best english book review

The best novels of 2023

Including new novels by Naomi Alderman, Dolly Alderton, and Samantha Harvey

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The Future by Naomi Alderman

Good material by dolly alderton, orbital by samantha harvey, tackle by jilly cooper, julia by sandra newman, the pole and other stories by j.m. coetzee, the glutton by a.k. blakemore, western lane by chetna maroo, absolutely & forever by rose tremain, beasts of england by adam biles, holly by stephen king, prophet song by paul lynch, the fraud by zadie smith, the wren, the wren by anne enright, caret by adam mars-jones, open throat by henry hoke, tom lake by ann patchett, the bee sting by paul murray, ordinary human by megan nolan, be mine by richard ford, i am homeless if this is not my home by lorrie moore, big swiss by jen beagin, death under a little sky by stig abell, time shelter by georgi gospodinov, the making of another major motion picture masterpiece by tom hanks, the guest by emma cline, soldier sailor by claire kilroy, august blue by deborah levy, a house for alice by diana evans, pineapple street by jenny jackson, shy by max porter, romantic comedy by curtis sittenfeld, to battersea park by philip hensher, dr. no by percival everett, queen k by sarah thomas, old god’s time by sebastian barry, cursed bread by sophie mackintosh, birnam wood by eleanor catton, brutes by dizz tate, victory city by salman rushdie, the birthday party by laurent mauvignier (translation by daniel levin becker), white riot by joe thomas, the new life by tom crewe, age of vice by deepti kapoor.

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Fourth Estate 416pp £20; The Week Bookshop £15.99  

Naomi Alderman is one of our most consistently inventive writers, said Stephanie Merritt in The Observer . She combines "literary and historical erudition" with an "instinct for narrative pace". Her sixth novel is a typical offering, being at once a "satirical dystopian tech-thriller" and a "complex novel of ideas". Set in a world that's much like our own, only with "fancier gadgets", it begins with the three wealthiest people on the planet – who run "barely disguised versions of Amazon, Apple and Facebook/Twitter" – being notified, via an "exclusive early warning app", that civilisation is on the brink of collapse. They swiftly retreat to their respective bunkers. What follows is a hectic, crisscrossing story involving survivalist cults, much philosophical musing, and a "cascade of cataclysmic events", said Elizabeth Hand in The Washington Post . While there are some "terrific" scenes – notably an account of a Davos-style conference devoted to "selling post-apocalypse tech" – the novel can't decide if it's satire or parable, and at times becomes rather confusing. "The Future" is "frustrating" yet "immensely readable".

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Fig Tree 352pp £18.99; The Week Bookshop £14.99  

This second novel by Dolly Alderton (best known for her 2018 "hit" memoir " Everything I Know About Love ") is a work of "Hornbyesque charm", said Hephzibah Anderson in The Observer . Andy, the narrator, is a "jobbing" thirtysomething comedian who has just been dumped by his girlfriend Jen. The action is mainly concerned with Andy's "lovelorn misadventures" – including Instagramstalking Jen and her new boyfriend, "obsessively monitoring his bald spot", and "navigating the daunting practicalities of living in London unaided by Jen's corporate salary". The "smallness of the canvas" Alderton adopts makes this novel surprisingly "daring", said Michael Donkor in The Guardian . The "intensely limited focus on Andy" and his trials could have felt "repetitive or leaden" – but instead she uses it to capture the "myopia and obsessiveness that sudden heartbreak can bring". "Good Material" isn't going to "rewrite ideas about contemporary sexual politics". It is, however, a warm and funny work, which reveals Alderton to be a "writer comfortably settling into her groove".

Jonathan Cape 144pp £14.99; The Week Bookshop £11.99  

From a novel about Alzheimer's to medieval crime, Samantha Harvey is a novelist who "reinvents her career with each new book", said Alice Jolly in The Sunday Times . Her latest journey into "unexplored territory" is a "poetic and powerful" account of a day in the life of six astronauts on the International Space Station. Because the astronauts inhabit an "orbiting laboratory" that is travelling at 17,000 miles an hour, they orbit Earth 16 times per day, and so "see 16 dawns and 16 sunsets". Harvey's ability to capture this "constantly unravelling world" – "Asia come and gone. Australia a dark featureless shape against this last breath of light" – is the novel's most remarkable feature. 

Such passages are also counterbalanced by "moments of wry observation", said Emily Rhodes in The Spectator . Harvey finds humour in the space station's toilet arrangements – they are "split along Cold War lines" – and charts the sense of boundaries breaking down as the astronauts breathe "each other's overused air". Written in her trademark "luminous prose", this is a "slender, gleaming novel". 

Bantam 448pp £22; The Week Bookshop £17.99  

Jilly Cooper's latest novel – her 11th set in Rutshire – marks an unlikely shift in direction, said Cleo Watson in The Daily Telegraph . Rather than being about polo or opera, it is set in the world of football. Rupert Campbell-Black, Cooper's swaggering hero, has just bought a local team, Searston Rovers FC, and "with the kind of determination that only an Olympic show-jumping gold medal can instil, he sets his sights on winning the Premier League". This ambition is amusingly challenged by his players (led by star striker, Facundo Gonzalez), who are more interested in wife swapping than on-pitch glory. Cooper has always offered "huge pleasure", and I found it a struggle not to "gobble" this novel up "in one go". 

Although "Tackle!" contains the "reliable Cooper quotient of rising penises" and "lithe women with high breasts", she also weaves in darker themes, said Lucy Beresford in Literary Review . A sub-plot dealing with cancer is subtly done, as is another exploring the impact of growing up in a children's home. "With this novel, Cooper shoots again and scores."

Granta 400pp £18.99; The Week Bookshop £14.99  

It's quite a task, "to take on a classic and remake it from a new perspective", said Erica Wagner in The Daily Telegraph . But that's what US author Sandra Newman does in "Julia" – a retelling of George Orwell's "1984" from the perspective of Winston Smith's lover. A relatively slight character in Orwell's original, Newman's Julia feels fleshed out: she works as a mechanic in the Ministry of Truth, toiling on the "machines that produce fiction for the Party"; she lives in a dormitory with other women, and is "cynical, practical", a "ruthless survivor". Fascinating and "atmospheric", "Julia" "succeeds, brilliantly". 

It's a book that works on more than one level, said Natasha Walter in The Guardian . As well as being a "satisfying tribute act", it is also a critique of "1984", revealing things overlooked by Orwell – such as the way the restrictions of totalitarianism "weigh differently on women" than on men. Although the novel "starts to weaken" in its second half (the prison scenes in particular lack the power of 1984's), this is a work that "stands up well beside Orwell's original, and at many points enriches it". 

Harvill Secker 272pp £20; The Week Bookshop £15.99

"All writers go off", the late Martin Amis once said. Happily, there are no signs that 83-year-old J.M. Coetzee is "running out of steam", said James Purdon in Literary Review . The Nobel Prize-winner's latest work – consisting of a new novella, "The Pole", and five stories written over the past 20 years, four featuring his alter-ego Elizabeth Costello – reveals an author who has "slipped comfortably into a late style". The novella, which charts a brief affair between Witold, a 72-year-old concert pianist, and Beatriz, a fortysomething banker's wife, is Coetzee at his very best, said John Self in The Observer . It's "lighter in tone" than his early novels, and the melding of story and ideas is "exquisite". When Coetzee is as good as this, he makes you "wonder why other people bother". 

I was less than impressed, said John Banville in The Guardian . Set out in numbered sections – "it is not clear to what purpose" – "The Pole "is a "glacial" and rather "frictionless" work. He makes a clear effort to avoid the "merely picturesque". At one point, he writes of a walk: "It is a pleasant autumn day. The leaves are turning, et cetera." There is "little in the way of novelty" in these stories, said Claire Lowdon in The Sunday Times . They revisit Coetzee's "enduring preoccupations", notably "desire, and the spiritual status of animals". Still, after the "dense philosophical slog" of his recent Jesus Trilogy, this book offers a welcome return to the "limpid narrative mode of earlier works such as the Booker-winning Disgrace". The collection as a whole "forms a cerebral swansong that will be obligatory reading for Coetzee fans".

Granta 336pp £14.99; The Week Bookshop £11.99  

The "Great Tarare" was a French peasant who achieved notoriety in the revolutionary period for his "prodigious ability to devour things", said Sandra Newman in The Guardian . By his teens, he was eating his own weight in meat each day – and later, as a street performer, he would consume household objects and even "live animals". Such a life clearly "begs to be fictionalised", and it's hard to think of anyone better equipped for the task than the "remarkable" A.K. Blakemore, whose previous novel, "The Manningtree Witches", deservedly won the Desmond Elliott Prize. Her account of Tarare's short life (he died aged 25) is a work of intoxicating language and "great intelligence". 

Moving between its subject's final days in the care of a nun and his impoverished childhood, "The Glutton" is a work of great "assurance and verve", said Stephanie Merritt in The Observer . Blakemore is equally at home evoking natural beauty or the "stench of rotting wounds". Few writers can be "truly likened to Hilary Mantel", but Blakemore's "rare ability to reanimate the past" means that she is one of them.

Picador 176pp £14.99; The Week Bookshop £11.99

Squash is a game of "peculiar solitude", in which you "never face your competitor, and play in eerily hermetic conditions", said Claire Allfree in The Times . In this "gorgeous debut", it evokes the inner life of its heroine, a promising young player whose devotion to the sport is in part a response to family tragedy. When the novel opens, narrator Gopi is 11 and "has just lost her mother". Her father ramps up her training; soon, she's playing "several hours a day". An "elegantly compressed coming-of-age novel", written in unadorned but expressive prose, Western Lane is a remarkable achievement – and deserves its place on this year's Booker shortlist.

It "feels like the work of a writer who knows what they want to do, and who has the rare ability to do it", agreed Caleb Klaces in The Guardian . Especially impressive is Maroo's ability to convey "emotional complexity by way of physical description". She's a talented writer, but this novel feels frustratingly slight and underdeveloped, said Claudia Rowan in The Daily Telegraph . I was "mildly intrigued", but was ultimately left "wanting more emotionally".

Chatto & Windus 192pp £16.99 The Week Bookshop £13.99

Rose Tremain isn't often thought of as a funny writer, but in this novel, her 17th, "she can be brilliantly wry", said Lucy Atkins in The Guardian . Set between the 1950s and the 1970s, the book is an "engrossing character study" of Marianne, a girl from the Home Counties who, aged 15, falls passionately in love with a floppy-haired 18-year-old named Simon. The relationship soon ends – Simon moves to Paris – but it defines much of Marianne's subsequent life. In 1960s London, which is "anything but swinging", Marianne is "lonely and miserable" as she first enrols at secretarial college, and then works as an assistant for a Fleet Street agony aunt (a job Tremain herself once did). She subsequently marries "kind Hugo", a horse-loving family friend – but when they visit Paris a few years later, Simon is "all she can think of". While on one level this is a "straightforward period drama", it also offers more "thoughtful pleasures", particularly in its moving and even-handed depiction of Marianne's unhappy, buttoned-up parents. 

There is indeed a "kind of magic" to the novel that is "hard to capture in a short review", said Rachel Cooke in The Observer . Marianne is a "marvellously original creation" – she's both conventional and "quite batty" – and the period details "are exquisite", from bath cubes and Basildon Bond notepaper to "sauces made from marmalade to go with baked ham". It may seem a little late in life for Tremain, who is 80, to be writing a coming-of-age story, said Sue Gaisford in the Financial Times . But her "hard-won experience" informs the novel, making it a "mesmerising, masterly and profoundly moving" exploration of the "comic, painful, life-long search for human understanding".

Galley Beggar Press 288pp; £10.99 The Week Bookshop £8.99  

Writing a sequel to a book as familiar as "Animal Farm" might seem a risky undertaking, said Patrick McGuinness in The Guardian . But the "risk pays off" in "Beasts of England", Adam Biles's "updated and retooled" version of George Orwell's classic. Set decades later on the same farm (which is now a petting zoo, complete with alpacas and geckos), the novel follows a series of "sinister events", including the emergence of a mysterious illness and an apparent attempt by the "ruling pigs" to sell off the farm's assets. Whereas Orwell's fable was about totalitarianism in general, the satirical target here is "unmistakably" England now: Brexit, the refugee crisis, Covid and Boris Johnson are all "allegorised" in this "clever, resourceful" tale. 

The problem is that there is "too much to follow", said Jeremy Wikeley in The Daily Telegraph : Biles crams in the "entire history of British politics since New Labour". His book succeeds when it leaves the realm of fable, and becomes more of a thriller – as in the "brilliantly weird" ending. "Beasts of England" is at its best "when it strikes out for new pastures".

Hodder 448pp £25; The Week Bookshop £19.99  

Stephen King's latest novel is both a "nail-biting crime fiction and a dystopian vision of contemporary America", said Joan Smith in The Sunday Times . Set at the height of the pandemic, when rows over mask wearing and vaccines were raging, it centres on a series of mysterious disappearances in a Midwestern town. The perpetrators, it emerges, are "two of the most unusual" serial killers in fiction – a pair of retired college professors, whose veneer of ordinariness has long "protected them from suspicion". On their trail is private detective Holly Gibney, who has appeared in King's fiction before, but never in a "starring role". 

It's a good thing that the "dogged", "resourceful" and neurodivergent Holly has been given such a major part, because as a character she "leaps off the page", said Catriona Ward in The Guardian . Equally memorable are the "macabre college professors", who are both "plausible and chilling". Not so much a whodunit as a whydunit – with a literary motive at its core – "Holly" is "lyrical and horrifying", and a "hymn to the grim pursuit of justice".

