Back to the 2020 Holiday Gift Guide
In a small town in twentieth century Cuba, interwoven narratives explore ideas of poverty, hopes and dreams, humanity, violence, joy, religion, and magic, all with a darkly comic tone.
This is a satire, a love story, and a ghost story that is perfect for our current political moment.
This novel broke my heart into a million pieces and then put it back together again. A beautiful love letter to New York City and its residents (among many other things).
After a traumatic event, three teenage siblings' lives are changed forever. This is the coming-of-age tale I've been waiting for...intense, beautiful, and real.
Though this novel may appear to be a mystery, it's so much more than that. It's a tale of class, race, privilege, family, community, and grief. One of the best literary suspense novels I've read in a long time.
Consider me biased as I love Lydia Millet and adore stories with incompetent adults and overly competent children, but this novel about children trying to survive an environmental apocalypse while the adults ignorantly drink away their problems is perhaps the perfect book for the current pandemic. Darkly humorous, snarky, and devastating, this book may best be read as an alarming parable, but it's also a damn good time.
When I started this novel, I thought it was a book about class and privilege. By the end of this novel, I found myself reading a dystopian disaster story. I'm not sure how Alam was able to do this, but the results are magical.
At its heart, this is a darkly comedic story about depression. And women who like dogs more than people. And I'm totally here for it.
This book reminded me so much of 2019's Queenie (by Candice Carty-Williams) in all the best ways. If you enjoyed Queenie, you MUST read Luster. The cover alone is stunning!
Dare I say I enjoyed this more than Station Eleven? White collar crime, a Ponzi scheme, a disappearance--I'm honestly not entirely sure what this haunting novel was about, but it captured my attention in the best way.