John Keating’s edgy first-person narrative jumps around over the decades from 1987 to 2021, studded with brilliant character sketches. Chief among them are Keating’s fellow teacher and former girlfriend, Enid Smeal, a dedicated artist with little time for personal interactions; her awkward son, Jacob; the boy’s classmate Clara Hightower, serious and calm beyond her years; […]
The titular pair have settled into second grade, but worrywart Shermy has plenty to contend with, from a substitute teacher who doesn’t follow the class schedule to anxieties about Shake’s possible upcoming move. Short sections, organized by month from December through February, contrast Shermy’s orderly nature and “fizzy and loud” Shake’s more laid-back one. On […]
In “Room,” an unnamed narrator finds herself locked inside a white room in Vienna, where she has come to finish a book, and becomes increasingly agitated. “Night,” the longest section by far, brings us another unnamed narrator in a room. This woman—a German writer—suffers from insomnia and spends her hours sifting through her own memories, […]
Raised in Denmark and shaped by a Nordic sense of stoicism and ambition, the author left home to study and build a cosmopolitan life in Toronto and New York. Beneath her successes—she had a good career, traveled, and was married—was a widening emptiness (“Happy-go-lucky was no longer my nature”). A toxic relationship and a mysterious […]
The best part of Callie McFee’s post-work evening run is chatting with Barney, an unhoused man who always sits on the same park bench on her route. Thanks to her brother, State, a local homicide detective, she’s one of the first people to hear the tragic news of her friend’s fatal shooting. Just as shocking […]
“Nothing is as it seems” is a repeated refrain in this Christian political thriller that pits Satan’s and God’s plans against each other. When Jimmy’s mother was murdered, her unforgettable last words to 11-year-old Jimmy were: “This is not the end.” Now, 17-year-old Jimmy is asked out on a date by classmate Sasha, whose senator […]
He has no idea where his brother, Sidney Bosco, has gone—with Kilt’s share of stolen money—and, following his “rebirth,” even more miseries await Kilt, who’s mauled by a lion. Passed out on his wandering mule, he’s found by Bonnie Grace, a 13-year-old Indigenous girl who nurses him back to health when not being brutally abused […]
Orion Casey lives for music, but she won’t sing in public. She developed a phobia after her frenemy, Melissa Rae, and her minions openly mocked Orion’s singing voice. So while Melissa Rae takes the spotlight in their school’s musical production, Orion is just fine working backstage. Her self-esteem gets a welcome boost from an unlikely […]
Several months have passed since Matilde, Sayer, Æsa, and Fen escaped the Red Hand, a fanatical religious cult leader, by channeling elemental magic like the Fyrebirds of old. The four new Fyrebirds are now physically and emotionally distanced, however. In the Illish Isles, Æsa secretly practices amplifying fledgling girls’ abilities and wrestles with her family’s […]
Little lamb Nathaniel is lost. He remembers wanting to play, and perhaps running away from something, but he’s not sure how he ended up in a scary castle with his wool such a dirty mess. Things get much worse, though, when a dragon shows up. It threateningly tells Nathaniel that there’s nowhere to hide, and […]