I enjoyed Xochitl Gonzalez’s Anita De Monte Laughs Last so much that I decided to read her first novel, Olga Dies Dreaming. At first, I wasn’t sure I was going to like this novel because of the problematic titular protagonist, but Olga, and the novel, grew on me, and I ended enjoying this story almost as much as Anita De Monte Laughs Last.
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If We Were Villains has been compared to Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, which initially was enough for me to give it a hard pass. But my curiosity triumphed (as well as my desire to fill up my Book Outlet cart with enough books to get free shipping) and I am pleasantly surprised to say that I like this novel because not all the characters are insufferable, and I would recommend it over The Secret History.
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V. E. Schwab’s Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil seems to be marketed to readers of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue rather than readers of her YA novels. I am not a fan of Schwab’s YA novels, and I loved The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, so my expectation was that Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil would be a slam dunk for me, but as interesting as I found the novel’s setting, the story ended up falling flat.
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The Safekeep is Yael van der Wouden’s debut novel. It was shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize and recently won the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and I can understand why. It is an exquisite study in character, women’s desire and love.
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I enjoyed reading Cherie Dimaline’s VenCo so much that I decided to read another one of her novels (I am sure I will eventually work my way through all of them). I do not like Empire of Wild as much as I like VenCo, but it is still an interesting novel inspired by the Métis traditional story of the Rogarou, a werewolf-like creature that is used to inspire fear in disobedient people.
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Motherthing lured me in with its cover and its premise of being a “darkly funny take on mothers and daughters” as well as a ghost story, but this novel was not at all what I was expecting, and I did not enjoy it.
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Julie Chan is Dead is Liann Zhang’s debut novel and a recent release that I noticed on the Indigo website. I enjoy novels that satirize the society in which we live, and I did enjoy this novel for the most part, but I feel like Zhang’s message with this novel is going to be lost on those readers that could benefit from it the most.
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The Poppy War is a popular fantasy novel and one of Time Magazine’s 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time. I am not a huge fan of the fantasy genre, especially fantasy stories about war, but I really enjoyed reading Kuang’s Babel, so I thought it was time to give The Poppy War, her first novel, a chance. I do not like The Poppy War as much as I like Babel, but I think it is an interesting story with a compelling protagonist.
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I decided to buy The Children of Jocasta because I have read Natalie Haynes’s other books, but I’ll admit that I am feeling fatigued with Greek mythology and took awhile to get around to reading this novel. I ended up finding Haynes take on the Jocasta/Oedipus myth very interesting, and I’m glad I decided to read it instead of letting it languish in my TBR pile perpetually.
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Not too long ago I was wandering around an Indigo store when I saw this author sitting at a table full of copies of her book. I wanted to be supportive of an independently published writer, so I bought a copy. Sarah Lane’s The God of My Art is a beautifully written novel, but unfortunately the story is not very interesting.
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