Category: Book of the Week

Coming of age stories are ripe for intense, passionate, and empowering narratives — hence why Réjean Ducharme’s novel Swallowed caught my eye. Published in the 1960s, Ducharme’s novel follows a young girl and her brother who are stuck on a secluded island with an overly-affectionate and suffocating mother. As the daughter grapples with her own…

Some books are just… interesting. There is often no other word for it than ‘interesting’, because they pique our interest. One novel that I can only use the descriptor ‘interesting’ for is Butter by Asako Yuzuki—especially because it is loosely based on a true story. Butter follows a serial killer, and gourmet cook, who is…

Debuts are always interesting, especially when the work itself is also unique or daring in some way. An Yu’s debut novel Braised Pork seems to garner a lot of praise for its originality, which makes it naturally alluring to many readers (myself included). The story is set in Beijing and follows a Chinese writer as…

Having read and reviewed her three major works, it is apparent that I am fond of Mieko Kawakami, especially her novella Heaven. So I really should be picking up her shortest translated work, Ms Ice Sandwich. From what I can understand from the blurb, it is a short and funny novella about a young man’s…

The Handmaid’s Tale is really one of those must-read books, even I know that… which really begs the question ‘why haven’t I read it, despite owning it?’ Atwood’s novel is widely praised and acknowledged as a great dystopian read set within a second American Civil War. It has a clear focus on the role and…

As I have made clear in several other posts on this website, I am a large fan of Ishiguro’s work. It’s also no secret that I lean more towards shorter fiction. So, logically, Nocturnes should be on my radar as Ishiguro’s only short story collection. The collection itself not only sports a very pretty cover…

Welcome to a new Friday series of posts! The objective of this series is to shed light on books I may plan to read because they seem interesting, but haven’t yet gotten around to enjoying. The first book I want to cover is Tish Delaney’s Before My Actual Heart Breaks, which seems to be a…