Oneworld 320pp £16.99; The Week Bookshop £13.99

Paul Lynch’s Booker-longlisted fifth novel is the “Irish offspring” of “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, said Melissa Harrison in The Guardian . Set in a “shadow version” of present-day Dublin, where an unspecified crisis has led to the creation of a police state, it centres on a biologist named Eilish Stack, whose teacher husband mysteriously vanishes, one of hundreds “swallowed whole” by the state. Lynch writes in a “heightened, sometimes biblical language”, and eschews paragraph breaks – a device that intensifies the sense of claustrophobia, even if it initially takes some getting used to. Powerful and “horribly real”, “Prophet Song” is “as nightmarish a story as you’ll come across”.

I wasn’t convinced, said Max Liu in The i Paper . While Lynch’s sentences are “melodious”, they are full of “weird word choices”: a character “sleeves” her cardigan on before walking into a cellar of “colding gloom”. And many of its ideas “feel recycled”. The genuinely “absorbing” story at its heart partially makes up for these defects – but even so, “Prophet Song” would be a “surprising Booker winner”.

Hamish Hamilton 464pp £20; The Week bookshop £15.99

Zadie Smith’s first historical novel is an intricate mosaic brought to life by “gloriously light, deft writing”, said Alexandra Harris in The Guardian . Much of “The Fraud” follows a court case that gripped Britain in the 1870s, in which an Australian butcher claimed to be Sir Roger Tichborne, the heir to a baronetcy and a fortune, who had been lost in a shipwreck 17 years earlier. Among those fascinated by the saga was William Ainsworth, a novelist whose sales rivalled Charles Dickens’s. The first half of Smith’s novel resurrects him and the two women who shared his life: his wife Sarah and his cousin, housekeeper and intellectual foil Eliza Touchet. The second half tells the story of the main witness in the “Tichborne Claimant” trial, a black man named Andrew Bogle – reaching back to his father’s arrival on a sugar plantation in Jamaica. Few writers would dare mix comedy with the subject of slavery, and fewer still would pull it off, “mixing narrative delight with a vein of rapid, skimming satire”.

Moving back and forth between the 1830s and the 1870s, and punctuated with short, “almost aphoristic” chapters, “ The Fraud ” weaves its disparate elements together to “triumphant and memorable” effect, said Erica Wagner in The Daily Telegraph . Touchet is the key character, and what drives the novel is not so much the unravelling of the Claimant’s tale as her growing understanding of the world, and her grasp of issues such as the meaning of freedom and authenticity. It’s “a richly enjoyable, sophisticated book” by a writer at the peak of her powers.

I wasn’t convinced, said John Self in The Times . This is a “rich stew” of a novel, but its jumpy time scheme prevents any kind of narrative flow. There are also elements that are left strangely undeveloped, such as the fact that Eliza has had affairs with both William and his first wife. Smith’s gift for dialogue is as strong as ever, and I admired parts of “The Fraud” very much. “But I would much rather have loved it.” It doesn’t wholly convince, agreed Richard Godwin in the Evening Standard . The time frames are confusing, and the three strands don’t always intermesh: “but moment to moment, ‘The Fraud’ is a delight”. Smith has particular fun with William’s literary incontinence, his rivalry with Dickens, and the sharp-witted Sarah Ainsworth. For all its faults, this is a novel “full of people, ideas, humour, feeling and something like moral truth – the stuff of life”.

Jonathan Cape 288pp £18.99; The Week Bookshop £14.99

Anne Enright’s eighth novel is the “finest I have read in a long time”, said Luiza Sauma in The Daily Telegraph . Like her 2007 Booker-winner “The Gathering”, it explores “ancestral trauma”, telling the story of three generations of women, and that of Phil McDaragh, a “long-dead, not terribly famous” Irish poet, whose influence looms over them. The novel mostly alternates between the perspectives of Phil’s daughter Carmel and his twenty-something granddaughter Nell, who never knew him but tattoos her body with references to his poems. “The Wren, The Wren” is a “surprising and complex” book, lifted by the beauty of Phil’s verse (written by the novelist), with a “dark, lurking humour”.

“Damn, Enright can write,” said John Self in The Times . Like Martin Amis, she is a novelist of “scenes and sentences, not plots and character arcs”. Her approach – with “shards of brilliance flashing in every direction” – may not be for everyone. “But if you believe a book is a conversation between reader and writer, where you get out what you put in, then that’s a feature, not a bug.”

Faber 752pp £25; The Week Bookshop £19.99

During his prolific career, the literary critic Adam Mars-Jones has produced many “short stories, neat little novellas” and “slim” memoirs, said Claire Lowdon in The Sunday Times . But he has also written “three enormous novels” – all about one man: John Cromer. The first, “Pilcrow” (2008), charted Cromer’s 1950s childhood and “struggles with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis”. In the 733-page Cedilla (2011), Cromer “gains some independence”. Now we have Caret, covering less than a year of its subject’s life, yet running to 752 pages. The books are obscenely long, but they are “something apart”, and offer a “truly original narrative voice”.

Like its predecessors, Caret is short on “developments of a standard novelistic kind”, said Paul Genders in Literary Review . There is no real plot; the novel is made up of “uncannily acute acts of observation” – as Cromer outlines the “precise charms of a packet of Toffo sweets”, or describes a mouse getting stuck in a toaster. I finished it thinking that Mars-Jones is “possibly the best prose stylist currently writing in English”.

Henry Hoke’s “slim jewel of a novel” is narrated by a mountain lion living in the desert hills surrounding LA, said Marie-Helene Bertino in The New York Times . Inspired by the real-life case of P22 – a lion spotted prowling around the city in 2012 – it deploys its unconventional narrator (who identifies as queer) to brilliant comic effect.

The novel abounds with “leonine misunderstandings”, said Rahul Raina in The Guardian : scarcity is rendered as “scare city”; money is “green paper”. In some novels, such jokes would be cloying, but here the writing is “so wry and muscular” that you’re “ready to go anywhere Hoke wants to take you”. Propulsive and eventually heartbreaking, this is an “instant classic of xenofiction”.

Don’t worry: “Open Throat” is only about a lion in the way Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” was “about a large bug”, said Ron Charles in The Washington Post . The “fanged narrator” is a type familiar in American fiction: the “outcast naïf whose bewildered commentary plumbs our strange behaviour”. “Give this sinewy prose poem a chance”, and you’ll fall under its spell.

Bloomsbury 320pp £18.99; The Week Bookshop £14.99

With bestsellers such as “Bel Canto” and “The Dutch House”, Anne Patchett has established a reputation for writing “accessible fiction”, marked by a “determination to see the good in people”, said Lucy Atkins in The Guardian . Her latest is “possibly the most upbeat pandemic novel” yet written. In the summer of 2020, Lara, 57, the owner of a Michigan cherry orchard, finds her three grown-up daughters returning home. During the long days, she regales them with “glowing memories” of a brief romance she once had with a Hollywood star. These are interspersed with details of present-day farm life. While readers who had tricky lockdowns may not warm to the “homespun happiness” of this novel, I found it moving and “engaging”.

“Folksy” and “strangely peaceable”, “Tom Lake” has a “ribbon of sentimentality” running through it, said Rachel Cooke in The Observer . Yet “Patchett knows exactly what she’s doing” – and by its end, this “exquisitely controlled” work proves to be a quietly daring attempt to “take the temperature of a whole life, and by so doing, to prioritise happiness over misery”.

Hamish Hamilton 656pp £18.99; The Week Bookshop £14.99

Paul Murray, the author of “Skippy Dies”, is the “undisputed reigning champion of epic Irish tragicomedy”, said Ian Sansom in The Spectator . In this sprawling novel about the Barnes family – failing car-dealer Dickie, shopping-addicted mum Imelda, dreamy teenager Cass, bullied 12-year-old P.J. – he has produced “an immersive, brilliantly structured, beautifully written mega-tome”. Set after the 2008 crash but also moving four decades into the past, it’s “laugh-out-loud funny”, and deeply sad. “All you need is this, your suntan lotion and a few days off work and you’re good to go.”

Murray switches between the four main characters’ points of view, and what they don’t know about one another creates a “steady crackle of dramatic irony”, said Anthony Cummins in The Observer . There are twists aplenty, but it never turns into a guessing game. “It can’t be overstated how purely pleasurable The Bee Sting is to read.” It’s “carefully paced, brilliantly convincing and helped along by plenty of subtle satire”, said James Riding in The Times – a “huge, marbled wagyu steak of a novel”.

Jonathan Cape 224pp £16.99; The Week Bookshop £13.99

Megan Nolan’s deservedly lauded debut, “Acts of Desperation”, examined the “interior life of a young woman beholden to a toxic partner”, said Holly Williams in The Observer . The young Irish writer’s follow-up has a much broader focus – but the results are similarly “compelling”.

Set in the 1990s, “Ordinary Human Failings” centres on a toddler’s disappearance from a south London estate – and the ensuing scandal as the perpetrator is revealed to have been a ten-year-old named Lucy Green. Lucy is the youngest member of a “reclusive clan of Irish immigrants who’ve never fitted in”, said Lucy Scholes in The Daily Telegraph . And much of Nolan’s “bold and beautiful” novel is devoted to telling their backstory, with the author showing the “interconnected lines of cause and effect” that led to Lucy’s crime.

Marked by its psychological insight, this is a brilliant follow-up to “Acts of Desperation”, said Claire Lowdon in The Sunday Times . It isn’t formally ambitious – more a “three-legged stool” than an “ornate grandfather clock” – but it shows her first novel was no fluke.

Bloomsbury 352pp £18.99; The Week Bookshop £14.99

The 79-year-old American author Richard Ford has published many books over his long and distinguished career. But he is best known for his novels featuring his “delightfully lugubrious everyman”, Frank Bascombe, said Ian Sansom in The Daily Telegraph . “Be Mine” is the “fifth and final Bascombe book”, and it captures the sportswriter-turned-real estate salesman in the “winter of his life”. Still working part-time, Frank is divorced from his second wife Sally, and spends much of his time caring for his 47-year-old son, Paul, who is dying of motor neurone disease. It’s a fitting end to the Bascombe novels.

The novel centres on a “long, flat, boring” road trip the pair make to Mount Rushmore, said Simon Ings in The Times . It’s a “quotidian” portrait of heroism – much of the action focuses on the practicalities of their journey – but it feels true to life. And, impressively, from this “grim material” Ford has crafted a “bright comedy”, full of jokes and “bickering” dialogue, said John Self in the Financial Times . The result is a “book to sit back and wallow in” – and a moving end to a “magnificent series”.

Faber 208pp £16.99; The Week Bookshop £13.99

The US novelist and short-story writer Lorrie Moore has long been drawn to the darkly “off-beat”, said Erica Wagner in The Times . And her compelling fourth novel is no exception: a “slender ghost story”, it is poised “between the living and the dead”. While visiting his brother Max, who has cancer, in hospital, Finn discovers that his ex-girlfriend, Lily, has died by suicide. Finn drives to her burial site, only to find her “waiting for him”: though she’s dead, and her body is decomposing, she is somehow still capable of movement and speech. “What follows is a bizarre road trip”, as they drive together to Tennessee to donate her body to medical science.

While this isn’t Moore’s best novel, “there are pleasures here for fans of her wordplay and dark humour”, said Mia Levitin in The Daily Telegraph . And beneath its jokey surface “runs an achingly poignant reckoning with grief”. It’s a novel certain “to divide people”, said Philip Hensher in The Spectator . At first, it seemed “wilful” and “self-absorbed”. But on the third reading, I found it had “an appalling power”.

Faber 336pp £16.99; The Week Bookshop £13.99

This “uproariously funny” novel by the US writer Jen Beagin is a brilliant satire on therapy culture, said Mia Levitin in the Financial Times . After breaking off a “ten-year engagement”, Greta, 45, leaves Los Angeles and moves to Hudson, upstate New York, where she takes a job transcribing for a local sex therapist. In this “tiny community”, Greta inevitably recognises the voices of people she has heard spilling their secrets; one of these is 28-year-old gynaecologist Flavia, whom Greta has nicknamed “Big Swiss”. Greta knows Flavia, a “magnetic mix of Teutonic stoicism and vulnerability”, has never had an orgasm and “finds sex with her husband a chore”. The pair “embark on a torrid affair” – though Greta doesn’t tell Flavia about her job.

There’s a “lot more cunnilingus” in this novel than I expected, said Lucy Bannerman in The Times . But it’s also a brilliant depiction of Hudson, a prosperous but “seedy” place where “corporate lawyers reinvent themselves as antique dealers”. “Big Swiss” is being turned into an HBO series, with “Killing Eve” star Jodie Comer . It’ll definitely be “worth an eavesdrop”.

HarperCollins 352pp £14.99; The Week Bookshop £11.99

“Stig Abell has such a versatile CV” – his career has encompassed both The Sun and the Times Literary Supplement, and he is now a presenter on Times Radio – that it isn’t that surprising to find him dipping a toe into “crime-writing waters”, said Andrew Rosenheim in The Spectator . What may be surprising is “how well he’s done it”.

“Death Under a Little Sky” is set in a tiny village in a nameless part of England, to which police detective Jake Jackson retires after inheriting a large house from his uncle. Initially, he leads a solitary existence, but he soon befriends Livia, an attractive local vet. When human bones are uncovered during the village’s treasure hunt, the pair investigate the mystery together.

This is a “joyful dive into the detective genre”, said Alison Flood in The Observer . Abell’s love of crime fiction “shines through, as Jake ponders what the likes of Jack Reacher might do in a messy situation”. I was charmed by the “eccentric cast of characters”; and also engrossed by the “increasing sense of menace, as Jake digs into what happened”.

