The Steady Read

Your home for book reviews, recommendations, and more

Tag: Female Author

  • Review: Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

    Review: Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

    Adichie is an author I have a great admiration for, yet I always take an incredible amount of time to get through each of her works. Her talent and slow narratives daunt and bore me at first, but I always come away wishing I had really engaged with the novel and digested it more consistently….

  • Review: All the Lovers in the Night by Mieko Kawakami

    Review: All the Lovers in the Night by Mieko Kawakami

    The last in Mieko Kawakami’s main trio of works — All the Lovers in the Night evokes much of the same emotions and motifs found within her acclaimed debut Breast and Eggs, whilst also successfully mixing in the emotional messiness of her much shorter work Heaven. The story follows Fuyoko Irie, a freelance proofreader who…

  • Review: Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

    Review: Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

    You may notice my reoccurring fondness for Japanese fiction, and novel like Convenience Store Woman are exactly why this is the case. Despite being a funny, not-too-serious story about an oddball woman who has dedicated herself to working part-time at a convenience store since she was eighteen, Murata is surprisingly talented at tackling a lot…

  • Review: Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami

    Review: Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami

    A tender, strange, and relatively short novella that explores love, age, and weirdness that forms our many life-long relationships. Following the lonesome and somewhat gloomy Tsukiko in her thirties, Strange Weather in Tokyo focuses on her deepening, almost-taboo and socially unacceptable relationship with the elderly Mr Matsumoto — nicknamed ‘Sensei’ — who taught her Japanese…

  • Review: A Place in the Woods by Helen Hoover

    Review: A Place in the Woods by Helen Hoover

    A very calming recount of a lifestyle that has continued to die out as the years go by. A Place in the Woods tells the true story of Helen and Adrian Hoover as they leave their residence in Chicago to enjoy a life in the wilderness next to Lake Superior, just after the midpoint of…

  • Review: Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

    Review: Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

    A crushing and depressing tale about humanity and war. Half of a Yellow Sun focuses on Nigeria as it is torn apart by the Biafran war in the late 1960s.

  • Review: Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami

    Review: Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami

    A somewhat pro-feminist novel with a moody edge; Breasts and Eggs stands as Mieko Kawakami’s most notable release.

  • Review: Strange Fits of Passion by Anita Shreve

    Review: Strange Fits of Passion by Anita Shreve

    A tense and passionate story, with no pun intended. Shreve’s Strange Fits of Passion was an unexpectedly good read that not only introduced me to her work, but also encouraged me to pick up a few of her other works. Set in the 1970s, the story follows Maureen, a housewife and mother, who is trapped…

  • Review: People From My Neighbourhood by Hiromi Kawakami

    Review: People From My Neighbourhood by Hiromi Kawakami

    An incredibly short, as well as utterly bizarre, collection of micro stories that push the bounds of fiction and continuity to their wit’s end. Kawakami, through a comedic and semi-sardonic tongue, paints a small world that is far from normal. Whilst I’m not one to spoil books (especially not one that barely creeps beyond a…

  • Review: Heaven by Mieko Kawakami

    Review: Heaven by Mieko Kawakami

    As touching as it is heart-wrenching, Heaven illustrates the horrors of childhood, bullying, and our fleeting attempts to love ourselves and the families that neglect us.