Reading Becoming Lin reminded me of discovering Marilyn French's The Women's Room and Marge Piercy's Small Changes. Two unapologetically feminist novels which I felt had poured out of my own heart into some other writer's story. I inhaled these books, and I felt the same sense of intense recognition and
If a story's beginning looks at its reflection in a room made of mirrors, does it see its own beginning-self reflected back? Or is the reflection actually the story's ending? Hamish Hamilton, 2016 This is the kind of question that I can imagine keeps Jay Hosking up late
Sometimes I buy books for the stories on their pages; sometimes I buy them for the stories between the pages. My copy of Porcupines and China Dolls was purchased second-hand at the Trinity College booksale more than ten years ago. Because of a handful of folded sheets tucked inside the back
How many times have I fallen for this trick? A Stephen King novel opens with a vividly sketched scene, of ordinary and likeable people going about the business of their everyday lives, when disaster strikes, and someone dies. Gallery Books - S&S, 2016 Mr. Mercedes is no different.
What Jane Ozkowski captures beautifully in Watching Traffic is the very sensation embodied in the debut novel's title: Emily is overwhelmed by motion even while in a state of stillness. Groundwood Books, 2016 It's the summer after high-school gradulation, and Emily is working at a catering company, making egg-salad sandwiches and
