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Category: Fiction

Washington Black by Esi Edugyan

Washington Black by Esi Edugyan

Washington Black reads like a Dickensian novel with its intriguing and varied cast of characters and the unexpected adventures that the protagonist finds himself undertaking. The protagonist’s narration is as educated and articulate as that of David Copperfield’s. The difference between Esi Edugyan’s novel and anything written by Dickens is that the protagonist in Washington Black is a young Black man who was born a slave and who cannot escape racism even when he is freed from slavery. I found Washington Black to be an engaging and enjoyable read, despite its dark subject matter, until the very abrupt and completely unsatisfying ending.

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Plain Bad Heroines by emily m. danforth

Plain Bad Heroines by emily m. danforth

Plain Bad Heroines by emily m. danforth is a mishmash of different genres: we’ve got supernatural horror, historical fiction, queer romance and a modern riff on fame and the movie industry. Plain Bad Heroines is also meta-fiction as it is about a book that sets off a chain of events in the past that are written about in a book in the present that is being turned into a movie. I can see why people would be drawn to this novel, because it does sound interesting on the face of it, but I would have liked it better if I had not been so annoyed by the narrative voice employed by the author and if it did not have such an abrupt ending.

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Normal People by Sally Rooney

Normal People by Sally Rooney

Sally Rooney’s Normal People is a novel that has been buzzed about since it came out in 2018, and then there is the TV miniseries that aired in 2020 that, again, people seem to not be able to stop talking about. I came across Normal People the novel while I was browsing books to buy on Bookoutlet.ca and decided to give it a read, but I tempered my expectations because I find that heavily hyped books usually do not turn out as good as I hope. With Normal People, though, I was surprised to find myself totally engrossed by it. It is an interesting story about two flawed characters with emotional and behaviour issues. These characters often wish they were “normal people”, but Normal People has me ruminating on the concept of the “normal person”. Is there even such a thing? We all have our issues, which we mostly keep hidden from other people, so maybe we all are “normal people”?

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This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab

This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab

Victoria Schwab (or V.E. Schwab) is a popular writer of supernatural and fantastical YA fiction. I read her Shades of Magic trilogy a few years ago because it was well received, but I was not particularly impressed by it and thought it was just okay. And then I read The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, which leans more into adult fiction, and I absolutely loved it. This made me decide to give Schwab’s other books another try, and so I read This Savage Song. Like the Shades of Magic trilogy, I thought This Savage Song was just okay. I think I need to move on from reading YA supernatural fiction.

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Bewilderment by Richard Powers

Bewilderment by Richard Powers

Bewilderment is a novel that I think everyone should read, but I know they will not. For some people, it may seem like a strange book, but it tackles important subject matters, such as raising a child on the autism spectrum, raising a sensitive child who is very much aware of the problems with our world, climate change, mass extinction of animals, the erosion of democracy, and our bewilderment in the face of all this. It would seem like Richard Powers is prophesizing our future in Bewilderment, if it were not for the fact that what he writes about is very much happening right now.

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Family Trust by Kathy Wang

Family Trust by Kathy Wang

If you have read and liked Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan, then you may like Kathy Wang’s Family Trust. I have read Crazy Rich Asians and I thought it was just okay. I really wanted to like Family Trust because it sounds like an interesting novel, but I thought it was also just okay (I guess I should not be surprised). My biggest problem with Family Trust is that nearly every single character, except maybe one, is not likeable and therefore I did not enjoy reading about them (the quote on the cover is a lie; this book was not a joy to read from start to finish).

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Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch by Rivka Galchen

Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch by Rivka Galchen

The last book of 2021! I was pleasantly surprised by Rivka Galchen’s Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch, so I am glad to finish up the year with a good book. Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch is based on the real-life Katharina Kepler, mother of famed Imperial Mathematician Johannes Kepler, who was accused of being a witch in early 17th century Germany.

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Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld

Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld

I have read two of Curtis Sittenfeld’s previous novels; the first was American Wife, which is based on Laura Bush’s life (the wife of George W. Bush), and Eligible, which is a modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in Cincinnati. I enjoyed reading both of those novels; they are both character-driven, interesting reads, although Eligible ventures into absurdity towards the end. I had been very interested in reading Rodham since it was first published last year, not so much because I am a fan of Hillary Rodham Clinton, but because by now I trust Sittenfeld to write a good book. And Rodham is a good book. I cannot tell you how close Sittenfeld’s Hillary Rodham is to the real Hillary Rodham Clinton, but it is a super fascinating “what if?” novel that I highly recommend. The premise of Rodham is this: What if Hillary Rodham had never married Bill Clinton?

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Mister Impossible (The Dreamer Trilogy) by Maggie Stiefvater

Mister Impossible (The Dreamer Trilogy) by Maggie Stiefvater

I will always be drawn to Maggie Stiefvater’s novels. Her stories are richly imaginative and set in the real world, with just enough of the supernatural to make them seem plausible. Mister Impossible is the second book of The Dreamer Trilogy; the first book is Call Down the Hawk. The Dreamer Trilogy is a spin-off of The Raven Cycle, a quartet of books that I do not even know how to summarize even though I have read them all twice. Essentially, The Raven Cycle is about a teenage girl and four private school boys who are in search of a Welsh king named Glendower who is supposedly sleeping underneath a forest called Cabeswater. There are psychics, ley lines, ghosts and other supernatural things in these books. Nothing I say will make these books make sense, all I know is that I enjoy reading The Raven Cycle; I enjoy the characters and their relationships with each other; I enjoy the lyricality of Stiefvater’s writing.

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