Mark Lavorato’s debut novel is aptly titled as the novel is equally divided between these two characters, a young woman who dances on stage and a young man who takes photographs on the streets. Through them, readers experience Montreal of the 1920s, from vaudeville to fascism, and women’s rights to
Eimear McBride's A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing (2014) Reading. Then Not. Simon & Schuster, 2014 Sharp sentences. Jabbing thoughts. Unkindnesses bearing down. Book, set aside. Pause. And here is where the experience of reading A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing may end for many readers. Some, however,
When a passage on page two is just breathtakingly powerful, readers’ expectations soar. It seems impossible to imagine reading beyond this passage without stopping to reread, or not reading it aloud to a friend sitting alongside, or not tapping the stranger sitting next to you, pointing and saying “Check this out”.
Although I always have a small stack of books underway, I have carried to extremes this act of multi-booking this summer. Yesterday I finished Michael Crummey’s new novel (Sweetland), Alison Wearing’s memoir (Confessions of a Fairy’s Daughter), Jan Zwicky’s poetry collection, the second volume in the Fruits Basket manga series,
For Today I Am a Boy is a very ordinary story, told in a gentle and quiet voice. Kim Fu's novel does not challenge vehemently, like Ghalib Islam's brash debut or Helen Oyeyemi's Boy, Snow, Bird. "My father stood on the step and watched with me. It was the fall
