I am very late to reading the 2014 Philip K. Dick Award-winner The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison, despite it being highly recommended by a friend and having her copy sitting on my bookshelf for 18 months. I suspect that the timing wasn’t right–I was given the copy on New Years EveContinue reading “The Book of the Unnamed Midwife”
Author Archives: bbwesquire
Find Layla
Find Layla (2020) is Meg Elison’s first published contemporary YA novel. Elison has won and been nominated for multiple science fiction awards for her Road to Nowhere series, specifically The Book of the Unnamed Midwife (review coming soon), The Book of Etta, and The Book of Flora. Her novelette The Pill won the 2021 LocusContinue reading “Find Layla”
The Maid
In The Maid (coming 4 January 2022), Nita Prose has created a quirky, socially awkward character, Molly, a hotel maid who finds a murdered guest, who is reminiscent of another quirky character–Eleanor in Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. Molly works at a boutique hotel and has been all alone since her GranContinue reading “The Maid”
Starfish
Starfish (2021) by Lisa Fipps, surprised me with beauty, heartbreak, and fat positivity in this middle grade novel written in free verse. Ellie, 12, is the youngest of three kids of a mixed-faith psychiatrist-father and editor-mother, and is nicknamed Splash at her 5th birthday party when she does a perfect cannonball. The kids at schoolContinue reading “Starfish”
That Summer
In That Summer (2021), Jennifer Weiner illuminates both the individual cruelty of an entitled teenage boy and the everyday misogyny of a privileged male lawyer. Both take advantage of women named Diana. Daisy Shoemaker is Hal’s wife. They have a house in the suburbs and a 15-year old daughter Beatrice, who is giving them someContinue reading “That Summer”
All the Feels
Olivia Dade has done it again with All the Feels (pub. November 16, 2021)–she has written a delightful, funny, fat-positive romance featuring a fat female lead! Lauren Clegg is between jobs, having burned out from being an emergency room mental health clinician for several years, when she is asked by her terrible cousin (who runsContinue reading “All the Feels”
The Midnight Library
One of my book groups chose The Midnight Library (2020) by Matt Haig to read in November, and I’m so glad that they did, despite an inauspicious first line: “Nineteen years before she decided to die, Nora Seed . . .” I was afraid it would be depressing, and was also apprehensive because books writtenContinue reading “The Midnight Library”
The Mighty Miss Malone
Twelve-year-old Deza Malone deals with upheaval during the Great Depression with grit and humor.
Bears in the Streets: Three Journeys Across a Changing Russia
A fascinating travelogue about the author’s three trips across the expanse of Russia in 1995, 2005, and 2015.
Sitting Pretty: The View From My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body
Sitting Pretty: The View From My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body (2020), by Rebekah Taussig, was a recent book group selection, and I’m so glad! If we live long enough, all of us, without exception, will become disabled. Sitting pretty, by rebekah taussig Taussig writes brilliantly and with humor about growing up disabled and being aContinue reading “Sitting Pretty: The View From My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body”
Reading While Fat 