The Best Reviewed Books of the Week

John Lanchester’s Look What You Made Me Do, Elizabeth Strout’s The Things We Never Say, and Siri Hustvedt’s Ghost Stories all feature among the best reviewed books of the week.

Fiction

1. Look What You Made Me Do by John Lanchester
(W. W. Norton)

10 Rave • 3 Positive • 2 Mixed • 1 Pan

“A gleamingly accomplished black comedy.”
–Peter Kemp (Literary Review)

2. The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout
(Random House)

9 Rave • 3 Positive • 3 Mixed

“As usual, Strout manages to create scenes of intense intimacy in prose that feels as casual and comfortable as your favorite flannel shirt. She’s just so damn good.”
–Ron Charles (Ron Charles Substack)

3. John of John by Douglas Stuart
(Grove Press)

9 Rave • 1 Mixed

“A muscular narrative with scrupulous technique. It’s his finest work yet.”
–Hamilton Cain (The Boston Globe)

**

Nonfiction

1. Ghost Stories by Siri Hustvedt
(Simon and Schuster)

5 Rave • 3 Positive

“Hustvedt writes so intimately about their physical and intellectual companionship that she makes you feel, in a way not all memoirists can, the dimensions of the crater he left behind.”
–Dwight Garner (The New York Times)

2. Backtalker by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw
(Simon and Schuster)

5 Rave • 2 Positive

“Written with clarity and precision built by Williams Crenshaw’s deep expertise on race and gender politics, and sharpened by the constant defense for the need for both to be discussed, the memoir is both grounded and resolute.”
–Chanda Daniels (Hippocampus)

3. Glorious Country by Victoria Johnson
(Scribner)

6 Rave 

“A vivid, transformational portrait of an artist who chronicled a nation in flux.”
–Publishers Weekly