Fiction
1. My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent
(9 Rave, 5 Positive, 3 Mixed)
“…[a] brutal, brilliant debut … Tallent is an amazing writer. His prose is expansive and ornate, wild and bold … Nature is as powerful a force as it is in a Jack London novel — mighty, beautiful and indifferent to human fortunes. Reading this book is like watching an electrical storm, both beautiful and dangerous.”
–Pamela Miller (The Minneapolis Star Tribune)
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2. Safe by Ryan Gattis
(3 Rave, 4 Positive)
“I loved this book. Gattis explores some pretty big themes—like addiction, mortality, and of course, the huge gap that can lie between right and wrong—without sacrificing an undeniably cinematic touch. Also, the ending will surprise you. In a good way. If you’re looking for something intelligent, fast-paced, sometimes funny, and certainly noir but with a huge heart, snap this one up.”
–Kristin Centorcelli (Criminal Element)
Read an essay by Ryan Gattis here
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3. The Half-Drowned King by Linnea Hartsuyker
(3 Rave, 2 Positive, 1 Mixed)
“…[a] white-knuckled retelling of the protohistory of Norway’s Harald Fairhair … As with the finest historical fiction, it’s a question worth asking ourselves today. Do we trust one another enough to throw our lots in together? Can these laws that we have agreed upon truly hold? … This is a delightful novel, one that manages to summon the musty halls of a seemingly distant past and populate them with the complex heroes of our age.”
–Carrie Callaghan (The Washington Independent Review of Books)
Read an essay by Linnea Hartsuyker here
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4. The Burning Girl by Claire Messud
(3 Rave, 4 Positive, 3 Mixed, 1 Pan)
“After the fierce complexity of The Woman Upstairs, Messud presents a more concentrated, no less emotionally intense novel about an adhesively close friendship … Messud’s entrancing, gorgeously incisive coming-of-age drama astutely tracks the sharpening perceptions of an exceptionally eloquent young woman navigating heartbreak and regret and realizing that one can never fathom ‘the wild, unknowable interior lives’ of others, not even someone you love … [her] exquisitely realized young characters and their tough initiations into adolescence are captivating and profound.”
–Donna Seaman (Booklist)
Read an essay by Claire Messud here
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5. The Destroyers by Christopher Bollen
(2 Rave, 4 Positive)
“As a masterful example of the form, it comes as no surprise that Christopher Bollen’s The Destroyers not only knows exactly what it is—a slow-burning literary thriller—but also revels in it. The Destroyers is built of a tension almost sexual in its luxuriousness; it’s all gleaming seas and waxed wooden decks, the warmth of burned flesh and vodka, the metallic taste of blood and lucre, with the effortless indomitability of a yacht bobbing along a bleached-bone dock.”
–B. David Zarley (Paste)
Read an interview with Christopher Bollen here
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Non Fiction
1. Good Booty by Ann Powers
(4 Rave, 2 Positive, 2 Mixed)
“Powers unveils the ways social norms, androgyny, sexual fluidity and queer identity have factored into America’s hot-and-heavy love affair with popular music … in her loving, sweeping look at gospel’s storied past, she uncovers the way sacred hymns and secular songs merged, as far back as the early 1800s, to set the tone for American music’s soulful sensuality … Mostly, though, Powers superbly balances smart criticism and theory with the primal humanity behind the thump and grind of America’s homemade soundtrack.”
–Jason Heller (NPR)
*
2. Ghost of the Innocent Man by Benjamin Rachlin
(1 Rave, 6 Positive)
“Ghost of the Innocent Man reads like an inverted police procedural, where the criminal conviction comes first, before the detectives discover the facts and where justice arrives only at the end … Ghost of the Innocent Man confronts us with the cruelest injustices of the criminal justice system, even as it also holds out hope for a more humane future.”
–Richard Thompson Ford (The San Francisco Chronicle)
Read an essay by Benjamin Rachlin here
*
3. I‘ll Have What She’s Having by Erin Carlson
(3 Rave, 4 Positive, 1 Pan)
“The book’s wide net of sources, along with Ephronisms and movie dialogue, proves to be a wonderful recipe, giving readers a sense of what it was like working on an Ephron project at every level. Seamlessly woven into the narrative are bits of behind-the-scenes gossip that will surprise even the most die-hard fans … Fast-paced, humorous, yet impressively researched, Carlson’s voice feels cut from the same cloth as Ephron’s.”
–Karin Tanabe (The Washington Post)
*
4. The Book of Emma Reyes by Emma Reyes
(3 Rave, 2 Positive)
“..[a] startling and astringently poetic epistolary memoir … In addition to recording the experience of poverty and emotional abandonment, the book captures how a certain kind of religious education combined with neglect can deform young people.”
–John Williams (The New York Times)
Read an excerpt from The Book of Emma Reyes here
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5. The Bettencourt Affair by Tom Sancton
(2 Rave, 2 Positive, 1 Mixed)
“…[a] riveting page-turner chronicling this sweeping Tolstoyan saga … A former Time Paris bureau chief, Sancton is perfectly placed to document this extraordinary story and the haute Parisian power milieu in which it is embedded. In gripping but unsensational prose, he brings the debacle alive in its many dimensions, recreating not merely the lurid courtroom drama, but capturing ‘the ineffable sadness at its heart.”
–Nina Martyris (NPR)
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