As I've written before, at times poetry seems like the most intimate of art forms; sometimes it can feel like you're being let in, allowed into someone's deepest thoughts. Morgan Parker's stunning collection invites the reader to acknowledge her perspective as a Black American woman. In sitting down to write this, I cracked open the book again, and found myself an hour later having re-read nearly the entire collection. I found new things that I hadn't noticed previously, and clever structures that I enjoyed even more the second time around. The words felled me again into deep reflection on this country, its history, white men, and my role. Parker's point of view is important and too little experienced. I loved the wordplay and time spent grazing poems like "Magical Negro #80: Brooklyn" (like a prayer) and "Matt" (the last lines of "Matt," wow). The whole collection is powerful, and I highly recommend it.

(I fear this was a good book read among many Great Books recently and context always matters when reading.)

Lu Rile is a famous artist—now. But she had to make a decision decades ago that cost her a lot, and made her career. In the '90s, she's living in a pre-gentrified, dilapidated apartment in Brooklyn. She takes a self-portrait every day in her place, and one day the camera clicks exactly when a figure falls behind her, just outside the window.

Lyon's debut novel impressed me a great deal in all that was managed here: questions about art and the provenance of greatness, a non-sympathetic protagonist whose motives you would probably understand if you were in similar circumstances, and even a slip of a ghost story. There's a lot to ponder, and I'll surely be awaiting her next book.

I've read Chee's entire oeuvre this year, chronologically reverse. I was dazzled by THE QUEEN OF THE NIGHT, felt the tenderness in the words of HOW TO WRITE AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOVEL, and then this book haunted me, made me wince, made me clutch myself, as if I was hugging the protagonist, Fee, when distraught.

A true achievement in words and story; I know I'll one day read this again and understand even more layers of Chee's emotionally dense writing. I think that's part of the wonder of it; there's so much more there to dig into beyond the surface. The architecture of the tunnels of Edinburgh a metaphor for a lot in the novel, but also the structure of the book itself.

I highly recommend all of Chee's work; I feel I've probably said this a lot in this space, but I'll never stop saying it. I don't think there's ever a 'wrong' way to take in any work of art, so read his first book first, or perhaps leave it for last like me. Like I did with Ferrante recently, I've found there's something to be said for reading a debut after the rest. It feels like an origin story for what you've already experienced. The operatic arcs, the symbols, the themes honed in on down the line; discovering they existed in more raw form previously.

I don't think I can pick a favorite of his works, they've all spoken to me so profoundly in different ways and rhythms. But I'm eager for more.

I'm not particularly interested in or fond of drug cartel narratives associated with Central American countries—that's just me. However, Contreras' choice to tell this Escobar-era story via the perspective of two girls in Colombia allayed my hesitance about reading this. The book is remarkable for how the two girls are very young, yet distinct and fully realized characters in Chula and Petrona. There were truly frightening sequences, all the moreso for being based on actual incidents. My only complaint was how distant their voices sometimes seemed for a story told in first-person; it didn't feel intimate. It made me wonder if it was difficult to write this fiction from personal history, to give voice to your own former self, and to try to do the same with someone you knew, but didn't inhabit in the same way.

FRUIT OF THE DRUNKEN TREE is a beautifully rendered historical fiction book, earnest and compelling and exploring well-tread ground in a new way. We rarely get this perspective, if ever. I look forward to more of Contreras' wonderful prose after such a strong debut.

This was one of those books that I would not have picked up if it wasn't included in the Tournament of Books summer tournament. I was game, however, since I've seen some of the author's clever turns of phrase on Twitter over the years. And that cleverness was immediately evident in the writing: it sparkled, it felt effervescent, as the story began with one Bertha Truitt.

The reader comes upon Bertha in a Massachusetts graveyard in 1900ish, where she has little memory of her life before that moment. She is a driving force—to all the people she encounters, and to the story. When her character becomes secondary to a whole cast of others (she's connected to all of them), the narrative suffers in terms of my interest. The writing remained wonderful and witty, but I really didn't care about some of characters that populated the second half of the book when there were rich characters we only saw wisps of, namely LuEtta Mood and Minna Sprague. McCracken also manages to interweave real and weird history throughout the book; I would pause my reading to research certain things to see if they were fiction, but in most cases, they were based on actual events.

It didn't win its perplexing match-up against DAISY JONES AND THE SIX in #campTOB, and I understand why: it was difficult to want to return to this once Bertha's larger-than-life character is relinquished to make room for others. McCracken does great work in allowing Bertha to loom over the events the follow, and I admired the ending. I also admired how McCracken wove a serious tale with humor and freak accidents and truths about families and history. I look forward to whatever McCracken writes next!

A precisely told, emotional, and intimate journey. When I say emotional, I mean: I found myself crying intermittently while listening to this during my public transit commute. The power in this small novel comes from that concise narration, and uttered wonderfully in the audiobook by Andrews. The narrator's best friend and Marine colleague, Eden, lies in a hospital bed years after a bombing injured him during deployment. The narrator lost his life in the bombing, but he's still watching the unconscious Eden, and Eden's wife Mary, as she grapples with the current state of her marriage, life—and the past that brought them to current circumstances.

There were so many beautiful scenes; and most were morbid, too. I think there's something special about the ability to create beauty out of morbidity. There is so much I remember, and hold on to, from reading this: the white room, the cockroach, Eden's skin, the boy on the plane, the out-of-focus Christmas tree, Andromeda, the cell phone, the tattoo, the first sentence that echoes through the rest of the book, the END END END.

