If you like memoirs, then I think you will appreciate Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner, who is a Korean American musician that performs under the name Japanese Breakfast. Crying in H Mart is about her grief over the loss of her mother and trying to keep her mother’s memory alive, and holding on to her Korean identity, by learning to cook Korean food. I found Crying in H Mart comforting to read as I still struggle with my own losses.
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Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is one of my favourite novels. It has been adapted into an excellent TV miniseries on HBO. It was published in 2014 and is about a pandemic (I think Emily St. John Mandel must be a bit prescient) that wipes out over ninety percent of Earth’s population, and how what is left of humanity lives on fifteen years after the pandemic. I enjoyed Sea of Tranquility almost as much as I enjoyed reading Station Eleven. Written during the COVID pandemic, Sea of Tranquility also features a pandemic, but the pandemic does not take centre stage. I would not classify Sea of Tranquility as dystopian or science fiction, even though part of the novel is set in the future when humans have colonized the moon and outer space; rather, it is a novel whose focus is on human nature and human relationships.
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I was super excited to read a new Kate Quinn novel only one year after reading The Rose Code. I have loved every one of Quinn’s WWII novels, but I found The Diamond Eye to be the weakest one so far and the most predictable. Still, if you enjoy historical fiction and temper your expectations, I think you will find The Diamond Eye to be an interesting enough read.
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Shuggie Bain is a tragic and heartbreaking novel with no happy ending, but I think this coming-of-age story set in 1980s Glasgow is worth every second you will spend reading it.
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The Push reminds me of this novel I read a few years ago, Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage, as both novels are about a mother who wonders if her young daughter is capable of murder. Baby Teeth makes it very clear early on what kind of novel it is. The Push is harder to pin down as it focuses more on the idea of motherhood, its role in our society and its affect on women, rather than being a thriller, and I think that is what makes it the better novel.
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Dark Roads is inspired by the real-life Highway of Tears between Prince George and Prince Rupert where women have been going missing or were murdered since 1970; a disproportionately high number of the victims are Indigenous women. I was expecting Dark Roads to treat its subject matter with more sensitivity, but instead it is a sensationalistic thriller featuring a crooked cop which verges on the ridiculous. This novel left me feeling disappointed with myself for reading it.
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I had been interested in reading The Liar’s Dictionary for quite some time, and now that I have read it, I have to say that I found it to be disappointing. It is not at all as interesting as the blurb on the back cover makes it out to be. As I was reading it, I kept waiting for more plot to occur, but it feels like not a lot happens in this novel.
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