Percival Everett’s James, Téa Obreht’s The Morningside, and Lauren Oyler’s No Judgement all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week.
1. James by Percival Everett
(Doubleday)
11 Rave • 1 Positive
“This is Everett’s most thrilling novel, but also his most soulful. Beneath the wordplay, and below the packed dirt floor of Everett’s moral sensibility, James is an intensely imagined human being … My ideal of hell would be to live with a library that contained only reimaginings of famous novels. It’s a wet-brained and dutiful genre, by and large…James is the rarest of exceptions. It should come bundled with Twain’s novel. It is a tangled and subversive homage, a labor of rough love … Everett shoots what is certain to be this book’s legion of readers straight through the heart.”
–Dwight Garner (The New York Times)
2. The Morningside by Téa Obreht
(Random House)
6 Rave • 2 Positive • 2 Mixed
Listen to an interview with Téa Obreht here
“Try to read 10 pages of this book and resist its fairy dust. This story sinks the reader into its dreamlike world as surely as the Morningside subsides into the island it occupies … Obreht is a pure, natural storyteller with a direct hotline to the collective unconsciousness. She blends humor and tragedy, warmth and grit, mystery and magic, constructing her plot out of human curiosity and connection. She writes like she belongs to some lineage of storytellers who entertained around campfires, with such surefootedness that a reader knows all the odd elements and striking characters she introduces will weave together into a haunting and meaningful tale. With reality growing uncannier by the day, we need a novelist like Obreht who can imagine the fortune of our species in a way that feels authentic. In the world she envisions, there is loss, but beauty remains.”
–Jenny Shank (The Star Tribune)
3. The Mars House by Natasha Pulley
(Bloomsbury)
6 Rave • 1 Positive
“The Mars House moves as nimbly as its ballet-dancer hero, sidestepping the potential issues with its immigration storyline and pivoting toward something that’s nuanced and fresh. The result is both an epic love story and a deft political thriller, in which lengthy philosophical discussions feel more gripping than the battles in most other books.”
–Charlie Jane Anders (The Washington Post)
**
1. The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church by Sarah McCammon
(St. Martin’s Press)
1 Rave • 6 Positive • 1 Mixed
“This book is really autobiography with a few cameo roles. Nevertheless, McCammon’s history is captivating and well told … McCammon is especially effective at juxtaposing the condemnations of Bill Clinton’s philandering with full-throated defenses of Donald Trump’s sexual predations … If historical accuracy and context are missing from these textbooks, however, those qualities are also lacking in McCammon’s narrative, although her missteps are not nearly so egregious.”
–Randall Balmer (The Los Angeles Times)
2. No Judgement by Lauren Oyler
(HarperOne)
2 Rave • 6 Positive • 1 Mixed • 1 Pan
Read an interview with Lauren Oyler here
“Her sense of humor is present, as is her agile thinking. But fans of blood sport won’t find much here to satisfy their baser appetites. Far from incendiary, the book is cleareyed and grounded … Oyler is a sharp and confident critic, and some interpretations in the book are outstanding … The book’s measuredness cuts both ways. While it likely demonstrates Oyler’s growth as a writer…it lacks the boldness of her novel and magazine writing. It is oddly safe … Luckily, the execution is fresh enough to keep one reading. And the barbs, when they do come, are good.”
–Erin Somers (The New York Times Book Review)
3. One Way Back by Christine Blasey Ford
(St. Martin’s)
1 Rave • 4 Positive
“…a thoughtful exploration of what it feels like to become a main character in a major American reckoning … At times, she comes across as either deeply optimistic or unfortunately naive … A blisteringly personal memoir of a singular experience. But it was most piercing to me as a memoir of the past half-decade … If you believed Ford in 2018, One Way Back will give you a deeper appreciation for the woman behind the headlines. If you didn’t — well, I don’t know if the book will change your mind. But it might wiggle your mind a little bit.”
–Monica Hesse (The Washington Post)
