For Readers: Gina

This very inward journey of a female college student as she meets a boy who has Confessions of St. Augustine on his bedside table and falls more in love with his quirky friend group is not overly plot-heavy but never feels dull or slow. They are taking a 17th century lit course so there are plenty of moments where they are discussing larger ideas and authors. It turns into a beautiful look at friendship and grief as we age; the final third made me ugly sob. This felt like a companion piece to King's earlier novel Writers and Lovers.

This is a layered literary mystery akin to Trust (Diaz) or Possession (Byatt) although the reveals in this novel aren’t as shocking or twisty. Tom, a literature scholar, is dedicated to researching famous poet Francis Blundy who read a poem dedicated to his wife Viviene at a birthday party. This poem was never published or found so Tom is obsessed with searching through correspondence and journals from the people attending the party that night to see if there are any clues to where that manuscript might be hidden. McEwan gives this scholarly mystery a fresh twist in that Tom lives in the 22nd century (2119) and Francis Blundy delivered his poem in our modern day (2014). It becomes an interesting perspective on how history is shaped by what is left behind and how people have viewed past generations. Tom does make a discovery, finding a purposefully hidden journal that sheds the birthday party and poem in a different light.

The School for Good Mothers meets Black Mirror/Minority Report. I’m still processing this quietly powerful book after finishing it. This character-focused dystopian novel takes place in a world where the technology is similar to what we have now but slightly more advanced. Everyone is assigned a risk score which looks at your background and current actions (through facial recognition) and even your dreams to determine how likely you are to commit a crime. Anyone with a score over 500 is detained until evidence can be reviewed. Sara, a young wife and mother, is traveling home from a work conference when she is pulled aside for having a risk score of 518. The book opens on her life in the retainment center where she lives with other women hoping to repeal their sentence. Despite the technology being slightly more advanced this is a very timely book dealing with topical issues like privacy (would you get an implant that would allow you to get refreshing sleep every night if it meant that your dreams could be tracked and used against you as evidence?), AI, and unfair detainment or imprisonment (and the conditions of prisons).

This is a much more linear novel than some of Vuong's previous works but with his signature beautiful prose. From the opening pages of Hai standing on a bridge contemplating jumping, being saved by an older woman who spots him from her window, I was hooked. Hai chooses to stay with the old woman Grazina and be her live-in nurse because no one else will do it and I loved their dynamic as well as Hai’s experience working in a local fast food place called HomeMarket (that specializes in Thanksgiving dinner). Upon finishing, I really loved how Hai mostly interacts with people on the fringes of society that others devalue (older people, homeless, and people down on their luck who eat every night at HomeMarket) and, of course, examines all the weight and wonder of being human.

I devoured this emotional read in just two sittings and was oblivious to everything going on around me. Set in the summer of 1961 in the Dutch countryside, this follows Isabel, who lives in her mother’s country house. It’s a precarious situation because the house is promised to her brother Louis, if he ever should want it, so she lives in fear that her home will be taken from her. When Louis shows up with his new girlfriend Eva, and has Eva stay at the house for the summer, uptight lonely Isabel is watching her every move. So much of this reminded me of Call Me By Your Name and even if this book ended in the same way, I would have been completely satisfied (if not heartbroken). However, there is the tiniest scrap of information we learn that changes the way we view everything and I was breathless for the last third. Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction and the Booker Prize.

This Roman-inspired academic fantasy had me absolutely hooked; I think it’s the closest thing I have read to one of my favorite fantasy books The Name of The Wind. I love an interesting and unique magic system and, in this book, powerful magic wielders have people under them bending their will to them; the higher you are ranked, the more people you have giving you their will to power your magic. The shape of the story is familiar: an orphan named Vis (who tries to conceal how smart he is) attracts the attention of a powerful senator named Ulciscor, who adopts Vis and sponsors him to attend the elite Academy so Vis can basically find out who really killed Ulciscor’s brother. Vis is not at the academy to make friends but rather to advance to a higher class so he can more easily get the information he is there for but I still loved when Vis makes friends.