Prize in 2015 for A Brief History of Seven Killings, is one of the finest writers at work today, and Moon Witch, Spider King is a complex, enthralling novel. It is also utterly uncompromising, a book which the reader must meet on its own terms ... we are fully immersed in Sogolon’s consciousness, her perspective, her language ... As a result, it is impossible to rest comfortably in the correctness of her decisions. That discomfort is at the core of the novel’s success.
Olga Tokarczuk, Tr. Jennifer Croft
RaveThe Toronto Star (CAN)... a virtuoso achievement in which ambitious stylistic experimentation never overshadows the piercing examination of humanity at its core ... The language is dynamic and vibrant throughout, from Kabbalistic mysteries to the slow decline of age ... In addition to its humanity, this is a dense novel of ideas, and of questions, rooted in a history with which most of us are likely unfamiliar, an exploration of faith from a somewhat unexpected source (Tokarczuk is an atheist). Once the reader tunes in to the story, however, it transforms; the reader becomes part of the community, attached to its narrators, and swept up in the events. We feel a kinship with Yente, looking on as history is made, as lives are lived. We become involved, invested, affected. This engagement is a big part of what makes The Books of Jacob a singular, marvellous achievement.
Ann Patchett
RaveThe Star (CAN)The essays in These Precious Days have a definite interest in death. Loss and the conciliatory power of memory suffuse the volume ... These Precious Days is deeply heartfelt while simultaneously sharply acute in its observations and understandings. Like the other essays in the collection, it is a beautiful, crystalline world, held in a delicate suspension of words; there is nothing heavy-handed or obvious here, only the strength of plain-spoken, fragile truths, hard-won and shared ... These Precious Days is a book to treasure, essential reading for these days of darkness, bound to end up on many best-of lists for the year.
Zoe Whittall
RaveThe Star (CAN)Shifting between the characters, and moving easily through multiple time frames...Whittall vividly captures the breadth of a family’s experiences, but that breadth is a means to an end: she is able to not only explore generational trauma, but also dissect the impact of nurture (and the lack thereof) over time ... The Spectacular is a deeply thoughtful, deeply felt novel, ceaselessly questioning and genuinely empathetic to its characters’ actions. What should not be overlooked, however, is how fun it is, with moments...of powerful joy and...wicked, almost black humour ... Whittall...brings all of her talents to bear on her new novel, and the result is a singularly impressive piece of fiction.
Elisabeth de Mariaffi
RaveToronto Star (CAN)What fears keep you up at night? Forced career change? Being separated from your family? ... The Retreat vividly renders all those fears—and more—in a book which will probably keep you up until dawn, caught up in its thriller elements, and likely dealing with fears of your own ... Mariaffi has built a reputation...for weaving the elements of genre fiction with keen attention to women’s lives and a strong literary bent. She outdoes herself here ... de Mariaffi has created a thought-provoking thriller ... Maeve is a richly rendered, carefully drawn character ... e Mariaffi vividly humanizes what might, in lesser hands, have been a pro-forma, overly familiar thriller. Instead, The Retreat shines, at once thoughtful and chilling, familiar and unsettling.
Silvia Moreno-Garcia
RaveToronto Star (CAN)Silvia Moreno-Garcia is the most impressive sort of writer, driven to experiment with genre approaches while maintaining a consistently high quality of work ... With Velvet Was the Night, Moreno-Garcia has written a note-perfect noir, complete with rainy nights and harsh shadows, crackly records and lingering cigarette smoke. It’s a world of moral ambiguity and of surprising complexity ... It’s a delectable feast of a story.
Alix Ohlin
RaveThe Toronto Star (CAN)Ohlin is a magician. It’s not just that the stories are — individually and collectively — stunning; it’s that she makes it look so easy ... they unfold with an almost startling ease, warmly welcoming to the reader from their very first lines ... The story builds — as do most in the collection — to a moment of understanding, a key line or paragraph that simultaneously closes off the narrative while opening the character to a change in the direction of their life. That epiphanic quality is somewhat unfashionable in our jaded times, but that doesn’t matter: Ohlin manages, time and again, to reveal the underlying truths not only of her characters, but of her readers.
Omar El Akkad
PositiveQuill & Quire (CAN)\"... powerful ... a harrowing read—there are scenes aboard the boat, even before the storm that capsizes it, which are almost too intense to bear—but leavened with an unexpected sense of hope ... an immediate, visceral reading experience. El Akkad offers no easy answers, save the reminder of our common humanity and the importance of the simplicity of right and wrong. And that is, truly, more than enough.
