David Mark’s debut, The Dark Winter, is a stout, hardy, character-driven mystery that treats what is an introductory novel as a satisfying, whole, stand-alone work, complete with office politics, fleshy back story, and a series of seemingly random murders—as well as an interesting question posed concerning mercy and justice. The Dark Winter features the mysterious […]
This book is astonishingly good. I mean, just honestly astounding. I put it down halfway through the first page because I was so gobsmacked—almost physically struck—by the writing and I didn’t want to get too excited and then be disappointed later. I shouldn’t have worried. Peter Heller’s novel, The Dog Stars, is the kind of […]
Gillian Flynn’s latest novel, Gone Girl, is the story of a struggling marriage… gone MURDEROUS (dun dun DUNNNNNNNNN!). Full of depravity, quirky anecdotes from a once-perfect romance, and alternately deceitful and exhibitionistic diary entries, Gone Girl is not so badly written as to be objectively horrible, nor so sinister and well-executed as to be actually […]
Nick Dybek’s new novel, When Captain Flint Was Still a Good Man, is an introspective coming of age story that focuses heavily on a young man’s loss of innocence. …It’s also basically Shakespeare’s Richard II as populated by the men of The Deadliest Catch. I’m serious. The basic story is this: Cal (rhymes with Hal), […]
Kim Stanley Robinson’s latest novel, 2312, is pretty frakking great. Sci-fi cussing aside, the novel’s very well executed and quite beautiful. 2312 is a futuristic exploration of human expansion into the rest of the solar system, and focuses on Swan Er Hong (an artist from colonized Mercury), and her attempts to unravel the weird events […]
When you are finished with Toni Morrison’s Home, you are going to want to read it again. Immediately. Home is worth every second of your attention, and you should give in to your urge to re-read. It’ll stand up, I promise. The book begins with a memory and then we wake up, nearly amnesiac, to […]
Madeline Miller’s novel, The Song of Achilles, is Patroclus’s story. Miller’s novel reinterprets The Iliad through the lens of Patroclus—Achilles’ companion, friend, and lover—and she anchors the whole thing on their relationship. This book isn’t quite as good as it wants to be. The prose … tries too hard for poeticism, instead of just being […]
THIS BOOK IS A SLOG. Do you know when I finally started to get interested in this story (and even then, not super invested, just mildly interested enough feel like I didn’t have to make dying whale noises whenever I picked it up)? Page 245. PAGE TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY FRICKIN’ FIVE!!! And I only […]