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Category: Fiction

Hang the Moon by Jeannette Walls

Hang the Moon by Jeannette Walls

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Jeannette Walls wrote one of my favourite memoirs, The Glass Castle. If you have not read, I suggest you remedy that situation. It is a fascinating story about how she grew up poor with highly dysfunctional parents, and how she and her siblings took care of each other and helped each other to become successful adults. Since The Glass Castle, Walls has turned to writing fiction. Hang the Moon is her latest novel, set in Prohibition era Virginia and featuring a resilient protagonist that reminds me of Walls herself. I enjoyed reading this novel and I recommend it to fans of historical fiction.

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The Witch’s Heart by Genevieve Gornichec

The Witch’s Heart by Genevieve Gornichec

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You may have noticed that I have read quite a few books based on Greek and Roman mythology. The Witch’s Heart is based on a mythology that I am not as familiar with: Norse mythology ie. Odin, Thor, and Loki. But this is not a Disney/Marvel watering down of Norse mythology where the gods are more likeable and played to comic effect. Like the Greek and Roman gods, the Norse gods were actually dicks. The Witch’s Heart is about a woman who has been relegated to a footnote in Norse mythology (as women typically are), a witch called Angrboda who was also a wife of Loki. Gornichec gives Angrboda her own story, and it is a good, interesting story, but I am not blown away by it as other readers seem to be.

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Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson

Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson

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I have come to look forward to the release of a new novel by Kate Atkinson. The first novel of hers that I have read is Life After Life, in which the protagonist, Ursula Todd, is reborn every time she dies, and keeps reliving her life over and over again with differences from her previous lives. It is an intriguing premise and a great novel. I have also read A God in Ruins, which features Ursula’s younger brother, Teddy, and Transcription. Life After Life, A God in Ruins and Transcription, along with Shrines of Gaiety, are all set in the years around and during the two World Wars. Atkinson also writes the contemporary mystery series featuring private investigator Jackson Brodie. I have read the first Jackson Brodie novel, Case Histories, and thought it was a good read about three separate cold cases that are unexpectedly linked, but I prefer Atkinson’s historical fiction, with Shrines of Gaiety being no exception.

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Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor

Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor

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Age of Vice opens in New Delhi, India, with a car accident involving a speeding Mercedes that jumps the curb, killing five itinerant workers who sleep in the streets, including a pregnant woman. When the police arrive, it is not a rich person that they find behind the wheel of the Mercedes, but rather a rich person’s servant. But is the servant really the one responsible for the horrific accident? If not, then who is he protecting? Age of Vice is an Indian mob story about the great divide between the ultra-rich and the working poor. It is not really my type of story with its crime and violence, but I found its Indian setting to be fascinating.

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Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

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I recently read Maggie O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait, which I think is a great novel. Hamnet is O’Farrell’s last novel before The Marriage Portrait and was published in 2020 to much acclaim, so I decided I had to read it as well. If you were required to read William Shakespeare’s plays when you were in high school, you may recognize the name Hamnet. Hamnet was Shakespeare’s only son and he died at the young age of eleven. Hamnet is a sad and moving story about how the death of Hamnet affects his family.

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Atomic Anna by Rachel Barenbaum

Atomic Anna by Rachel Barenbaum

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If you are fascinated by stories about time travel, then I think you may enjoy Atomic Anna. I find time travel to be fascinating, and I love debating the ethics of time travel (since it is still a theoretical concept). But Atomic Anna is not merely a story about time travel, it is also a multigenerational story about a family populated by strong, brilliant women. If you are expecting some pulpy sci-fi story, you are not going to find it in Atomic Anna. Atomic Anna is better than that.

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Cult Classic by Sloane Crosley

Cult Classic by Sloane Crosley

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I came across Cult Classic on a BuzzFeed listicle of books to read. It sounded interesting enough to me that when I later found it on the BookOutlet website, I decided to add it to my order. I needed something light to read after Demon Copperhead, and the blurbs on the back over of Cult Classic describe it as “funny” and “romantic”, so I thought it would do the trick. After a slow start, I found Cult Classic to be an interesting read, but not the rom-com I was expecting. I did not find it very funny, more like mildly amusing.

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Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

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Demon Copperhead is a modern take on Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield – they have a similar narrative structure and many of the characters have the same names. Demon Copperhead is set in the 1990s and early 2000s and is about an orphaned boy caught up in the opioid crisis in the poor mining communities targeted by Purdue Pharma (the makers of OxyContin). The protagonist is Damon Fields, nicknamed Demon Copperhead because of the copper-coloured hair he inherited from his father who died before he was born, who grows up in Lee County, Virginia. Demon Copperhead, like David Copperfield, is a likeable character that you want to root for, but unlike David, Demon tends towards self-destruction instead of striving to change his situation, which is understandable growing up in a part of the country that has been ravaged by opioids and made the butt of many hillbilly jokes. Demon Copperhead is a heavy read, but I think it is a great novel.

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Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo

Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo

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I re-read Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo just before reading its sequel, Hell Bent. I still love it, and you can read my review of it here. I have been waiting over two years to read Hell Bent; unfortunately, I am on the fence over whether it was worth the wait. I did enjoy reading it, but certain elements have been introduced into the series (the way that Hell Bent ends, I am sure Bardugo is turning it into a series) that I could do without.

WARNING: There be spoilers ahead if you have not read Ninth House.

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Greywaren by Maggie Stiefvater

Greywaren by Maggie Stiefvater

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Greywaren is the third and final volume of The Dreamer Trilogy. I love Maggie Stiefvater’s novels, I enjoyed the first two books of The Dreamer Trilogy, but unfortunately, I found Greywaren to be an underwhelming conclusion. SPOILER ALERT: do not read further if you plan on reading The Dreamer Trilogy. Even though Greywaren is the weakest link, I still think the trilogy as a whole is worth reading if you enjoy YA novels.

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