Orion 304pp £9.99; The Week Bookshop £7.99

The Bulgarian author Georgi Gospodinov’s third novel – which has just won the 2023 International Booker Prize – centres on a clinic in Switzerland for patients suffering from amnesia, said Sam Sacks in The Wall Street Journal . The brainchild of a mysterious therapist called Gaustine, the clinic works by immersing its patients in the past: “each floor represents a different decade and is filled with the minutiae of the era”. The clinic proves so successful that Gaustine soon opens its doors to those who don’t suffer from memory impairment – but who simply want to escape the present. A discursive, complex novel that recalls the works of Orhan Pamuk, “Time Shelter” is “difficult but rewarding”.

“This novel could have been a clever, high-concept intellectual game with little by way of emotional investment,” said Patrick McGuinness in The Guardian . Gospodinov, though, is a writer of “great warmth”, and Gaustine’s clinic becomes the “perfect conceit” for exploring 20th century history and the power of nostalgia. Angela Rodel’s skilful translation into English means that its virtues are on “abundant display”.

Cornerstone 416pp £22; The Week Bookshop £17.99

Weighing in at more than 400 pages, Tom Hanks’s debut novel is excessively long, said Andrew Billen in The Times . But that’s its only real flaw. The story begins with “legendary director and screenwriter” Bill Johnson inviting a film reviewer named Joe Shaw onto the set of his latest project, a superhero movie called “Knightshade”. What follows is Joe’s account of the production, with every aspect of the process described in detail, from the absurd behaviour of the leading actors (one insists on sleeping in a tent) to the “ruthless euphemisms of Tinseltown”. The results are both revealing and entertaining: “there will never be a superior account” of how a blockbuster gets made.

It would be nice to see this book as a satirical tale pricking Hollywood’s “pompous self-regard”, said Xan Brooks in The Guardian . Alarmingly, though, Hanks seems to be “deadly serious”. So awed is he by the world of film that everything is a “source of endless fascination”. The result is a “bland busman’s holiday” of a novel that “can’t see the wood for the trees”.

Chatto & Windus 304pp £18.99; The Week Bookshop £14.99

Emma Cline became a 27-year-old literary sensation when her “exceptional” debut, “The Girls” – “a heady story” of a Charles Manson-like cult told through the eyes of a teenager – was published in 2016, said Emily Watkins in The Independent . In her “exquisite” second novel, Cline again tells the story of a troubled young woman – and this time the results are “even better”.

Alex, 22, is an escort and small-time confidence trickster who has alienated virtually everyone she knows in New York, said Ron Charles in The Washington Post . When the story opens, she has fled to Long Island – where she looks upon the population of wealthy holidaymakers as a “field ready to harvest”. We follow her over five days, “as she lurks around the island, appearing wherever hosts are too polite to question her presence”; an acquaintance is sending her threatening messages about the money she stole from him. Written in Cline’s “sleek, cool style”, “The Guest” is a “smouldering thriller” about desire, deception and class envy.

Cline is a writer of “unmistakeable talent”, but I found this book a big disappointment, said Ann Manov in The Daily Telegraph . In essence, it’s a “15-page character sketch stretched to novel length”. The dialogue is “painful”, the “psychology heavy-handed”, and even Cline seems bored at times: many scenes peter out “more by exhaustion than design”. I disagree, said Rob Doyle in The Guardian . “The Guest”, for me, is a “gorgeously smart affair whose deceptive lightness conceals strange depths and an arresting originality”. It can be read on many levels: as a “treatise on neoliberal precariousness”; as a study of “metaphysical estrangement”; or simply as an “elevated beach read”.

Faber 256pp £16.99; The Week Bookshop £13.99

Claire Kilroy is best known for her savage satires on contemporary Ireland, said Rosemary Goring in Literary Review . “Soldier Sailor”, her first novel in more than a decade, could hardly be more different: its subject is first-time motherhood. Narrated by an unnamed woman who describes her “earliest days” left alone with her son while her self-obsessed husband focuses on his work, this is a story of “wet wipes, teething and collapsing buggies”. If that sounds unappealing, “fear not”: Kilroy spins a “compelling tale”, one that “plumbs the depths of her narrator’s soul” while being liberally laced with humour. The novel “reads as easily as a postcard”, but manages to be “profound”.

The pleasure of this novel lies in the way Kilroy makes us see “familiar things for the first time”, said John Self in The Times . Putting a dummy in a screaming baby’s mouth is “like putting a pin back into a grenade”; a dishwasher opened mid-cycle has a “dripping metal maw, like part of a ship winched from the seabed”. Observant, witty and even “pretty pacey”, “Soldier Sailor” is “exceptionally good”.

Hamish Hamilton 256pp £18.99; The Week Bookshop £14.99

“From Dostoevsky to Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’, the doppelgänger is among the delights of literature and film alike,” said Olivia Laing in The Observer . And it’s a theme that Deborah Levy explores to striking effect in her “deeply Freudian” ninth novel. Elsa M. Anderson is a concert pianist who has recently lost her nerve and “walked off stage mid-performance” in Vienna. In the wake of this “unforgivable act”, she is “drifting around Europe”, teaching piano to the children of the wealthy. One day, in an Athens market, she spots a stranger wearing the same coat as her, and is “compelled by the sense that she is looking at herself”. Over the pages that follow, the doppelgänger reappears, as she pursues Elsa “from Athens to London to Paris”.

Levy uses the device of the doppelgänger to explore her protagonist’s self-fracturing, said M. John Harrison in The Guardian . An orphan raised by an overbearing piano teacher, Elsa has little idea who she is. Written in Levy’s trademark “quick and bare” prose, and poised “between comedy and darkness”, “August Blue” is a thrilling performance.

Chatto & Windus 352pp £18.99; The Week Bookshop £14.99

“Diana Evans’s last novel, ‘Ordinary People’, followed two black middle-class couples in contemporary London” as they “navigated the disillusionments of midlife”, said Elizabeth Lowry in The Daily Telegraph . Her new novel alights on the same four characters a few years later, all now unhappily divorced. One man, Michael, has taken up with a “sexy singer”, but still spends much of his time “yearning” for his ex, Melissa. The other man, Damian, is pursuing an “exciting single existence”, but leaves “anger and confusion in his wake”. The two women, meanwhile, are both made “distraught” by their teenage children’s problems. The message of this “compassionate and sharp” novel is that it’s dangerous to disassociate yourself from the past.

Evans occasionally strives too hard to hitch her drama to “real-life events”, said Lucy Bannerman in The Times : there are lots of “clunky” references to the Grenfell fire, Brexit and the like. “Be reassured”, however: such interruptions don’t spoil the fun. Big-hearted and often extremely funny, “A House for Alice” is a “beautifully observed” novel.

Hutchinson Heinemann 320pp £14.99; The Week Bookshop £11.99

It’s unusual to come across “a novel about the 1% that isn’t a satire or an insane potboiler”, said India Knight in The Sunday Times . But Jenny Jackson’s “blissfully enjoyable” debut is neither. Instead, it’s a story about a “family of New York property squillionaires” who happen to be “nice people”. The Stocktons are an “exceptionally tightly knit” family of five who have lived for decades in the same Brooklyn Heights brownstone. But when Chip and Tilda, the parents, decide to downsize, it triggers various family tensions that suck in all three of their adult children. A “very funny” novel about class, money, family and love, “Pineapple Street” is “one to pack for summer, whether you’re headed for the Hamptons or the Norfolk Broads”.

Whether describing the endless games of tennis the Stocktons play, or discussing the intricacies of pre-nups, Jackson chronicles their lives in “granular detail”, said Christobel Kent in The Guardian . “Minutely observed”, and “packed with one-liners”, “Pineapple Street” is a novel that largely justifies its author’s insistence that “we give the super-rich a chance”.

Faber 128pp £12.99; The Week Bookshop £9.99

Max Porter’s fourth book, set in the mid-1990s, is a “virtuosic novella that tracks a single day in the life of a troubled boy”, said Michael Delgado in Literary Review . Sixteen-year-old Shy is a resident of Last Chance, a rural home for young offenders. As the novel opens – at 3:13am – the teenager is “sneaking away”, carrying a backpack full of rocks. The narrative follows him as he walks – he’s headed for a pond – assailed by “breathless memories”. Porter’s “jagged” prose is inspired by the music of the era, specifically the drum ‘n’ bass that Shy adores. It makes for a “wonderful, troubling act of empathy”.

Like Porter’s previous books (including his prize-winning debut “Grief is the Thing with Feathers”), this slim novel deploys the “tricks and tropes” of modernism while remaining “hugely readable”, said The Guardian . Porter’s obvious love for his central character is what makes this possible. But in some respects, notably its schmaltzy ending, the novel disappoints. It’s a work of “many patches”: some “brilliantly coloured”, a few rather “bare”.

Doubleday 320pp £16.99; The Week Bookshop £13.99

Curtis Sittenfeld’s enjoyable new novel is a “love letter to the prototypical romcom”, said Scaachi Koul in The New York Times . Sally Milz, a comedy sketch-writer in her late 30s, has become “embittered by her life’s many little heartbreaks”, and doubts she will ever find love. On the show she works on (which resembles “Saturday Night Live”), “mediocre-looking” male colleagues seem able to “date way out of their league” – while the women remain single. But when an “ageing pop icon” named Noah hosts the show one week, Sally suddenly finds her heart “aflutter”. The novel becomes an exploration of whether “someone like her” (fun and intelligent, but not especially glamorous) can “bag someone like him”.

Sittenfeld’s “command of structure, pace and dialogue is faultless”, said Anthony Cummins in The Observer . This book treads “well-tilled terrain” – Covid-19, modern celebrity, the art of writing – but it does so with “panache”. An “affable and intelligently crafted tale of work and love”, this is a novel that’s refreshingly unafraid to give readers “what they want”.

Fourth Estate 304pp £16.99; The Week Bookshop £13.99

“The pandemic has prompted a spate of novels, and more no doubt will follow,” said Adrian Turpin in Literary Review . But few are likely to better capture the “strangeness” of that time than Philip Hensher’s “To Battersea Park”. This clever, original work consists of four sections, said Lucy Scholes in The Daily Telegraph . Part one follows a writer with a “striking resemblance to Hensher” who “bakes elaborate cakes” and seethes at joggers in the park. Part two widens the perspective to other characters, before, in part three, Hensher ventures into “postapocalyptic” territory, as he follows a man walking in Kent in the aftermath of a deadly “fifth wave”. The final section returns to the writer, who’s by now struggling with a bout of Covid.

This is a frankly baffling work, said Peter Kemp in The Sunday Times . The early parts are full of “grindingly dull” descriptions of everyday objects, while the futuristic “excursion” in Kent “reads like a re-casting of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” by Joe Orton on an off day”. It’s “pompous” and “off-putting”, and, by the end, strongly soporific.

Influx 276pp £9.99; The Week Bookshop £7.99

For four decades, Percival Everett has been the “unsung Jonathan Swift of modern American fiction”, churning out a series of “clever, funny and mercilessly satirical” works, said Robert Collins in The Times . His recent success with “The Trees” – a “stupendous novel” about the legacy of slavery, which was shortlisted for last year’s Booker Prize – finally brought him to wider attention. Now, he has published “Dr. No”, an “alchemical” spoof of an Ian Fleming novel that “smuggles into its harebrained pages another sly satire of race in America”.

The central character, Wala Kitu, is a maths professor at Brown University whose “speciality is the idea of nothing”, said Stuart Kelly in The Spectator . His work attracts the attention of a black billionaire called John Sill, who “offers him ludicrous sums of money” to help achieve his goal of becoming a Bond villain. Combining the “zany and the profound” in a novel isn’t easy – but Everett manages to blend ruminations on the “notion of nothingness” with a “hijinks plot”. He is an “astonishing writer” – and “Dr. No” is another “beautifully choreographed” work.

Serpent’s Tail 288pp; £14.99 The Week Bookshop £11.99

Cracking open this “classy” debut will “produce a titillating sensation familiar to viewers of the hit series “The White Lotus”, said Claire Lowdon in The Sunday Times . On page one, we learn there has been a death – and the rest of the novel follows the events leading up to it. Melanie, the narrator, is private tutor to Alex, daughter of Russian billionaires. As she tutors Alex – in the Alps, in Monaco, and on a “mega-yacht in the Maldives” – Melanie learns “a great deal” about her family. Sarah Thomas, a former tutor to the super-rich, has written a “hot holiday read to brighten up the last few weeks of winter”.

Thomas skilfully captures both the “mind-blowing excess” and “existential misery” of those who’ve won “the oligarch lottery”, said Melissa Katsoulis in The Times . Alex’s parents “live a life that most of us can only dream of”, and yet crave the “one thing money can’t buy: acceptance into old-money European society”. Eventually, their “self-hatred implodes” – and Melanie has a “ringside seat” when it does. Having lured you in with its “beach-read vibes”, Queen K ultimately proves “devastating”.

Faber 272pp £18.99; The Week Bookshop £14.99

“Some writers can tell a good story,” said Ian Sansom in The Daily Telegraph . “Some can turn a nice phrase. Some can provoke and some can soothe.” But Sebastian Barry “can seemingly do it all”. Tom Kettle, the protagonist of his latest novel, is a “washed-up” cop who lives on the east coast of Ireland, in a “run-down annexe of an old Victorian castle”. There, he dwells extensively on “memories of his beloved wife June”, until one day he receives a visit from two policemen, who invite him back onto the force for the “cold-case investigation of the murder of a priest many years before”. It sounds a somewhat pulpy set-up – “the grizzled cop back on the beat”. But there are ways “to spin such shopworn tales”, and Barry knows them all. “Old God’s Time” is a “vivid” evocation of Ireland’s recent history, with a love story at its centre and “a cast of superb tragi-comic supporting characters”.

