The uneven pacing and tangents into bizarre scenarios in Trip made me feel somewhat disconnected from the story, but the moments of dark humor and the promise of an unorthodox payoff kept me reading and consistently curious. Sandra is a documentary producer at a death conference in Nepal when she dies in an unlikely, mundane accident. The majority of the speakers milling around talking at each other and preparing for their presentations are insufferable hacks, but after Sand

Immaculate Conception explores art and inspiration; how trauma shapes us; the fraught prospect of altering memories; and the blessing and curse of wealth, power, and necessary compromises in this tale of ambition, love, and deep envy spiraling into an out-of-control collective force. In an imagined near-future world, Enka is from a fringe family, with little exposure to ideas, art, creativity, or opportunity. Yet she secures herself a position at an art school, where she str

This faerie-centric reimagining of Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities offered a compelling story of redemption and self-sacrifice with a significant fantasy undercurrent that is key to the plot. I felt bogged down by the explanations of the workings of the faerie system, its punishments, and its policies. I feared this was the best of times; I hoped it could not get any worse. H. G. Parry's novel A Far Better Thing  is a twist on Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities , and Parr

The fifth in Maureen Johnson's Truly Devious young adult mystery series showcases Stevie Bell's instincts, doggedness, and ability to uncover the truth, this time in London while she and her friends visit Stevie's long-distance boyfriend David and investigate a decades-old double murder in a group of Cambridge friends. In the fifth in Maureen Johnson's Truly Devious series, skilled amateur high school sleuth Stevie Bell is in denial about her senior-year to-do list. She is ov

I'm drawn to stories that explore issues around memory. In Ma's science fiction novel, China is the sole global superpower, and citizens' memories are valuable, dangerous, manipulated, and mined. Recollections serve as currency and as fodder for a government seeking to prosecute any subversive citizens. In a future land ruled by the Qin Empire, citizens all wear MindBanks, contraptions that record, monitor, and transfer memories and thoughts. Memories can be manipulated, unac

I like a story driven by a female investigaor of a main protagonist, and in this small-town mystery and tragedy, officer Emmy Clifton...

I feel compelled to see this series through to its end. The Robin-Strike tension is finally spoken aloud, although not resolved, and the...

Ryan builds a vivid small-town Irish setting with its gloomy, then alarming, descent into corruption. The twenty-one points of view were...

This first installment in the series sets up an overlooked princess who becomes a heroine; deadly monsters who may be being treated...

Comedian Maria Bamford's memoir is unflinching in examining her own base impulses and personal challenges such as mental illness and...

Norlin draws the reader into the eerie heart of a small group living sequestered in the Swedish forest as they gradually fall into...

Bug Hollow tracks the Samuelson family from an idyllic mid-1970s Northern California summer through a tragedy that upends already-tenuous...

Death of the Author explores the connection of an author to her work--and how a story can take on a life of its own--in this novel...

I'm a huge Amy Bloom fan, and while I appreciated the strong main female character here and the World War II-era crises, for me, the...

The first in the author's young adult steampunk Finishing School series offers wonderful, typically strong Carriger women with unique...

I was intrigued by the novel's premise, in which a father weaves elaborate lies to raise his daughter in a remote wilderness, away from...

Molly Jong-Fast's frank memoir explores her complicated, unsatisfying relationship with her famous mother Erica as she faces...

I loved Sunny's body positivity and her self-made-woman status. I didn't fully buy into one of her love interests but was hooked on the...

I loved the premise, in which a golden girl and barrel-racer returns home to small-town Wyoming to figure out her future. I was looking...

Ocean Vuong's literary fiction offers unexpected bonds between characters coping with desperation, addiction, lies, hunger, and past...