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Jeff VanderMeer
RaveToronto Star (CAN)... stunning ... The sheer delight of a new novel from Jeff Vandermeer, whose previous books include Borne, Dead Astronauts, and Annihilation, which won the Nebula and Shirley Jackson awards, is that you never know what you’re going to get. With Hummingbird Salamander, he delivers a crackling page-turner, a canny eco-thriller cut from the same cloth as such 1970s cinematic classics as The Conversation and Three Days of the Condor ... a philosophical exploration and a warning, delivered in a package of sheer reading pleasure, the sort of book one will want to read in a single sitting.
Fiona King Foster
RaveToronto StarAn enthralling debut novel from Toronto writer Fiona King Foster, begins with a dystopian premise but gradually shifts in both genre and approach; the result is a book which is strangely comfortable but frequently surprising...While the novel is beautifully written and richly characterized, what makes it such a delightful read is Foster’s skill in upending readerly expectations. Partway through the novel, it becomes clear that this isn’t a dystopian thriller so much as it is a western, complete with horses, gunfights, and a family blood-feud. Even at that point, though, Foster continues to subvert expectations. The novel is a powerful but subtle gender swap ... And there’s a third act twist which, on first glance seems excessive, if not outright clichéd, but reveals itself to be the perfect close to a novel obsessed with the nature of family, loyalty, and the weight of the past.
Ashley Audrain
RaveToronto Star[A] stunning, compelling read, more than deserving of its pre-publication attention (and deals) ... The tone is ominous without being blatant ... the novel doesn’t unfold in any way the reader might anticipate ... Written with an unflinching eye and a stylistically sharp, tight economy The Push is a single-sitting read, as suspenseful as any thriller, as thoughtful as any literary novel, with an almost physical force behind each of its turns and revelations ... Audrain’s debut is a stunning, devastating novel and, frankly, one hell of a way to start a year of reading.
Emily Schultz
RaveThe Toronto Star... powerful ... reads with the clarity and promise of a quality true crime podcast — and I mean that as the highest of praise ... Schultz brings both sensibilities — the literary and the thriller — to Little Threats ... While it is a masterful slow-boil, with a palpable sense of menace suffusing nearly every scene, it is also a stark and realistic depiction of the traumatic legacy of violent crime and tragedy. Running throughout is a breathtaking evocation of the early 1990s and a powerful, conflicting female coming-of-age story ... Key to the book’s success, at every level, is Schultz’ skill with characterization. Her use of multiple narrative perspectives allows keen insight not only into Kennedy, Carter and their father, but of more peripheral characters. Each is powerfully drawn, complicated and conflicted, each harbouring the sort of secrets that might have claimed a young girl’s life, secrets that may claim yet more victims fifteen years later.
Anne Glenconner
RaveToronto StarMandel’s crystal ball and uncanny sense of timing remain intact ... simply stunning, a boldly experimental work which hooks the reader from its first pages, wending to a powerfully emotional conclusion ... a delicate web of a novel, tentative and fragile connections woven over time ... but...the strands are so strong, the weaving so complex, that this intimate book is able to carry the weight of global socio-economic ruin, shattered careers, and betrayal ... The Glass Hotel becomes stronger, and more powerful, with every page.
Michael Christie
PositiveQuill and Quire (CAN)Much of the pleasure of the book derives from the manner in which questions are answered and mysteries resolved. For the most part, Christie doesn’t force conclusions or resolutions, instead allowing the novel’s plotting and powerful characterizations to do the work ... But the structure – and the uses to which Christie puts it – result in one apparently unanticipated consequence: the sections featuring Jake, which bookend the novel, are ultimately less satisfying than the sections set in the historical past. This may be due, in part, to personal taste ... his is a relatively minor issue in a book of such richness. Christie brings together the intimate and the sweeping, the human world and the natural, the past and the future in a novel that suggests such distinctions don’t – or shouldn’t – really exist.
Emily St. John Mandel
RaveToronto StarMandel’s crystal ball and uncanny sense of timing remain intact ... simply stunning, a boldly experimental work which hooks the reader from its first pages, wending to a powerfully emotional conclusion ... a delicate web of a novel, tentative and fragile connections woven over time ... but...the strands are so strong, the weaving so complex, that this intimate book is able to carry the weight of global socio-economic ruin, shattered careers, and betrayal ... The Glass Hotel becomes stronger, and more powerful, with every page.
