Book Reviews

The Elasticity of Sisterhood in Zahirra Dayal's 'The Whispering Jacarandas'
The Elasticity of Sisterhood in Zahirra Dayal's 'The Whispering Jacarandas'
The two main characters of the novel—Zaynah and Amira—are sisters and so,  it was inevitable that sisterhood would be a strong theme holding the pages together. And yet, the sisterhood... Read more...
Thin Veils Between Trauma and Life in The Steps
Thin Veils Between Trauma and Life in The Steps
The De Luca family has fine veins moving between them, pulsating with fierce love, anger, grief, and pain. The children’s abusive father died, and they have become displaced, moved across... Read more...
Following Your Heart
Following Your Heart
A Lesson in Caution from Francis Spufford Read more...
Watercolour by R. Cooper, ca. 1912. Credit: Wellcome Collection
Everything is Tuberculosis is John Green at His Best
Did you know that the world’s leading cause of death from a single infectious agent, tuberculosis, is also the reason why we have cowboy hats or the state of New... Read more...
F is for Friends
F is for Friends
An Army of Lovers Cannot Fail by Hélène Giannecchini is, among other things, a book about what happens when a life has not been properly recorded. Through a collection of... Read more...
Faith or Feminism?
Faith or Feminism?
Christine de Pizan’s The Book of The City of Ladies Claims Both   Read more...
Beauty Has Teeth
Beauty Has Teeth
The 1992 publication of Donna Tartt’s groundbreaking debut novel, The Secret History, marked a consequential moment as it reshaped the terms under which an academic novel is written, while simultaneously... Read more...
Sometimes Love Isn't Enough
Sometimes Love Isn't Enough
We don’t immediately learn our main character’s name at the start of the narrative, but this makes no difference in the reader’s ability to understand him. When we are finally... Read more...
A Vantage Point of Earth: Observations on Orbital by Samantha Harvey
A Vantage Point of Earth: Observations on Orbital by Samantha Harvey
It is a Wednesday. I am at work, on my lunch break, orbiting around the Earth in a spaceship. Rather, I am reading Orbital by Samantha Harvey. But during that... Read more...
Aliens Within Us All
Aliens Within Us All
Deconstructing beauty ideals in The Most Normal Woman by Roisin Kiberd   Read more...
Gloria Don’t Speak, But She Makes You Listen
Gloria Don’t Speak, But She Makes You Listen
This is a particularly sad, yet hopeful book. Gloria Don’t Speak by Lucy Apps is her debut novel, and it follows Gloria, a woman with a learning disability and a... Read more...
Dogs, Deer, and Dodgy Men in The Hour of the Wolf
Dogs, Deer, and Dodgy Men in The Hour of the Wolf
I was very surprised by this book, from its form to its topics and how they were treated: loss, nature, toxic relationships, and who we become or who we lose... Read more...