The most striking feature of this “transcendent” novel is Barry’s total immersion in his protagonist’s “imaginative world”, said Melissa Harrison in The Guardian . The “grief-stricken” Kettle is a somewhat unreliable witness – he’s a “survivor of more than one disaster”, including abuse as a boy in a Catholic orphanage – but so masterfully does Barry evoke his “living consciousness” that the effect is “sublime, almost uncanny”. This is a masterpiece, and “I don’t expect to read anything as moving for many years”.

While “Old God’s Time” is “a powerful story”, I found it rather baffling, said Alex Peake-Tomkinson in The Spectator . For instance, various characters are “presented initially as living people”, but in fact turn out to be dead. Barry’s style can be “long-winded”, and “readers will need their wits about them to have any grasp of the plot”.

Hamish Hamilton 192pp £16.99; The Week Bookshop £13.99

Sophie Mackintosh’s third novel is “inspired by a 1951 mass poisoning in a French commune”, said Claire Allfree in The Daily Telegraph . This event, in the village of Pont-Saint-Esprit, left seven people dead and 50 in asylums, and is thought to have been caused by a local baker. Using these facts as a starting point, Mackintosh crafts a mysterious tale which centres on Elodie, the baker’s wife, and her “voyeuristic obsession” with a glamorous newcomer called Violet. A “shimmering fever-dream of a novel”, “Cursed Bread” is also “refreshing” in its brevity: at less than 200 pages, it “contains more riches than many a novel twice its length”.

The story of the poisoning was “begging to be turned into a novel”, said Jesse Crispin in The Times – but this “dreamy sapphic romp” is a big disappointment. The historical background is “left vague and incompletely rendered”, as Mackintosh focuses relentlessly on Elodie and Violet. It’s a fable, not a historical document, said Jo Hamya in The Guardian . And I thought it was “brilliant”: an “uncanny” and “quietly rich maturation of Mackintosh’s skill”.

Granta 432pp £20; The Week Bookshop £15.99

It’s ten years since, at 28, Eleanor Catton became the youngest ever Booker Prize winner for “The Luminaries”, a historical saga set in her native New Zealand. Now at last she’s back with a second book, said Shahidha Bari in the FT , and it’s quite a surprise – an “explosive” thriller about climate change and the future of humanity. Its protagonists are “eco-warriors” who plant sustainable crops on disused land, and its plot kicks off when they risk their integrity by making a pact with an “enigmatic” American billionaire who is interested in the same neglected swathe of the South Island as they are.

Catton casts a “beady comic eye” on her millennial eco-activists, said James Walton in The Daily Telegraph , with delicious observations of the egotism, puritanism and self-pity behind their ostentatious altruism. And the satire doesn’t let up when she turns to her “shadowy” billionaire, apparently inspired in part by the libertarian PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. But the book is wildly exciting too, a full-blooded thriller complete with gun-toting goons, a “Bond-style” chase and a virtuoso, pulse-racing finale.

Faber 240pp £14.99; The Week Bookshop £11.99

This “astonishing debut” will “burrow under your skin”, said Laura Hackett in The Sunday Times . Written by the London-based, Orlando-raised writer Dizz Tate, it is a tale of “toxic friendship, female rage, sexual abuse and trauma”, set in a decaying Florida housing estate, and narrated by a Greek chorus of 13-year-old girls. As it opens, Sammy – a slightly older girl with whom the chorus is obsessed – has just gone missing. As the adults search for her with torches and metal poles, it appears that the narrators “know more than they admit”.

What unfolds is a story of “grotesque horror” – one which isn’t always an “easy read”, but which is compulsive throughout. Tate is a writer with “talent in spades”, said Madeleine Feeny in The Guardian . The sense of place is “remarkable” – her descriptions of Florida are superb – and her portrait of early adolescence “feels bracingly true”. But too much is crammed into Brutes: not only a “bewildering arsenal of horror clichés”, but an increasingly “frenzied” plot. With her next novel, Tate should remember that “less is more”.

Cape 352pp £22; The Week Bookshop £17.99

Since Salman Rushdie moved to the US in 2000, his novels have fallen into two camps, said Hadley Freeman in The Sunday Times . Some (“Fury”, “Quichotte”) have been “satirical takes on modern America”; the others (such as “Shalimar the Clown”) have been “lyrical narratives about his native India”. Rushdie’s new novel, “Victory City”– his first to be published since the “brutal attack” last August that left him blind in one eye – belongs in that second group. A historical fantasy set in medieval India, it purports to be a modern translation of an epic autobiographical poem, written by a demigod named Pampa Kampana. Although packed with death and destruction, it comes across as “one of Rushdie’s most joyful” novels. It is “a total pleasure to read”.

We first meet Pampa as a (non-divine) nine-year-old, whose mother is one of many widows committing suicide on a “great bonfire along the river”, said Ron Charles in The Washington Post . As Pampa watches her mother burn, she resolves never to “sacrifice her body merely to follow dead men into the afterworld”. Instead, she tells herself, she will live to be “impossibly” old. Impressed by her defiance, a goddess gives her an assortment of magical powers. Aged 18, Pampa grows a “spectacular city” from vegetable seeds, on the spot where her mother died. This, it becomes clear, is an actual city – Bisnaga in southern India – which was the capital of the Vijayanagara empire in the 15th and 16th centuries. Pampa’s initial hope for Bisnaga is that it will become a “kind of feminist utopia” – a place of gender equality and “variegated sexual delight”. Instead, over the next two centuries, she watches her kingdom “grow and stumble” before it is eventually destroyed (as the historical Bisnaga was) by Muslim invaders in 1565.

With its “lashings of wildly imaginative, slightly bonkers storytelling”, “Victory City” is vintage Rushdie, said James Walton in The Spectator . While it has flaws – notably, a rather “repetitive” storyline – there’s something “undeniably stirring” about seeing Rushdie perform his “greatest hits with such undiminished commitment”. The best writing comes near the end, when Pampa is blinded using a hot iron rod, said Michael Gorra in The New York Times . “Victory City” was completed before last August – and so Rushdie could not have known that his own fate would be uncannily similar. It is “not the first time that he has been the Cassandra of his own fate” – and it underlines the fact that he is an author whose “work will always matter”.

Fitzcarraldo Editions 504pp £16.99; The Week Bookshop £13.99

“Imagine a Stephen King thriller hijacked by Proust,” said Lee Langley in The Spectator . Laurent Mauvignier’s “mesmerising” novel does for terror “what Javier Marías did for the spy story”. Set in rural France, it revolves around a surprise party that farmer Patrice is preparing for his wife’s birthday. Christine, their neighbour, is baking a cake when a stranger knocks on her door, asking to be shown around. She sends him away – but he returns later, no longer alone. What results is a story of “nerve-shredding tension, but related in serpentine, elegant prose”.

This is a novel that “has us reading from behind our hands, as we watch its ensemble cast stumble into catastrophe”, said Anthony Cummins in The Observer . The intruders show up early on; “400 pages of agony remain”. And it all culminates in an “extravagantly choreographed set-piece blow-out of nigh-on unbearable jeopardy”. Mauvignier is lauded in France, but not all that well known in Britain, said Susie Goldsbrough in The Times . This gory, “classy” novel should change that.

Arcadia 400pp £18.99; The Week Bookshop £14.99

Joe Thomas’s “enthralling” thriller is set in east London during the late 1970s and early 1980s, said John Dugdale in The Sunday Times . The period was marked by simmering tensions between the National Front – who’d patrol Brick Lane every Sunday morning – and minority communities and their supporters. Clearly a fan of David Peace’s “Red Riding” quartet, Thomas has followed its example in “mixing real and fictional figures and connecting politics and policing”. Among the book’s large cast are a Hackney police officer investigating a black man’s death in a police station, and Margaret Thatcher, portrayed “scheming in Opposition”.

This novel is an “admirable attempt” to capture an “ugly period of recent British history”, said Colin Grant in The Guardian . The plot is “propulsive”, and there are other good things: the “foreboding atmosphere around anti-fascist marches”; Thatcher’s “quirkily comic dialogue with her husband Denis”. But “White Riot” is let down by thin characters and clunky dialogue. It’s “painted with broad brushstrokes”; it “could have done with another coat”.

Chatto & Windus 384pp £16.99; The Week Bookshop £13.99

In this “enthralling” debut, Tom Crewe fictionalises the lives of two men who “planted the seeds” of modern sexual freedom, said Johanna Thomas-Corr in The Sunday Times . John Addington Symonds and Henry Havelock Ellis were Victorian academics whose (then) illicit desires (Symonds was homosexual; Ellis liked to watch women urinate) led them, in 1897, to co-author a pioneering textbook, “Sexual Inversion”, which aimed to present gay men as “healthy, well-adjusted individuals”. Crewe’s novelised version of their collaboration “reads a little like a Victorian take on Alan Hollinghurst’s “The Line of Beauty” crossed with E.M. Forster’s ‘Maurice’”. It will surely be “one of the most talked-about debuts of 2023”.

Full of “exquisite” writing, and “moments of furtive queer intimacy”, The New Life is an “intricate and finely crafted” novel, said Peter Kispert in The New York Times – and a “meaningful tribute” to two pioneers. The “total absence of humour” is a drawback, said Rupert Christiansen in The Daily Telegraph . But otherwise, this is a debut of “rare quality”.

Fleet 560pp £20; The Week bookshop £15.99

Deepti Kapoor’s stunning debut is “a rare case of a book bounding as high as its hype”, said Ron Charles in The Washington Post . Touted as an Indian “Godfather” – and already set to be made into a major TV series – it’s a “hypnotic story” of corruption and inequality set in the “broiling nexus” of modern-day Delhi. On page one, a horrific car crash occurs, when a Mercedes speeding through the city careers off the road and kills five people sleeping by the roadside. When the authorities turn up, they find a 22-year-old at the wheel, reeking of whisky.

What follows is a “big dynastic saga of organised crime”, in which “low life and high society” collide, said Jake Arnott in The Guardian . There are three main characters: Ajay (the drunk chauffeur), who grew up in “squalor and privation” in Uttar Pradesh; his employer, Sunny Wadia, the “playboy scion of a major criminal family”; and Neda Kapur, a journalist whose investigations into corruption are compromised when she embarks on an “ill-fated relationship” with Sunny. While the novel excels as a “commercial crime thriller”, it “deserves literary plaudits as well” – for its “lyrical touches”, its characterisation, and its “razor-sharp” social analysis.

I was less convinced, said Susie Goldsbrough in The Times . The “opening gambit” is excellent (if unoriginal), and there are some moving scenes, but overall the novel feels too much like an Indian-set “knock-off” of the “great Mob family epics”, with tinges of the HBO series “Succession”. There are the usual clichés – the over-ambitious son with “daddy issues”; the exploitation of underlings – and the plotting is meandering. “If you want an epic about modern India, read ‘A Suitable Boy’.”

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Blog – Posted on Friday, May 01

The best book review sites for enthusiastic readers.

Book lovers, stop us if you’ve heard this one before: you’ve just finished a mind-blowing book and you need to hear some discussion about it. What do you do? Dive straight into the limitless realm of the Internet and search for book review sites, of course. 

Or here’s another scenario: you’ve finished reading a novel and now you’re searching for something to fill the void. Maybe you want more of the same, or maybe something completely different to switch things up. You’ll probably also scour the Internet for ratings and trustworthy recommendations. 

Fortunately, there are endless review blogs and book review sites that you can peruse. Un fortunately, not every one of them features a wide enough variety to help you. But don’t worry: we’ve got you covered with ten of the best book review sites to satisfy the bookworm in you. If you want to cut to the chase and get a personalized pick for a book review site in 30 seconds, we first recommend taking this quick quiz:

Which review community should you join?

Find out which review community is best for your style. Takes 30 seconds!

Then read on for the full explanation of all of the best book review sites out there!

1. Goodreads 

It’s impossible not to mention Goodreads when discussing book communities: it’s the Facebook of book reviews — the ultimate social media platform for bibliophiles. If you’ve somehow managed to go this long without stumbling upon this omnipresent site, here’s the run-down: you can use Goodreads to organize, display, and discuss your virtual bookshelf with other users. 

Goodreads recommendations are based on your listed interests. You can follow authors and book influencers ranging from Celeste Ng to Bill Gates . This allows you to see all their reviews, which vary from compact one-liners to critical analysis, and watch the new reviews roll in. For a quick verdict, just take a look at the star rating that they give the book. 

Also if you like to browse lists, Goodreads compiles the best and most popular books for every genre. There’s also the annual Goodreads’ Choice Awards to celebrate each year’s new releases, where you can cast your vote or peruse the list of contenders to find a new book to read. It’s a site for every kind of reader, with abundant ways to comment and interact. 

2. LibraryThing

This is the OG of all online book catalogues and discussion boards — take a look and you’ll see that it’s an oldie but a goodie. Of course, the basic functions of LibraryThing are rather similar to Goodreads: there are millions of books that readers can add to their lists, as well as review with star ratings.

While the interface harks back to the earlier days of the world wide web, LibraryThing has a secret weapon that’ll appeal to all readers, especially modern ones: their Zeitgeist . This page displays the latest crème de la crème of the whole site, from the most popular books to the hottest reviews , which you can also write with the help of a good book review template . Just a glance shows that the readers here know how to read between the lines and wield their words!

