Strange the Dreamer, Romantic and Morally Complex, Is Laini Taylor at Her Best
Laini Taylor’s bestselling Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy offered readers a lushly romantic and heart-wrenchingly tense tale of a…
Book Reviews
The Hate U Give Delivers on the Hype
Sometimes a YA debut gets so hyped—we’re talking 13-house auction, seven-figure movie deal (before it even hits the shelves!), and up…
In Caraval, a Circus of Dreams May Be a Nightmare
Any number of fairy tales start with a young woman, miserable with the helplessness of the life laid out before…
Michael Chabon Enchants with Moonglow
It’s unusual for an author to cheerfully refer to his own 400+ page novel as a “pack of lies,” as…
Return to Planet Digby in Trouble Makes a Comeback
It has been little more than a year since Stephanie Tromly introduced us to “Planet Digby” in Trouble Is a…
The Sun Is Also a Star Is a Story of Love, Life, and Everything
Writing a truly great novel is an act of compassion, and Nicola Yoon’s The Sun Is Also a Star is one of the…
Emma Donoghue’s The Wonder Will Make You Believe
As award-winning author Emma Donoghue made clear in her breakthrough novel Room, she is a master of tight spaces: both the physically cramped confines…
Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth Paints a Thorny Family Portrait
For a story that begins and ends with a party, there’s an astonishing amount of anger, sadness, and deceit in…
Chief Inspector Gamache Faces A Great Reckoning
Louise Penny is back with A Great Reckoning, the twelfth novel in her Chief Inspector Gamache series. A whodunit full of suspense,…
Honest, Tender, Normal, Dark: 4 Ways Amy Schumer’s New Memoir Is Not What You’d Expect
The inimitable Amy Schumer, known for her brash and unabashed standup comedy (as well as her Emmy-winning show Inside Amy…
Megan Abbott’s You Will Know Me Is an Unsettling Teen Girl Noir
On the eve of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, few events will inspire as much slack-jawed amazement—or furious debate—as…
Colson Whitehead Takes The Underground Railroad From Metaphor to Devastating Reality
In the midst of the never-ending election, America focused on either accepting or rejecting the notion that the country needs to…
5 Reasons We Can’t Wait to Read Amy Schumer’s The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo
According to fans and critics alike, Amy Schumer is single-handedly changing the face of comedy with her raunchy, feminist, too-much-information…
Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter Is a Thrilling Meditation on What Might Have Been
In his latest novel, Dark Matter, Blake Crouch asks us to imagine we’re fish, swimming in a pond. Within our…
American Heiress Is a Fascinating Look at a Wild Chapter in American History
It’s easy to watch the news and assume that very, very recently, everyone in the world went absolutely insane. But…
The Truth Will Out in Liane Moriarty’s Gripping Truly Madly Guilty
In Liane Moriarty’s latest page-turner, Truly Madly Guilty, a friendly barbecue explodes into a character study in friendship, obligation, mental illness, and…
Lara Avery’s The Memory Book Will Destroy You (And It’ll Be Awesome)
Be warned: You won’t make it out of The Memory Book alive. In Lara Avery’s latest, Sammie McCoy is a girl focused…
The Taming of the Shrew Gets a Modern Makeover in Vinegar Girl
Anne Tyler’s Vinegar Girl is the latest in Hogarth’s series of Shakespearean classics retold by contemporary authors. With Vinegar Girl, Tyler (The Amateur Marriage) gives…