Thank you to Scribner for the Advanced Book Review!

Painful yet beautiful, Jesmyn Ward's newest novel depicts what it means to become a woman when your soul.is owned by someone else. To own your truth and power, to build your inner strength, to draw upon your built environment. Ward takes an unflinching look at the particular cruelties of the Southern Plantations, especially in New Orleans, while continually celebrating the enduring spirit of the free Black woman. The element of the supernatural added another layer of complexity- how grief and tradition can both support us and restrict us from accessing our truest selves. What I loved the most was the vivid descriptions of nature. This is a book that will stay in your soul for a long time.

Whew! This books is a slow burner but the last few chapters truly stay in your mind. In the midst of the current situation in Israel, Mohammed's work provides a beautiful, stirring portrait of a Muslim Somali man falsely accused of, and executed for, murder. Definitely worth a read!

As much as I tried, this book was not my speed. The pacing was so fast and there were so many characters, I found myself drowning in the mind of Maali Almeida.

Thank you to Harper Collins and NetGalley for the Reader's Copy!

Now available.

Unsettling, timely, and psychologically thrilling, Ruman Alam's Leave the World Behind is a book unlike any I've read so far this year. Centering around a typical American family, Amanda and Clay take their teenage children for a vacation on Long Island. However, their blissful relaxation time is abruptly disturbed when there is a sudden announcement of a total cellular blackout and an older couple appears who claim to own the vacation property. Under these unusual circumstances, the two families must figure out how to work together and trust one another in order to survive in a new world.

What I appreciate the most is also what frustrated me the most about this piece - Alam's writing style. With an omnipresent narrator, it is difficult to become truly engaged with the story and with the characters. I always felt at arms length when I wanted to be right there with Amanda and Clay as they navigated these dubious moral and ethical decisions. The themes are reminiscent of last year's thriller Bird Box with Sandra Bullock in that people quickly adapt to unusual, post-apocalyptic worlds.

Overall, an entertaining read!

I really enjoyed the sweetness and tenderness in this story, especially the way Gurnah approaches the love affair between Afiya and Hamza.

I'll say this is not my favorite Zadie Smith novel. However, I do not think the book necessarily deserves the bad reviews it has been receiving. To me, Smith was trying to mimic the form of the Victorian era novel while also critiquing its vapid presentation. I especially enjoyed the end of the novel where we get to see the protagonist, Eliza, actively challenged in her role as a white woman feminist by Henry, Bogle's son.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the Advanced Reader's Copy!

Having worked with Maurice Carlos Ruffin during my time at LSU, I was ecstatic to pick up a copy of American Daughters. What I loved most about this novel is the way Ruffin returns agency to Black enslaved women. There is just so much love and resistance in this novel, from Ady's brave forage into the woods to Lenore's fierce independence. I loved how Ruffin complicates our understanding of this period of history by returning agency to historical figures who are often viewed as passive and submissive. The whole idea of an underground spy system led by Black women is amazing! The pacing and the shift from historical fiction to thriller to futuristic academic text kept the text interesting, though the shift could be jarring at times. I liked the inclusion of "real" historical texts between the chapters as a subplot in itself. Overall, this was a dynamic, fun, and uplifting read!

This was truly a behemoth of a novel! Following the four members of the Barnes family, Paul Murray's latest novel mainly focuses on the impact of the recession on the Irish middle class. The story is told in distinct sections that mirror each family member's preoccupations and actions. I was most hooked on PJ's section, as it reminded me a lot of Murray's novel, Skippy Dies. I also thought the Cassie section was interesting, it was reminiscent of UK show Skins. The Imelda section really frustrated me with the lack of sentence structure. I wasn't fully sure why, halfway through the novel, we lost all sense of grammar. It was very disorienting, which I suppose could be the point. Ultimately, I enjoyed most of the sections in this book, but as a whole, I do not see how it was better than Murray's existing work.

Thanks to FSG & NetGalley for the advanced reader's copy!

I came to this book because I loved the way Amitav Ghosh is able to interweave several different histories together. I stayed for the political commentary on the opioid pandemic. Although many Americans consider the opioid crisis to be a modern crisis, Ghosh patiently walks us through the vast history of opium - from its origins in the fields of India to the British & American colonization of the drug to the Opium Wars in China to the modern crisis today. Along the way, we also see the influences of Chinese culture on both American and Indian lives today and vice versa. I greatly wished the copy came with the images Ghosh outlines, but I was able to visualize the cultural exchange in my mind. This is a very well researched and fascinating book, especially for readers who enjoy tracing objects to their origins!

Thank you to Knopf Doubleday and NetGalley for the Reader's Copy!

If you had one wish, what would you wish for? For the characters in Deena Mohamed's graphic novel, Shubeik Lubeik, this question is not hypothetical. Living in an alternate reality Cairo, Aziza, Nour and Shokry each grapple with their deepest desires as they each get offered one First Class wish. Along the way, we see how wealth inequity, colonialism, and beaurcracy shape this world. The illustrations are breathtaking and I love the level of thought and detail went into imagining this reality. One of the my favorite books this year, hands down!