So if you’re hoping to read or share some in-depth literary thoughts with fellow sharp-minded users , LibraryThing is the site to browse. (You can even access it without creating an account!) 

3. Reedsy Discovery 

Now, if you’re searching for some hidden gems to peruse, Reedsy Discovery ’s got your back. While our blog features everything from classics to contemporary hits, Discovery’s specialty is indie publications, many of which are accompanied with succinct comments from experienced reviewers . There’s no better way to broaden your horizon! 

Moreover, if casual and creative reviews are more your cup of tea, then rejoice: the burgeoning community of readers on Discovery can leave comments, one-line reviews, and video reviews (calling all Booktubers!) on just about any book. It’s a fun and interactive way to geek out over your favorite reads and discover all the coolest new titles you won’t find anywhere else.

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4. LoveReading 

Though it’s UK-based, this prolific site caters to audiences around the world. LoveReading is strictly a reviewing site, with a base of staff writers and carefully selected contributors, so you know the reviews are top-notch. The staff often give quite personal reading experiences in their reviews, which make their recommendations very endearing, like they’re from a close friend. They even offer you presents — well, if you think of giveaways as presents! 

LoveReading covers books from every genre you can think of. They also have weekly, monthly, and yearly list features to keep you up to date with the latest stellar releases, so you’ll never be in want of something to pore over. 

5. The Millions 

In search of reviews that really dive into the themes, metaphors, and overall executions of interesting and highbrow books? The Millions has got you covered. 

Written by a collection of seasoned critics, these reviews are speckled with memorable quotes, elegant analysis, and plentiful comparisons to other works — which means extra reading recommendations for you! If contemporary and literary fictions are your go-tos, then The Millions is the site for all your lit nerd needs. 

6. SFBook Reviews 

Those who think quantity and quality don’t go hand in hand, you clearly haven’t encountered SFBook Review . The five reviewers on the team here share two common and important goals: firstly, to follow the outpour of new titles in the sci-fi, fantasy, and horror genres every year, and secondly, to give thoughtful reviews to as many of them as possible.

This team knows their SFF niches inside out, so their verdicts are very credible. Still, their reviews are quite friendly and personal — they discuss other related books and share their reading experiences to help you make your own reading choices. 

7. Bookpage

Bookpage features all kinds of genres: from children’s books to nonfiction, from the works of household names to debut authors, and so much more. Their format is neat and straightforward — they bring you the volumes they think are most worthwhile, recommending them to you by summarizing and concisely commenting on the prose, the theme, and the plot of each chosen book.

In addition to this, Bookpage also features author interviews and articles that unearth the deeper themes and purposes of certain books. If you’re a true book lover seeking like-minded literary aficionados, this may be the perfect place for you.

8. Book Riot 

Avid readers, you’ve probably stumbled upon Book Riot more times than you can remember. While it’s not a site that individually assesses titles, it has lists for everything — from timeless literary giants to the top books in each genre. What’s more, Book Riot has lots of thinkpieces that dive deep into the way certain titles make readers feel — be it exhilarated, motivated, or enraged — and that’s really all you need to know when deciding to embark on a new reading adventure. 

Additionally, if you’d rather listen to discussions and reviews rather than read them, you'll be happy to know that Book Riot has a range of podcasts for you to choose from. 

9. NetGalley 

NetGalley is another platform bringing you new and unconventional recommendations. They specialize in connecting authors who are publishing to readers who’d like to preview and put in their two cents. While the database of books available here are not the most expansive, those that are featured are certainly worth your time. 

Readers can benefit most from NetGalley via their book recommendation site, Bookish , where the staff reviewers update you with their recent reads and in-depth thoughts on those reads. Along with that, Bookish also has book club kits, equipped with comprehension questions and discussion points, to help readers explore stories mindfully. 

10. BookBub

While it’s very similar to Goodreads, BookBub focuses more on connecting readers to books that might suit them specifically — which is partly why you’ll see plenty of bargains and deals promoted on the site.

Because of this promotional value, BookBub has quite a strong author community. Diana Gabaldon and Gillian Flynn , for instance, are constantly recommending books on their accounts. So if you’d like to tag along with your favorite author, this is an excellent website to visit. The only drawback of BookBub is that they only have community reviews from users based in the US, and you have to sign up in order to read them. 

With these ten sites, you’ll be sure to find your little community of fellow book lovers regardless of what your interests are. Here’s to exciting TBR lists and nourished minds!

If you want to try your hand at reviewing, we’ve got a little guide to help you out ! On the other hand, if you want to plough away at your books, why not consider the Kindle Cloud Reader ?

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The 13 Best Book Review Sites and Book Rating Sites

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Nobody likes to spend money on a new book only to face that overwhelming feeling of disappointment when it doesn't live up to your expectations. The solution is to check out a few book review sites before you hit the shops. The greater the diversity of opinions you can gather, the more confidence you can have that you'll enjoy the title.

Which book review and book rating sites are worth considering? Here are the best ones.

1. Goodreads

Goodreads is arguably the leading online community for book lovers. If you want some inspiration for which novel or biography to read next, this is the book review site to visit.

There's an endless number of user-generated reading lists to explore, and Goodreads itself publishes dozens of "best of" lists across a number of categories. You can do a book search by plot or subject , or join book discussions and reading groups with thousands of members.

You can participate in the community by adding your own rankings to books you've read and leaving reviews for other people to check out. Occasionally, there are even bonus events like question and answer sessions with authors.

2. LibraryThing

LibraryThing is the self-proclaimed largest book club in the world. It has more than 2.3 million members and is one of the best social networking platforms for book lovers .

With a free account, you can add up to 200 books to your library and share them with other users. But it's in the other areas where LibraryThing can claim to be one of the best book review sites.

Naturally, there are ratings, user reviews, and tags. But be sure to click on the Zeitgeist tab at the top of the page. It contains masses of information, including the top books by rating, by the number of reviews, by authors, and loads more.

3. Book Riot

Book Riot is a blog. It publishes listicles on dozens of different topics, many of which review the best books in a certain genre. To give you an idea, some recent articles include Keeping Hoping Alive: 11 Thrilling YA Survival Stories and The Best Historical Fiction Books You’ve Never Heard Of .

Of course, there's also plenty of non-reading list content. If you have a general affinity for literature, Book Riot is definitely worth adding to the list of websites you browse every day.

Bookish is a site that all members of book clubs should know about. It helps you prep for your next meeting with discussion guides, book quizzes, and book games. There are even food and drink suggestions, as well as playlist recommendations.

But the site is more than just book club meetings. It also offers lots of editorial content. That comes in the form of author interviews, opinion essays, book reviews and recommendations, reading challenges, and giveaways.

Be sure to look at the Must-Reads section of the site regularly to get the latest book reviews. Also, it goes without saying that the people behind Bookish are book lovers, too. To get a glimpse of what they’re reading, check out their Staff Reads articles.

5. Booklist

Booklist is a print magazine that also offers an online portal. Trusted experts from the American Library Association write all the book reviews.

You can see snippets of reviews for different books. However, to read them in full, you will need to subscribe. An annual plan for this book review site costs $184.95 per year.

6. Fantasy Book Review

Fantasy Book Review should be high on the list for anyone who is a fan of fantasy works. The book review site publishes reviews for both children's books and adults' books.

It has a section on the top fantasy books of all time and a continually updated list of must-read books for each year. You can also search through the recommended books by sub-genres such as Sword and Sorcery, Parallel Worlds, and Epic Fantasy.

7. LoveReading

LoveReading is one of the most popular book review sites in the UK, but American audiences will find it to be equally useful.

The site is divided into fiction and non-fiction works. In each area, it publishes weekly staff picks, books of the month, debuts of the month, ebooks of the month, audiobooks of the month, and the nationwide bestsellers. Each book on every list has a full review that you can read for free.

Make sure you also check out their Highlights tab to get book reviews for selected titles of the month. In Collections , you'll also find themed reading lists such as World War One Literature and Green Reads .

Kirkus has been involved in producing book reviews since the 1930s. This book review site looks at the week's bestselling books, and provides lengthy critiques for each one.

As you'd expect, you'll also find dozens of "best of" lists and individual book reviews across many categories and genres.

And while you're on the site, make sure you click on the Kirkus Prize section. You can look at all the past winners and finalists, complete with the accompanying reviews of their books.

Although Reddit is a social media site, you can use it to get book reviews of famous books, or almost any other book for that matter! Reddit has a Subreddit, r/books, that is dedicated to book reviews and reading lists.

The subreddit has weekly scheduled threads about a particular topic or genre. Anyone can then chip in with their opinions about which books are recommendable. Several new threads are published every day, with people discussing their latest discovery with an accompanying book rating or review.

You'll also discover a weekly recommendation thread. Recent threads have included subjects such as Favorite Books About Climate Science , Literature of Indigenous Peoples , and Books Set in the Desert . There’s also a weekly What are you Reading? discussion and frequent AMAs.

For more social media-like platforms, check out these must-have apps for book lovers .

10. YouTube

YouTube is not the type of place that immediately springs to mind when you think of the best book review sites online.

Nonetheless, there are several engaging YouTube channels that frequently offer opinions on books they've read. You’ll easily find book reviews of famous books here.

Some of the most notable book review YouTube channels include Better Than Food: Book Reviews , Little Book Owl , PolandBananasBooks , and Rincey Reads .

Amazon is probably one of your go-to site when you want to buy something. If you don’t mind used copies, it’s also one of the best websites to buy second-hand books .

Now, to get book reviews, just search and click on a title, then scroll down to see the ratings and what others who have bought the book are saying. It’s a quick way to have an overview of the book’s rating. If you spot the words Look Inside above the book cover, it means you get to preview the first few pages of the book, too!

Regardless of the praises or criticisms you have heard from other book review sites, reading a sample is the most direct way to help you gauge the content’s potential and see whether the author’s writing style suits your tastes.

12. StoryGraph

StoryGraph is another good book review site that's worth checking out. The book rating is determined by the site's large community of readers. Key in the title of a book you're interested in and click on it in StoryGraph's search results to have an overall view of its rating.

Each book review provides information on the moods and pacing of the story. It also indicates whether the tale is plot or character-driven, what readers feel about the extent of character development, how lovable the characters generally are, and the diversity of the cast.

13. London Review of Books

The London Review of Books is a magazine that covers a range of subjects such as culture, literature, and philosophy. Part of its content includes amazingly detailed book reviews. If you feel that most modern book reviews are too brief for your liking, the London Review of Books should suit you best.

You'll gain insight into the flow and themes of the story, as well as a more thorough picture of the events taking place in the book.

Read Book Reviews Before You Buy

The book review sites we've discussed will appeal to different types of readers. Some people will be more comfortable with the easy-to-interpret book rating systems; others will prefer extensive reviews written by experienced professionals.

Although it’s easy to be tempted by a gorgeous book cover, it’s always best to have a quick look at the book reviews before actually buying a copy. This way, you can save your money and spend it on the books that you’ll be proud to display on your shelves for a long time. And check out recommendations, as well, to help you find what's worth reading.

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How to Write a Book Review: A Comprehensive Tutorial With Examples

You don’t need to be a literary expert to craft captivating book reviews. With one in every three readers selecting books based on insightful reviews, your opinions can guide fellow bibliophiles toward their next literary adventure.

Learning how to write a book review will not only help you excel at your assigned tasks, but you’ll also contribute valuable insights to the book-loving community and turn your passion into a professional pursuit.

In this comprehensive guide,  PaperPerk  will walk you through a few simple steps to master the art of writing book reviews so you can confidently embark on this rewarding journey.

What is a Book Review?

A book review is a critical evaluation of a book, offering insights into its content, quality, and impact. It helps readers make informed decisions about whether to read the book.

Writing a book review as an assignment benefits students in multiple ways. Firstly, it teaches them how to write a book review by developing their analytical skills as they evaluate the content, themes, and writing style .

Secondly, it enhances their ability to express opinions and provide constructive criticism. Additionally, book review assignments expose students to various publications and genres, broadening their knowledge.

Furthermore, these tasks foster essential skills for academic success, like critical thinking and the ability to synthesize information. By now, we’re sure you want to learn how to write a book review, so let’s look at the book review template first.

Table of Contents

Book Review Template

How to Write a Book Review- A Step-by-Step Guide

Check out these 5 straightforward steps for composing the best book review.

Step 1: Planning Your Book Review – The Art of Getting Started

You’ve decided to take the plunge and share your thoughts on a book that has captivated (or perhaps disappointed) you. Before you start book reviewing, let’s take a step back and plan your approach. Knowing how to write a book review that’s both informative and engaging is an art in itself.

Choosing Your Literature

First things first, pick the book you want to review. This might seem like a no-brainer, but selecting a book that genuinely interests you will make the review process more enjoyable and your insights more authentic.

Crafting the Master Plan

Next, create an  outline  that covers all the essential points you want to discuss in your review. This will serve as the roadmap for your writing journey.

The Devil is in the Details

As you read, note any information that stands out, whether it overwhelms, underwhelms, or simply intrigues you. Pay attention to:

• The characters and their development
• The plot and its intricacies
• Any themes, symbols, or motifs you find noteworthy

Remember to reserve a body paragraph for each point you want to discuss.

The Key Questions to Ponder

When planning your book review, consider the following questions:

• What’s the plot (if any)? Understanding the driving force behind the book will help you craft a more effective review.
• Is the plot interesting? Did the book hold your attention and keep you turning the pages?
• Are the writing techniques effective? Does the author’s style captivate you, making you want to read (or reread) the text?
• Are the characters or the information believable? Do the characters/plot/information feel real, and can you relate to them?
• Would you recommend the book to anyone? Consider if the book is worthy of being recommended, whether to impress someone or to support a point in a literature class.
• What could be improved? Always keep an eye out for areas that could be improved. Providing constructive criticism can enhance the quality of literature.

