★★★ – Page 8

Other-Wordly: Words Both Strange and Lovely from Around the World

by Yee-Lum Mak, Kelsey Garrity-Riley (Illustrations)

★★★

Sultana’s Dream: A Feminist Utopia and Selections from The Secluded Ones

by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain

★★★

Pachinko

by Min Jin Lee

The first third was easily engrossing. It was refreshing to learn about the history of Ikuno and about the Korean diaspora in Japan. The formula of family sagas is difficult to escape though. The older generations stoically live through readable hardship, while the younger generation is spoiled … Read more

Wildcard

(Warcross #2)

by Marie Lu

★★★

Picture Us in the Light

by Kelly Loy Gilbert

** spoiler alert **

The Bluest Eye

by Toni Morrison

★★★

The God of Small Things

by Arundhati Roy

Kerala and nearly all of the characters expand into three dimensions in a story that weaves between past and present and addresses class and patriarchal structures, colonialism, family dysfunction, and the beats of a butterfly’s wing. It’s cluttered however with poetic turns of phrase that founder and repeat … Read more

Dear Fang, With Love

by Rufi Thorpe

★★★

Girls Burn Brighter

by Shobha Rao

The story in Indravalli blooms, unique to the setting, with a persuasive love anchoring Poornima and Savitha amidst poverty and patriarchal oppression. The titled theme however, despite being drummed at the reader, begins to lose coherence after successions of misery are planted along the pages. Savitha especially has … Read more

Difficult Women

by Roxane Gay

A collection of marriage- and baby-normative stories with nearly identical protagonists. All formidably written of course.

The Mill on the Floss

by George Eliot

★★★

The Ultimate French Review and Practice

by David M. Stillman, Ronni L. Gordon

There is a lot of practice as advertised but it’s not a fun language learning resource for review. If you do learn well through steady homework, all the exercises have an answer key in the back. There is also a useful list of idiomatic … Read more

We Love You, Charlie Freeman

by Kaitlyn Greenidge

★★★

Villette

by Charlotte Brontë

Full chapters in half a thousand pages aggravatingly steeped in Christian patriarchy, with moderate compensation in a playfulness of language. Lucy must perform for and soothe a domineering, needling, petty, and creepily hovering M. Emanuel, who at a switch is transformed into her life’s hero.

Double Cup Love

by Eddie Huang

★★★

Binti

(Binti #1)

by Nnedi Okorafor

★★★

The Witch and Other Stories

by Anton Chekhov

Incidentally, my favourite short stories by Chekhov are not found in this collection. They are: “At Christmas Time”, “The Horse-Stealers”, and “A Nincompoop”.