The Centre (2023) by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi was an interesting listen, though it has some flaws and it may not be for everyone. I’d call it character-driven horror with themes of colonialism. Anisa is a Pakistan-born Londoner, supported by her parents but halfheartedly doing Urdu translations for Bollywood films, when she meets Adam at aContinue reading “The Centre”
Tag Archives: contemporary fiction
Pod
Pod (2023) by Laline Paull was completely unique, gripping, and heartbreaking. It’s Paull’s third novel, and I’m going to put her other books on my TBR list, as I understand they are unique as well. The book starts out from Ea’s perspective. She is a young adult spinner dolphin, part of a dolphin pod whoContinue reading “Pod”
Remarkably Bright Creatures
I was absolutely delighted by Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (2022)! I am happily in the majority of people who loved this book, the story of widowed Tova Sullivan who lost her teenage son Erik thirty years before, and Cameron, annoying screw-up, man-child, who shows up in Sowell Bay, Washington, looking for hisContinue reading “Remarkably Bright Creatures”
State of Wonder
State of Wonder (2011) by Ann Patchett has been on my TBR stack forever, so I was really glad when it was a monthly book group pick. I even knew lore about it, as the writer Elizabeth Gilbert writes about her exchange with Ann Patchett about this book, in her 2015 creativity book Big Magic:Continue reading “State of Wonder”
A Holly Jolly Ever After
Finishing up the year right–with the third fat-positive romance review in a row–is A Holly Jolly Ever After (2023) by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone, the team that brought us A Merry Little Meet Cute. This time, we have Kallum, the “funny” member of the boy band INK, who has moved home to run aContinue reading “A Holly Jolly Ever After”
Season of Love
I don’t know why Season of Love (2022) by Helena Greer sat on my physical TBR shelf for a year, because I was so enthralled by this sapphic romance set at a Christmas tree farm run by a Jewish family. Miriam is an artist with an Instagram following, who spent summers growing up at herContinue reading “Season of Love”
Get a Life, Chloe Brown
Get a Life, Chloe Brown (2019) by Talia Hibbert is the first of the Brown Sisters trilogy, and a sheer delight! I will be putting the other two–Take a Hint, Dani Brown (2020) and Act Your Age, Eve Brown (2021)– on my TBR list in 2024. Why was I so delighted? Hibbert checks all ofContinue reading “Get a Life, Chloe Brown”
Now You See Us
Now You See Us (2023) is the newest novel written by Balli Kaur Jaswal (Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows, The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters) and is just as good as the others of hers that I’ve read, in a completely different way. Set in Singapore, Jaswal tells the story of a murder throughContinue reading “Now You See Us”
Rise to the Sun
Rise to the Sun (2021) by Leah Johnson (You Should See Me In a Crown) is a contemporary sapphic YA romance that takes place over the three days of a summer music festival. Both Olivia and Toni are from the Indianapolis area, but they don’t know each other. Olivia goes to the festival with herContinue reading “Rise to the Sun”
Too Soon for Adiós
Too Soon for Adiós by Annette Chavez Macias (2023) was an impulse library shelf pick that surprised me with how good it was! (For being a random pick I knew nothing about.) As the book opens, twenty-nine year old Gabby is dealing with the death of her mother from cancer. She had quit her sous-chefContinue reading “Too Soon for Adiós”
Reading While Fat 