Step 2 – Crafting the Perfect Introduction to Write a Book Review

In this second step of “how to write a book review,” we’re focusing on the art of creating a powerful opening that will hook your audience and set the stage for your analysis.

Identify Your Book and Author

Begin by mentioning the book you’ve chosen, including its  title  and the author’s name. This informs your readers and establishes the subject of your review.

Ponder the Title

Next, discuss the mental images or emotions the book’s title evokes in your mind . This helps your readers understand your initial feelings and expectations before diving into the book.

Judge the Book by Its Cover (Just a Little)

Take a moment to talk about the book’s cover. Did it intrigue you? Did it hint at what to expect from the story or the author’s writing style? Sharing your thoughts on the cover can offer a unique perspective on how the book presents itself to potential readers.

Present Your Thesis

Now it’s time to introduce your thesis. This statement should be a concise and insightful summary of your opinion of the book. For example:

“Normal People” by Sally Rooney is a captivating portrayal of the complexities of human relationships, exploring themes of love, class, and self-discovery with exceptional depth and authenticity.

Ensure that your thesis is relevant to the points or quotes you plan to discuss throughout your review.

Incorporating these elements into your introduction will create a strong foundation for your book review. Your readers will be eager to learn more about your thoughts and insights on the book, setting the stage for a compelling and thought-provoking analysis.

How to Write a Book Review: Step 3 – Building Brilliant Body Paragraphs

You’ve planned your review and written an attention-grabbing introduction. Now it’s time for the main event: crafting the body paragraphs of your book review. In this step of “how to write a book review,” we’ll explore the art of constructing engaging and insightful body paragraphs that will keep your readers hooked.

Summarize Without Spoilers

Begin by summarizing a specific section of the book, not revealing any major plot twists or spoilers. Your goal is to give your readers a taste of the story without ruining surprises.

Support Your Viewpoint with Quotes

Next, choose three quotes from the book that support your viewpoint or opinion. These quotes should be relevant to the section you’re summarizing and help illustrate your thoughts on the book.

Analyze the Quotes

Write a summary of each quote in your own words, explaining how it made you feel or what it led you to think about the book or the author’s writing. This analysis should provide insight into your perspective and demonstrate your understanding of the text.

Structure Your Body Paragraphs

Dedicate one body paragraph to each quote, ensuring your writing is well-connected, coherent, and easy to understand.

For example:

• In  Jane Eyre , Charlotte Brontë writes, “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me.” This powerful statement highlights Jane’s fierce independence and refusal to be trapped by societal expectations.
• In  Normal People , Sally Rooney explores the complexities of love and friendship when she writes, “It was culture as class performance, literature fetishized for its ability to take educated people on false emotional journeys.” This quote reveals the author’s astute observations on the role of culture and class in shaping personal relationships.
• In  Wuthering Heights , Emily Brontë captures the tumultuous nature of love with the quote, “He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” This poignant line emphasizes the deep, unbreakable bond between the story’s central characters.

By following these guidelines, you’ll create body paragraphs that are both captivating and insightful, enhancing your book review and providing your readers with a deeper understanding of the literary work. 

How to Write a Book Review: Step 4 – Crafting a Captivating Conclusion

You’ve navigated through planning, introductions, and body paragraphs with finesse. Now it’s time to wrap up your book review with a  conclusion that leaves a lasting impression . In this final step of “How to write a Book Review,” we’ll explore the art of writing a memorable and persuasive conclusion.

Summarize Your Analysis

Begin by summarizing the key points you’ve presented in the body paragraphs. This helps to remind your readers of the insights and arguments you’ve shared throughout your review.

Offer Your Final Conclusion

Next, provide a conclusion that reflects your overall feelings about the book. This is your chance to leave a lasting impression and persuade your readers to consider your perspective.

Address the Book’s Appeal

Now, answer the question: Is this book worth reading? Be clear about who would enjoy the book and who might not. Discuss the taste preferences and circumstances that make the book more appealing to some readers than others.

For example:  The Alchemist is a book that can enchant a young teen, but those who are already well-versed in classic literature might find it less engaging.

Be Subtle and Balanced

Avoid simply stating whether you “liked” or “disliked” the book. Instead, use nuanced language to convey your message. Highlight the pros and cons of reading the type of literature you’ve reviewed, offering a balanced perspective.

Bringing It All Together

By following these guidelines, you’ll craft a conclusion that leaves your readers with a clear understanding of your thoughts and opinions on the book. Your review will be a valuable resource for those considering whether to pick up the book, and your witty and insightful analysis will make your review a pleasure to read. So conquer the world of book reviews, one captivating conclusion at a time!

How to Write a Book Review: Step 5 – Rating the Book (Optional)

You’ve masterfully crafted your book review, from the introduction to the conclusion. But wait, there’s one more step you might consider before calling it a day: rating the book. In this optional step of “how to write a book review,” we’ll explore the benefits and methods of assigning a rating to the book you’ve reviewed.

Why Rate the Book?

Sometimes, when writing a professional book review, it may not be appropriate to state whether you liked or disliked the book. In such cases, assigning a rating can be an effective way to get your message across without explicitly sharing your personal opinion.

How to Rate the Book

There are various rating systems you can use to evaluate the book, such as:

• A star rating (e.g., 1 to 5 stars)
• A numerical score (e.g., 1 to 10)
• A letter grade (e.g., A+ to F)

Choose a rating system that best suits your style and the format of your review. Be consistent in your rating criteria, considering writing quality, character development, plot, and overall enjoyment.

Tips for Rating the Book

Here are some tips for rating the book effectively:

• Be honest: Your rating should reflect your true feelings about the book. Don’t inflate or deflate your rating based on external factors, such as the book’s popularity or the author’s reputation.
• Be fair: Consider the book’s merits and shortcomings when rating. Even if you didn’t enjoy the book, recognize its strengths and acknowledge them in your rating.
• Be clear: Explain the rationale behind your rating so your readers understand the factors that influenced your evaluation.

Wrapping Up

By including a rating in your book review, you provide your readers with additional insight into your thoughts on the book. While this step is optional, it can be a valuable tool for conveying your message subtly yet effectively. So, rate those books confidently, adding a touch of wit and wisdom to your book reviews.

Additional Tips on How to Write a Book Review: A Guide

In this segment, we’ll explore additional tips on how to write a book review. Get ready to captivate your readers and make your review a memorable one!

Hook ’em with an Intriguing Introduction

Keep your introduction precise and to the point. Readers have the attention span of a goldfish these days, so don’t let them swim away in boredom. Start with a bang and keep them hooked!

Embrace the World of Fiction

When learning how to write a book review, remember that reviewing fiction is often more engaging and effective. If your professor hasn’t assigned you a specific book, dive into the realm of fiction and select a novel that piques your interest.

Opinionated with Gusto

Don’t shy away from adding your own opinion to your review. A good book review always features the writer’s viewpoint and constructive criticism. After all, your readers want to know what  you  think!

Express Your Love (or Lack Thereof)

If you adored the book, let your readers know! Use phrases like “I’ll definitely return to this book again” to convey your enthusiasm. Conversely, be honest but respectful even if the book wasn’t your cup of tea.

Templates and Examples and Expert Help: Your Trusty Sidekicks

Feeling lost? You can always get help from formats, book review examples or online  college paper writing service  platforms. These trusty sidekicks will help you navigate the world of book reviews with ease. 

Be a Champion for New Writers and Literature

Remember to uplift new writers and pieces of literature. If you want to suggest improvements, do so kindly and constructively. There’s no need to be mean about anyone’s books – we’re all in this literary adventure together!

Criticize with Clarity, Not Cruelty

When adding criticism to your review, be clear but not mean. Remember, there’s a fine line between constructive criticism and cruelty. Tread lightly and keep your reader’s feelings in mind.

Avoid the Comparison Trap

Resist the urge to compare one writer’s book with another. Every book holds its worth, and comparing them will only confuse your reader. Stick to discussing the book at hand, and let it shine in its own light.

Top 7 Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Writing a book review can be a delightful and rewarding experience, especially when you balance analysis, wit, and personal insights. However, some common mistakes can kill the brilliance of your review. 

In this section of “How to write a book review,” we’ll explore the top 7 blunders writers commit and how to steer clear of them, with a dash of  modernist literature  examples and tips for students writing book reviews as assignments.

Succumbing to the Lure of Plot Summaries

Mistake: Diving headfirst into a plot summary instead of dissecting the book’s themes, characters, and writing style.

Example: “The Bell Jar chronicles the life of a young woman who experiences a mental breakdown.”

How to Avoid: Delve into the book’s deeper aspects, such as its portrayal of mental health, societal expectations, and the author’s distinctive narrative voice. Offer thoughtful insights and reflections, making your review a treasure trove of analysis.

Unleashing the Spoiler Kraken

Mistake: Spilling major plot twists or the ending without providing a spoiler warning, effectively ruining the reading experience for potential readers.

Example: “In Metamorphosis, the protagonist’s transformation into a monstrous insect leads to…”

How to Avoid: Tread carefully when discussing significant plot developments, and consider using spoiler warnings. Focus on the impact of these plot points on the overall narrative, character growth, or thematic resonance.

Riding the Personal Bias Express

Mistake: Allowing personal bias to hijack the review without providing sufficient evidence or reasoning to support opinions.

Example: “I detest books about existential crises, so The Sun Also Rises was a snoozefest.”

How to Avoid: While personal opinions are valid, it’s crucial to back them up with specific examples from the book. Discuss aspects like writing style, character development, or pacing to support your evaluation and provide a more balanced perspective.

Wielding the Vague Language Saber

Mistake: Resorting to generic, vague language that fails to capture the nuances of the book and can come across as clichéd.

Example: “This book was mind-blowing. It’s a must-read for everyone.”

How to Avoid: Use precise and descriptive language to express your thoughts. Employ specific examples and quotations to highlight memorable scenes, the author’s unique writing style, or the impact of the book’s themes on readers.

Ignoring the Contextualization Compass

Mistake: Neglecting to provide context about the author, genre, or cultural relevance of the book, leaving readers without a proper frame of reference.

Example: “This book is dull and unoriginal.”

How to Avoid: Offer readers a broader understanding by discussing the author’s background, the genre conventions the book adheres to or subverts, and any societal or historical contexts that inform the narrative. This helps readers appreciate the book’s uniqueness and relevance.

Overindulging in Personal Preferences

Mistake: Letting personal preferences overshadow an objective assessment of the book’s merits.

Example: “I don’t like stream-of-consciousness writing, so this book is automatically bad.”

How to Avoid: Acknowledge personal preferences but strive to evaluate the book objectively. Focus on the book’s strengths and weaknesses, considering how well it achieves its goals within its genre or intended audience.

Forgetting the Target Audience Telescope

Mistake: Failing to mention the book’s target audience or who might enjoy it, leading to confusion for potential readers.

Example: “This book is great for everyone.”

How to Avoid: Contemplate the book’s intended audience, genre, and themes. Mention who might particularly enjoy the book based on these factors, whether it’s fans of a specific genre, readers interested in character-driven stories, or those seeking thought-provoking narratives.

By dodging these common pitfalls, writers can craft insightful, balanced, and engaging book reviews that help readers make informed decisions about their reading choices.

These tips are particularly beneficial for students writing book reviews as assignments, as they ensure a well-rounded and thoughtful analysis.!

Many students requested us to cover how to write a book review. This thorough guide is sure to help you. At Paperperk, professionals are dedicated to helping students find their balance. We understand the importance of good grades, so we offer the finest writing service , ensuring students stay ahead of the curve. So seek expert help because only Paperperk is your perfect solution!

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Book Reviews

Are you looking for some good books to read? bookGeeks has one of the largest collection of Book Reviews across fiction and non-fiction genres like romance, sci-fi, historical fiction, thriller, mystery and self-help, entrepreneurship, business, travel, religion and biography. Our collection includes books written by famous authors like R.K. Narayan, Khushwant Singh, Shashi Tharoor, Devdutt Pattanaik, Amish Tripathi, Ashwin Sanghi and Anand Neelakantan. Our collection also includes many debut and first-time authors.

All our book reviews are professionally done and the methodology we follow is logical but simple. We divide our reviews into 5 categories:

1. The Plot: This is the main idea behind the book. 2. The Characters: The main actors in the books. 3. The Writing Style: The readability and language flow. 4. The Climax: The end. 5. The Entertainment Quotient: Overall enjoyability of the book.

Pyre | Perumal Murugan | Book Review

When Kumaresan marries Saroja across caste lines, they return to his village, where their love is met with hostility and suspicion. As tensions rise and the villagers’ anger grows, Saroja struggles to find her place in a world determined to reject her.

The Whistling Witch | Mayur Kalbag | Book Review

Mayur’s harmless whistle on the remote Andaman island of Phookiru awakens an ancient, vengeful witch. He and his cousin Heembra, visiting their forest ranger cousin, Raghu, must navigate age-old rituals, friendly tantrics, and mysterious customs to survive the chilling encounter with the supernatural.

Manohar Kahani | Raghu Srinivasan | Book Review

The eccentric Mehta family’s tranquil life is disrupted when NRI tycoon Bobby Chander sets his sights on their seaside resort. But Kalyani Mehta refuses to sell and Bobby refused to back down. Enter Maya, Kalyani’s con artist sister with her over-the-top and elaborate schemes. With hidden agendas and escalating tensions, will the Mehtas outwit Bobby’s relentless pursuit?