The sadness edged towards horror, and you'll understand why when you read it, though it spoke to some of my personal fears. It was described so elegantly my brain could hardly choose between the senses of heartache or fright. Perhaps its only weakness is some of Ackerman's rendering of Mary; the living, surviving Mary. A gorgeous novel, nonethless.

Perhaps, read none of this. Read nothing about this book. Just pick it up—but finish it! Or, make it beyond Part I. Trust Choi, the title asks it of you.

It's difficult to write this review and dance around what happens; it's a gamble that Choi takes within its pages and that adventurous attempt landed for me. And yet, this novel will not work for everyone. Structurally, it asks a lot.

But! Perhaps? Maroon yourself with Choi's teenagers in a Houston-area performing arts high school. Wade through their morally murky activities among themselves and with the adults in their lives. You'll cringe more than once; you may laugh, too. The words have a way of cutting. The narrative will contort until you're not sure what's what, and, remember my favorite quote so far this year: "a reader does not need to know everything." (INSURRECTO!) In some aspects, TRUST EXERCISE is an absolute absurdist book, and yet the truth that teems from the absurdity is recognizable to any one who understands power dynamics.

More than anything, you won't be able to let go of this book; it'll leave you stranded at the end, with an itch to start it again, parched and seeking anyone who can help you parse the truth from fiction within a fiction that might even walk that tightrope of autobiographical, but who's to say? Well, the readers can interpret as much or as little as they want. Try it out, or stay away. The more curious and open the reader, the more one may enjoy. Or not!

A book of essays full of quiet but powerful observations. My copy has a lot of dog-ears and underlines, and I read it slowly and methodically because it seemed the best way to take in Chew-Bose's meditations. The title comes from a musing of Virginia Woolf's, and it's the perfect encapsulation of this book's vibe. It's all about Chew-Bose specifically, but her thoughts on inner life could speak to any reader. She's an introvert and bookish, and also a new term for me: a nook person. I think I may be one, too.

Some of the best parts of her essays were reflecting on her parents, her maternal lineage, being a daughter, and growing up in Canada with a name that signals her Indian heritage (or, a foreign heritage). That particular essay, "D as In" was a favorite of mine: "...I am first-generation and, in turn, proficient at splintering who I am in order to accommodate everyone else's environment."

I'm happy to have had time with this gem; it made me slow down and observe just a little bit more.

At times, this title felt like it was stalking me or hunting me down. I remember hearing about it years ago, someone (I can't recall who) enthusiastically recommending it to me. I marked it as to-read in 2014. I purchased the NYRB edition last year, along with her book of essays, SEDUCTION AND BETRAYAL, which I read last August and loved. I'm not sure why it took me so long to read her novel. But it creeped in on me. Lauren Groff wrote an entire NYTimes essay in praise of it last summer. It would come up occasionally in literary articles. And then when I was reading one of Durga Chew-Bose's essays, the title surfaced again. I knew, then, it was probably time to take on SLEEPLESS NIGHTS.

And as I started reading it, it became clear that this novel published in 1979 likely inspired a lot of books I love today. Books I read just earlier this year. The roaming of one's memories, the descriptions of people who come in an out of one's life, the peculiar moments that seem autobiographical (the main character's name is Elizabeth, after all), and the non-plot-driven narrative. A friend pointed distinctly to Rachel Cusk's OUTLINE, and I wholeheartedly agree. I see shades of similarities in the musings and structures of THE FRIEND by Sigrid Nunez and MOTHERHOOD by Sheila Heti, too.

Yet, Hardwick's novel still feels singular. Her writing is concise and crisp in description, and I paused a lot to re-read some of her beautiful sentences. Hard to describe her style in a way that does it justice, honestly. It's a book that came to me at the exact right time, I think, and I believe that I will find myself lost in the slim volume again in the future.

I'd tried one TJR book last year and was disappointed in its plucky love story wherein all three characters of the love triangle were pretty and perfect and...boring. It just wasn't for me. Then I read DAISY JONES AND THE SIX in February and thought, hm, this is decidedly different. Upon completing it, I put the oft-raved-about EVELYN HUGO on hold and when it came through, I expected something frothy, fun, and, honestly, mindless. Well, this is why I try not go to into books with any expectations. Because there I was, surprised to find myself deeply in love with this book.

TJR has a talent for creating an undeniably entertaining reading experience. She's not poetic in her prose or doing anything particularly new, but she's really fucking great at plotting and revealing the story methodically to the reader for maximum enjoyment. She's a playful and propulsive author.

The titular character commissions a young journalist to write her tell-all memoir as she reflects on a long life in the spotlight as a Golden Age Hollywood actress. Evelyn details a lot to Monique, a person with her own fleshed out interior, wondering how she got this lucky, once-in-a-lifetime story. There are layers here to each of the characters, and I loved getting to know these women. As someone who grew up reading my grandmother's celebrity biographies, I loved the shades of true Hollywood lore and scandal that made its way into this delicious fictional tale (Rita Hayworth, Liz Taylor, ~that scene from Don't Look Now~, etc. etc. etc.). That said, the book is wholly original, and explored facets of being a person that I didn't think I'd encounter in a TJR novel. Like that ol' saying: I laughed, I cried.

Also, maybe I applauded a little bit with that last line. Was the whole book a set up for it? Brava.