Book Reviews

Living in the Margins of the Body, Society, and Literature: 'Easy Read' by Cristina Morales
Living in the Margins of the Body, Society, and Literature: 'Easy Read' by Cristina Morales
Easy Read by Cristina Morales is, without a doubt, a title that could not be further from the truth. The irony is immediate and deliberate: this is not a text... Read more...
Swimming in Paris: Clear Waters & Hidden Currents
Swimming in Paris: Clear Waters & Hidden Currents
Swimming in Paris: A Life in Three Stories, or The Paris Trilogy, title depending on whether you sport a British accent or an American one, is a long overdue English... Read more...
Chasing the Sun with Stuart Murdoch’s 'Nobody’s Empire'
Chasing the Sun with Stuart Murdoch’s 'Nobody’s Empire'
Imagine yourself: perfectly healthy, living a regular life. Perhaps moving without a specific direction, not chasing everything you’re truly passionate about. But still, a normal, compact life, with hobbies, work,... Read more...
'Butter' and the Politics of Female Appetite
'Butter' and the Politics of Female Appetite
There are novels that ask to be read quietly, almost cerebrally, and there are novels that insist on entering the body. Butter by Asako Yuzuki belongs emphatically to the latter. It... Read more...
Nina McConigley's novel How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder
Cause of Death: British Colonialism and a Bottle of Antifreeze
Nina McConigley's How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder is a novel that does exactly what it says on the tin. Never has a title been more apt, nor more effective... Read more...
‘Will you pinch the finger of the hand that feeds you?’ Control and Fanaticism in Purple Hibiscus
‘Will you pinch the finger of the hand that feeds you?’ Control and Fanaticism in Purple Hibiscus
Strong and moving, Purple Hibiscus is a tale that encapsulates the deep-rooted divisions caused by colonisation, religious fanaticism, and domestic violence through the eyes of a young girl gradually nearing... Read more...
A Refugee Dies and the World Should Mourn, Except It Doesn’t
A Refugee Dies and the World Should Mourn, Except It Doesn’t
As 22-year-old Gambian refugee Pateh Sabally drowns in a Venetian canal, bystanders film him, shouting insults from the shore. “African” and “Go on, go back home” can be heard in... Read more...
Cheese, Submarines, and the Shadow of Fascism: “Stay On The Move”
Cheese, Submarines, and the Shadow of Fascism: “Stay On The Move”
I became a Pynchon fan when I first read The Crying of Lot 49 and witnessed a friend at university absolutely despise it, to the point of visible anger. I... Read more...
A Swing and a Miss: Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel
A Swing and a Miss: Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel
Had the novel chosen to adopt a more conventional structure as well as a more careful selection of the moments to throw punches, it would have been able to offer... Read more...
Can we build ourselves beyond the violence that created us?
Can we build ourselves beyond the violence that created us?
This debut novel by Alice Evelyn Yang, A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing, is a historical family saga that weaves together the stories of a village, a lineage, and the monsters... Read more...
The vulnerability of human communities - Paula Sutton’s The Body in the Kitchen Garden
The vulnerability of human communities - Paula Sutton’s The Body in the Kitchen Garden
What makes Paula Sutton's The Body in the Kitchen Garden especially distinctive is the way in which it weaves in elements of feel-good fiction, balancing the mystery with gentle humour,... Read more...
A very promising premise, interrupted: The Idiot by Elif Batuman
A very promising premise, interrupted: The Idiot by Elif Batuman
The Idiot by Elif Batuman follows a young Turkish-American woman, Selin, during her first year at Harvard University in the 90s. Selin is an aloof, somewhat unremarkable character, often letting... Read more...