A Matrimonial Murder | Meeti Shroff Shah | Book Review

In Temple Hill, Mumbai, divorced writer Radhika Zaveri teams up with Sarla Ben, a matrimony bureau owner, for her next book. When Sarla’s employee, Hansa, is found murdered, secrets from background checks emerge. Is Hansa’s death linked to her work, or something more sinister? An unputdownable murder investigation ensues.

The Magic of the Lost Temple | Sudha Murty | Book Review

The Magic of the Lost Temple tells us about a girl named Anoushka. She lives in the big city of Bangalore but goes for a vacation to her grandparents’ house in a village named Somanahalli in Karnataka. One day, she comes across an ancient stepwell and sets off on an exciting discovery adventure. Ideal for children in the age of 7 to 13 years, the book would appeal to lovers of adventure fiction.

Lovelight Farms | B.K. Borison | Book Review

Stella Bloom’s Christmas tree farm faces disaster with dead trees, raccoon takeovers, and missing shipments. To save her farm, she enlists her best friend Luka in a fake dating scheme to win a contest. Their chemistry ignites in this charming holiday romance, blending friends-to-lovers and festive cheer perfectly.

Convenience Store Woman | Sayaka Murata | Book Review

This book unfolds the extraordinary, heartwarming tale of Keiko Furukura, a 36-year-old Tokyo resident, a strange character who is strange but sweet, weird but lovable, and imperfect but still perfect in ways that we cannot comprehend. At its core, it pays homage to individuals often overlooked or deemed “ordinary” by society.

Hanuman | Amar Chitra Katha | Book Review

Rediscover the magic of childhood with “Hanuman: The Epitome of Devotion and Courage” by Amar Chitra Katha. This 32-page book, filled with vibrant illustrations and captivating storytelling, introduces kids to the mighty Hanuman and his unwavering devotion to Lord Rama. Perfect for young readers.

Deified: The Legacy of Yesterday | Bhanu Srivastav | Book Review

Deified is a contemporary women’s fiction that weaves the tale of Saanvi, a formidable and empowered young woman. Through its compelling narrative, the novel deftly addresses the often-overlooked social issue of abuse, raising awareness about the same and opening it up for dialogue in public spaces.

Success Is Inevitable | Thibaut Meurisse | Book Review

Thibaut Meurisse’s “Success Is Inevitable” is a practical and motivational guide to achieving your dreams. It offers simple steps, powerful insights, and actionable exercises to help you define success, commit to your goals, master emotional stability, and build meaningful relationships. Transform your life and make success inevitable!

Mystic Tales of Shiva | Abhinav Choudhary | Book Review

Mystic Tales of Shiva is a short read that provides a beginner-level introduction to Lord Shiva and his world. It attempts to bring the wisdom of the Shiva Purana and distill it down for a novice reader. All of 70 pages, it is a book that can be read fairly quickly and has chapters that briefly touch on many different aspects of our beloved Mahadev.

The Greatest Battle of Culture | Panigrahi Bethi | Book Review

The Greatest Battle of Culture reimagines the clash and eventual assimilation of the Harappan and Aryan civilizations. Spanning multiple generations, this 152-page historical fiction offers a unique and unconventional take on ancient cultural interplay. The book’s simple language makes it accessible to beginner-level readers interested in historical fiction and philosophy.

Meri Jaan Azerbaijan | Anuj Tikku | Book Review

In his latest book, Tikku takes us on a memorable trip to the beautiful and picturesque country of Azerbaijan, a country that has been all the rage with Indian crowds recently, and why not? It has so many things to offer—cities soaked with culture and history, majestic and towering mountains, natural fire vents, blue seas, and gorgeous and idyllic countryside.

Dear Stranger You Deserve to Be Loved | Ashish Bagrecha | Book Review

Written in an epistolary form, this book is a non-fiction self-help comprising of a letter for each day of the month. These letters are written by the author Ashish Bagrecha and are meant to be read by readers who may be looking for some sort of inspiration, words of hope on questions and issues rather personal.

Hold On to Your Dreams | Ruskin Bond | Book Review

Hold On to Your Dreams, at about 100 pages, is a treat to hold in your hands. It is like a long letter, a letter that consists of many things – from friendly guidance to glimpses of the author’s own past, from a sneak peek into his everyday activities to the memories of his books and writings, those he read, and those he wrote.

Twelve Paranormal Tales | Amitav Ganguly | Book Review

All of 128 pages, Amitav Ganguly’s Twelve Paranormal Tales offers a quick dive into the genre of Indian horror. With most stories between 5 to 10 pages in length, it takes us on a short but unique adventure. The characters and setting in each story are different to some extent, giving us some range in the supernatural experiences and the eerie encounters.

The Library of Borrowed Hearts | Lucy Gilmore | Book Review

Chloe, a spirited librarian in a quaint town, uncovers a rare, forbidden book brimming with love notes. As she delves into its secrets, she discovers a journey of self-discovery, unexpected romance, and newfound connections with her mysterious neighbor, Jasper, unraveling the town’s hidden stories of love and loss.

The Mystery of the Graveyard Gold | Vidya V | Book Review

In “The Mystery of the Graveyard Gold,” Karthik, Aarav, and Asha stumble upon a pot of gold at midnight in the eerie Ulsoor graveyard. Their thrilling adventure to uncover the truth turns rivals into best friends, as they navigate mystery, friendship, and excitement at every turn.

The New York Times Best Sellers - September 01, 2024

Authoritatively ranked lists of books sold in the united states, sorted by format and genre..

This copy is for your personal, noncommercial use only.

• Combined Print & E-Book Fiction

134 weeks on the list

IT ENDS WITH US

by Colleen Hoover

A battered wife raised in a violent home attempts to halt the cycle of abuse; the basis of the film.

• Apple Books
• Barnes and Noble
• Books-A-Million
• Bookshop.org

50 weeks on the list

IT STARTS WITH US

In the sequel to “It Ends With Us,” Lily deals with her jealous ex-husband as she reconnects with her first boyfriend.

New this week

BORN OF BLOOD AND ASH

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

The fourth book in the Flesh and Fire series. Sera and Nyktos must prevent Kolis from destroying the realms.

ANGEL OF VENGEANCE

by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

The 22nd book in the Agent Pendergast series. A serial killer in Manhattan seems poised to outmaneuver Pendergast and Greene.

28 weeks on the list

by Kristin Hannah

In 1965, a nursing student follows her brother to serve during the Vietnam War and returns to a divided America.

• Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction

by Brian Tyler Cohen

The YouTube host and podcaster gives his take on the current state of the Republican Party.

94 weeks on the list

HILLBILLY ELEGY

by J.D. Vance

The Yale Law School graduate and 2024 Republican vice presidential nominee looks at the struggles of the white working class through the story of his own childhood.

MEN HAVE CALLED HER CRAZY

by Anna Marie Tendler

Tendler recounts events surrounding and during her time in a psychiatric hospital.

2 weeks on the list

THE ART OF POWER

by Nancy Pelosi

The representative from California chronicles her journey in politics, including her time as the first woman to serve as speaker of the House.

ON THE EDGE

by Nate Silver

The founder of FiveThirtyEight and author of “The Signal and the Noise” profiles professional risk-takers.

• Hardcover Fiction

by Danielle Steel

A book editor recognizes the trauma incurred by her partner during his military deployments and seeks to restore her sense of self.

3 weeks on the list

THE WEDDING PEOPLE

by Alison Espach

A woman who is down on her luck forms an unexpected bond with the bride at a wedding in Rhode Island.

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• Hardcover Nonfiction

21 weeks on the list

THE ANXIOUS GENERATION

by Jonathan Haidt

A co-author of “The Coddling of the American Mind” looks at the mental health impacts that a phone-based life has on children.

• Paperback Trade Fiction

167 weeks on the list

78 weeks on the list

69 weeks on the list

THE HOUSEMAID

by Freida McFadden

Troubles surface when a woman looking to make a fresh start takes a job in the home of the Winchesters.

19 weeks on the list

A COURT OF THORNS AND ROSES

by Sarah J. Maas

After killing a wolf in the woods, Feyre is taken from her home and placed inside the world of the Fae.

138 weeks on the list

Lowen Ashleigh is hired by the husband of an injured writer to complete her popular series and uncovers a horrifying truth.

• Paperback Nonfiction

71 weeks on the list

304 weeks on the list

THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE

by Bessel van der Kolk

How trauma affects the body and mind, and innovative treatments for recovery.

23 weeks on the list

THE TRUTHS WE HOLD

by Kamala Harris

A memoir by the daughter of immigrants who is currently serving as the 49th vice president and is the Democratic Party's 2024 presidential nominee.

11 weeks on the list

THE BACKYARD BIRD CHRONICLES

Essays and drawings by the author of “The Joy Luck Club” and “The Bonesetter's Daughter,” which depict a search for peace through birding.

227 weeks on the list

BRAIDING SWEETGRASS

by Robin Wall Kimmerer

A botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation espouses having an understanding and appreciation of plants and animals.

• Advice, How-To & Miscellaneous

4 weeks on the list

THE BOOK OF BILL

by Alex Hirsch

WHAT TO COOK WHEN YOU DON'T FEEL LIKE COOKING

by Caroline Chambers

247 weeks on the list

ATOMIC HABITS

by James Clear

10 weeks on the list

GOOD ENERGY

by Casey Means with Calley Means

16 weeks on the list

THE NEW MENOPAUSE

by Mary Claire Haver

• Children’s Middle Grade Hardcover

456 weeks on the list

by R.J. Palacio

A boy with a facial deformity starts school. (Ages 8 to 12)

270 weeks on the list

by Alan Gratz

Three children in three different conflicts look for safe haven. (Ages 9 to 12)

The friends Frank and Stanley give a vivid account of the Pearl Harbor attack. (Ages 8 to 12)

68 weeks on the list

THE SUN AND THE STAR

by Rick Riordan and Mark Oshiro

The demigods Will and Nico embark on a dangerous journey to the Underworld to rescue an old friend. (Ages 10 to 14)

44 weeks on the list

WINGS OF FIRE: A GUIDE TO THE DRAGON WORLD

by Tui T. Sutherland. Illustrated by Joy Ang

A deeper dive into the legends of the 10 dragon tribes. (Ages 8 to 12)

• Children’s Picture Books

17 weeks on the list

THE CRAYONS GO BACK TO SCHOOL

by Drew Daywalt. Illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

The crayons go back to school and can't wait for art class. (Ages 4 to 8)

455 weeks on the list

DRAGONS LOVE TACOS

by Adam Rubin. Illustrated by Daniel Salmieri

What to serve your dragon-guests. (Ages 3 to 5)

60 weeks on the list

THE PIGEON HAS TO GO TO SCHOOL!

by Mo Willems

Pigeon deals with the anxieties of going to school for the first time. (Ages 3 to 5)

by Peter H. Reynolds

A celebration of individuality. (Ages 4 to 8)

40 weeks on the list

TIME FOR SCHOOL, LITTLE BLUE TRUCK

by Alice Schertle. Illustrated by Jill McElmurry

Blue gives a friend a ride to school. (Ages 4 to 7)

• Children’s & Young Adult Series

151 weeks on the list

A GOOD GIRL'S GUIDE TO MURDER

by Holly Jackson

Pippa Fitz-Amobi solves murderous crimes. (Ages 14 and up)

7 weeks on the list

THE POWERLESS TRILOGY

by Lauren Roberts

A story of forbidden love between Paedyn, an Ordinary, and Kai, an Elite, in the kingdom of Ilya. (Ages 14 and up)

30 weeks on the list

THE WILD ROBOT

by Peter Brown

Roz the robot adapts to her surroundings on a remote, wild island. (Ages 7 to 12)

738 weeks on the list

PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS

by Rick Riordan

A boy battles mythological monsters. (Ages 9 to 12)

805 weeks on the list

DIARY OF A WIMPY KID

written and illustrated by Jeff Kinney

The travails and challenges of adolescence. (Ages 9 to 12)

• Young Adult Hardcover

THE GRANDEST GAME

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

A prize worth millions is up for grabs for seven players sequestered on a private island. (Ages 12 to 18)

20 weeks on the list

THE REAPPEARANCE OF RACHEL PRICE

Annabel Price's mother was presumed dead, until she reappears during the filming of a documentary about her disappearance. (Ages 14 to 17)

SUCH CHARMING LIARS

by Karen M. McManus

Two former stepsiblings unwillingly reunite and must solve a murder at a billionaire's birthday party. (Ages 14 to 17)

61 weeks on the list

DIVINE RIVALS

by Rebecca Ross

Two young rival journalists find love through a magical connection. (Ages 13 to 18)

41 weeks on the list

by Alex Aster

In this sequel to "Lightlark," Isla must chose between her two powerful lovers. (Ages 13 and up)

Weekly Best Sellers Lists

Monthly best sellers lists.

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12 best books of the year so far

Our Books Editor picks her favourite reads of 2024.

Rare Singles: 'A book of rare charm by a writer who understands the magic of music' - IAN RANKIN

Rare Singles by Benjamin Myers

Some characters get under your skin, and Earlon ‘Bucky’ Bronco, an ageing addict who once had a hit record, is one of the most memorable I’ve come across in a long time. When he's invited to a Northern Soul event in Scarborough, he meets downtrodden Dinah – his number one fan – and the two find hope in each other.

The Wedding People

The Wedding People by Alison Espach

Feeling low in the aftermath of her divorce, Phoebe checks into a hotel with the aim of ending her life. But, unbeknown to her, a wedding party has taken over the hotel and an encounter with the bride changes everything for both women. A novel that’s by turn sad, wise and mordantly funny – I loved it.

Wife: The Latest Novel From 'A Master at Family Drama' The Times

Wife by Charlotte Mendelson

When Zoe Stamper meets fellow academic Dr Penny Cartwright, she seems impossibly glamorous and successful. Eighteen years and two daughters later, their marriage has imploded. This witty, insightful novel takes the reader from the end of a toxic relationship to its beginning, and back.

Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo

Lombardo’s debut, The Most Fun We Ever Had , is an all-time favourite of mine, so I had huge expectations – and this delivered in spades. Fiftysomething Julia’s contented life is turned upside down by the reappearance of an old friend who nearly precipitated her downfall. An insightful, moving look at what it means to juggle motherhood and marriage while maintaining your sense of self.

Ordinary Time by Cathy Rentzenbrink

This compassionate portrait of a reluctant vicar’s wife who’s at a crossroads in her life touched me deeply. Ann has moved to Cornwall for her husband’s work but is struggling with the fact he prioritises his faith and flock over her and their son. The character of Ann is so well written, it felt as if I knew her, and the story has stayed with me as a result.

All the Colours of the Dark by Chris Whitaker

All The Colours Of The Dark by Chris Whitaker

Wow, what a book! This multilayered thriller manages to pull off both a twisty, race-through-it plot and wonderful characters that stay with you. Saint Brown is devastated when her childhood best friend is abducted – not knowing that when he’s finally found, nothing will ever be the same again.

Sandwich by Catherine Newman

Newman’s debut We All Want Impossible Things was one of my favourite books of last year, and I would recommend this new one just as highly. A holiday in the house on Cape Cod that her family has stayed in for years leaves fiftysomething Rocky grappling with a long-held secret. This explores the compromises of a long marriage and the bittersweetness of children leaving home.

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

The Ministry Of Time by Kaliane Bradley

I absolutely adored this time-travelling love story – it’s the perfect mix of witty, sexy and moving. In the near future, a Victorian explorer expatriated from the past is assigned to a young female civil servant to help him assimilate. When their relationship develops into romance, they’re forced to face the sinister reality of the project that brought them together.

The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes

When eldest sister Olwen goes off-grid, the other three Flattery daughters set out to find her. The new novel from rising Irish star Hughes is a thought-provoking, gorgeously written look at the meaning of sisterhood and the many ways of showing care.

You Are Here by David Nicholls

As a longtime fan of Nicholls’ writing, I had huge expectations for this book and it absolutely delivered. Michael and Marnie are two lonely people who meet on a coast-to-coast hike. Both come with a lot of baggage, but as they walk, they begin to open up to each other and develop a tentative friendship. I’m calling it now – this will undoubtedly be one of my best books of 2024.

Nuclear Family by Kate Davies

When Lena decides to surprise her twin sister, Alison, and father, Tom, with DNA testing kits for Christmas, it opens up a whole can of worms – not least concerning the identity of the girls’ biological father and whether they should try to find him. I loved this funny, thoughtful book about identity and what family really means.

Piglet by Lottie Hazell

Nicknamed for her childhood greediness, Piglet is a thirtysomething cookbook editor in the throes of planning a wedding with her wealthy boyfriend. Then he drops a bombshell and she starts to spiral. With some sublime descriptions of food, this is a quirky story of class, appetite and body image.

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Best feel-good books

8 best short books

16 best romance novels

A summer short story from Philippa Gregory

16 best fantasy books

How I write: John Boyne

Join our new book club

GH in conversation with Lucy Foley

Meera Sodha's best books

Books for fans of Bridgerton

10 best books to read now

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The Best Reviewed Short Story Collections of 2021

Featuring haruki murakami, brandon taylor, elizabeth mccracken, kevin barry, lily king, and more.

Well, friends, another grim and grueling plague year is drawing to a close, and that can mean only one thing: it’s time to put on our Book Marks stats hats and tabulate the best reviewed books of the past twelve months.

Yes, using reviews drawn from more than 150 publications, over the next two weeks we’ll be revealing the most critically-acclaimed books of 2021, in the categories of (deep breath): Memoir and Biography ; Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror ; Short Story Collections; Essay Collections; Poetry; Mystery and Crime; Graphic Literature; Literature in Translation; General Fiction; and General Nonfiction.

Today’s installment: Short Story Collections .

Brought to you by Book Marks , Lit Hub’s “Rotten Tomatoes for books.”

1. Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So (Ecco)

22 Rave • 5 Positive • 1 Mixed

“The presence of the author is so vivid in Afterparties , Anthony Veasna So’s collection of stories, he seems to be at your elbow as you read … The personality that animates Afterparties is unmistakably youthful, and the stories themselves are mainly built around conditions of youth—vexed and tender relationships with parents, awkward romances, nebulous worries about the future. But from his vantage on the evanescent bridge to maturity, So is puzzling out some big questions, ones that might be exigent from different vantages at any age. The stories are great fun to read—brimming over with life and energy and comic insight and deep feeling.”

–Deborah Eisenberg ( New York Review of Books )

2. Filthy Animals by Brandon Taylor (Riverhead)

19 Rave • 7 Positive • 2 Mixed Read an interview with Brandon Taylor here

“Taylor plays the Lionel-Charles-Sophie storyline for all its awkwardness and resentment, but it can feel like a note held too long to suspend commitment, which is the resolution we’re trained to expect … The violence is neither glamorous nor gratuitous; it is senseless without being pointless. In contrast, Taylor presents such earnest moments of vulnerability in Anne of Cleves that my breath hitched … Some writers have the gift of perfect pitch when writing dialogue; Taylor’s gift is perfect tempo. In a band of writers, he’d be the drummer who sticks to a steady moderato. He neither rushes a story to its high notes nor drags the pace so that we can admire his voice. And as a plotter, he doesn’t rely on gasp-inducing reveals … Taylor’s superpower is compressing a lifetime of backstory into a paragraph – sometimes just a sentence … I’ve come to expect, in fiction, the story of the Sad Gay Youth who is rejected by his often religious family and thereafter becomes self-destructive or reckless. And while Taylor refracts versions of this story throughout the collection, he does so without overly romanticising it … He is a writer of enormous subtlety and of composure beyond his years.”

–Ian Williams ( The Guardian )

3. First Person Singular by Haruki Murakami (Knopf)

13 Rave • 17 Positive • 7 Mixed • 5 Pan

“… a blazing and brilliant return to form … a taut and tight, suspenseful and spellbinding, witty and wonderful group of eight stories … there isn’t a weak one in the bunch. The stories echo with Murakami’s preoccupations. Nostalgia and longing for the charged, evocative moments of young adulthood. Memory’s power and fragility; how identity forms from random decisions, ‘minor incidents,’ and chance encounters; the at once intransigent and fragile nature of the ‘self.’ Guilt, shame, and regret for mistakes made and people damaged by foolish or heartless choices. The power and potency of young love and the residual weight of fleeting erotic entanglements. Music’s power to make indelible impressions, elicit buried memories, connect otherwise very different people, and capture what words cannot. The themes become a kind of meter against which all the stories make their particular, chiming rhythms … The reading experience is unsettled by a pervasive blurring of the lines between fantasy and reality, dream and waking … Most of the narrators foreground the act of telling and ruminate on the intention behind and effects of disclosing secrets, putting inchoate impulses, fears, or yearnings into clear, logical prose … This mesmerizing collection would make a superb introduction to Murakami for anyone who hasn’t yet fallen under his spell; his legion of devoted fans will gobble it up and beg for more.”

–Pricilla Gilman ( The Boston Globe )

4. That Old Country Music by Kevin Barry (Doubleday)

13 Rave • 10 Positive •1 Mixed

“There’s not a bad story in the bunch, and it’s as accomplished a book as Barry has ever written … Barry does an excellent job probing the psyche of his diffident protagonist, and ends the story with an unexpected moment of sweetness that’s anything but cloying—realism doesn’t need to be miserablism, he seems to hint; sometimes things actually do work out … Barry has a rare gift for crafting characters the reader cares about despite their flaws; in just 13 pages, he manages to make Hannah and Setanta come to life through sharp dialogue and keen observations … Barry proves to be a master of writing about both love and cruelty … Barry brilliantly evokes both the good and bad sides of love, and does so with stunningly gorgeous writing … There’s not an aspect of writing that Barry doesn’t excel at. His dialogue rings true, and he’s amazingly gifted at scene-setting—he evokes both the landscape of western Ireland and the landscape of the human heart beautifully. His greatest accomplishment, perhaps, is his understanding of the ways our collective psyche works; he seems to have an innate sense of why people behave the way we do, and exactly what we’re capable of, both good and bad.”

–Michael Schaub ( NPR )

5. Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel W. Moniz (Grove)

17 Rave • 1 Positive Listen to an interview with Dantiel W. Moniz here

“Mortality is the undercurrent in Dantiel W. Moniz’s electrifying debut story collection, Milk Blood Heat , but where there’s death there is the whir of life, too. A lot of collections consist of some duds, yet every single page in this book is a shimmering seashell that contains the sound of multiple oceans. Reading one of Moniz’s stories is like holding your breath underwater while letting the salt sting your fresh wounds. It’s exhilarating and shocking and even healing. The power in these stories rests in their veracity, vitality and vulnerability.”

–Michelle Filgate ( The Washington Post )

6. The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez (Hogarth)

15 Rave 2 Positive Read a story from The Dangers of Smoking in Bed here

“There’s something thrilling about other people’s suffering—at least within this collection’s 12 stories of death, sex and the occult. Horrors are relayed in a stylish deadpan … Enriquez’s plots deteriorate with satisfying celerity … Largely it’s insatiable women, raggedy slum dwellers and dead children—those who are ordinarily powerless—who wield unholy power in this collection, and they seem uninterested in being reasonable. And Enriquez is particularly adept at capturing the single-minded intensity of teenage girls … If some of these stories end vaguely, the best ones close on the verge of some transgressive climax … To Enriquez, there’s pleasure in the perverse.”

–Chelsea Leu ( The New York Times Book Review )

7. The Souvenir Museum by Elizabeth McCracken (Ecco)

13 Rave • 2 Positive • 1 Mixed Read Elizabeth McCracken on savoring the mystery of stories here

“Elizabeth McCracken’s The Souvenir Museum begins with one of the funniest short stories I’ve read in a long time … I had to stop reading ‘The Irish Wedding’ several times to explain to my husband why I was laughing so hard. I kept thinking: I wish I were reading a whole book about these people … they’re all beguiling … This tale, like much of McCracken’s work, captures the mixed bag that characterizes most people’s lives … McCracken’s writing is never dull. She ends this fantastic collection with a second English wedding and its aftermath, nearly 20 years after the first, delivering happiness tempered by sobering circumstances—and a satisfying symmetry.”

–Heller McAlpin ( NPR )

8. Wild Swims by Dorthe Nors (Graywolf)

13 Rave • 1 Positive Read an excerpt from Wild Swims here

“How slippery the work of the Danish writer Dorthe Nors is, how it sideswipes and gleams … The stories are vivid the way a flash of immobilizing pain is vivid … Perhaps because they’re so very short and because they mostly sketch slight interior shifts in her characters, Nors’s stories all feel a little bashful, a little tender. Surely this is intentional … Most of her stories are too short to linger deeply in time or consciousness; the characters spin back into their silence almost as soon as they emerge on the page. Nors is a master at portraying female rage, but here there is also no violent explosion outward, instead a sort of inner collapse; her characters assiduously resist confronting their fury until it rises up against them and attacks their bodies … The sense of simultaneous, furious upwelling into text and retraction into shame or reticence gives the stories a powerful undercurrent, as if they were constantly wrestling with themselves. Inherently self-contradicting, they wobble interestingly on their axes, pulled between outraged individualism and the restrictive Janteloven.”

–Lauren Groff ( The New York Review of Books )

9. Walking on Cowrie Shells by Nana Nkweti (Graywolf)

12 Rave • 1 Mixed Read an interview with Nana Nkweti here

“The pure energy of the words strikes first, the thrumming, soaring, frenetic pace of Nana Nkweti’s expression … None of these stories end with a miraculous healing. Even where revelations occur, they never erase scars. Nkweti uses genre tropes to subvert our expectations. She employs the zombie story, the fairy tale, and the confessional in order to invert conventions … The levity of Nkweti’s writing can make even passing descriptions a delight … Occasionally the writing veers into the overwrought … But the sheer speed of Nkweti’s expression allows for correction in midair, and her keen descriptive eye provides more pleasures than missteps … Her inventiveness dazzles.”

–Lee Thomas ( Los Angeles Review of Books )

10. My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson (Henry Holt)

9 Rave • 4 Positive 1 Mixed Read Jocelyn Nicole Johnson on how writing “vengeful fiction” can make you a better person, here

“Jocelyn Nicole Johnson uses history to spectacular effect in her debut fiction collection … What makes My Monticello particularly resonant is that it does not stray far from life as we know it today. In the near future conjured by Johnson, there are the heat waves and wildfires that bring climate change into view. There is fallout from a fraught election. There is the vile replacement theory rhetoric of the right wing. But the lives of Johnson’s richly drawn characters—their personal stories—are always in focus. And, because of it, the storytelling is propulsive, as we follow these refugees along a harrowing journey, with danger ever at their heels. My Monticello is, quite simply, an extraordinary debut from a gifted writer with an unflinching view of history and what may come of it.”

–Anissa Gray ( The Washington Post )

Our System:

RAVE = 5 points • POSITIVE = 3 points • MIXED = 1 point • PAN = -5 points

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