Dream Girl

by Laura Lippman

Description

How can a woman who never existed come back to haunt you?

Gerry Anderson has been having trouble sleeping. He’s unwell – bed-bound – and has only his night nurse and his personal assistant for company. But what’s really troubling him are the phone calls. Phone calls from a woman claiming to be the ‘real’ Aubrey.

But that can’t be. Aubrey’s just a character Gerry made up in a book, years ago.

Can Gerry see past the ever-blurring lines of fact and fiction and figure out who is threatening him, or has his long-overdue moment of reckoning finally arrived?

‘As if one of Philip Roth’s complicated men stumbled into a razor-sharp Stephen King plot . . . The sharpest, clearest-eyed take on our #metoo reckoning yet. Plus: enthralling.’ Megan Abbott

My Thoughts: Really enjoyed spending time with this book and its protagonist. It’s not easy being and old white man, specially not in these modern times, even more so if you’re maybe haunted by the protagonist of your most successful novel. Alternative Title: Gerry’s Women.

At the End of the Matinee

by Keiichiro Hirano

Bestselling author Keiichiro Hirano offers a timeless ode to love’s fragility and its resilience in this delicate, award-winning novel.

Classical guitarist Satoshi Makino has toured the world and is at the height of his career when he first lays eyes on journalist Yoko Komine. Their bond forms instantly.

Upon their first meeting, after Makino’s concert in Tokyo, they begin a conversation that will go on for years, with long spells of silence broken by powerful moments of connection. She’s drawn by Makino’s tender music and his sensitivity, and he is intrigued by Yoko’s refinement and intellect. But neither knows enough about love to see it blooming nor has the confidence to make the first move. Will their connection endure, weaving them back together like instruments in a symphony, or will fate lead them apart?

Blending the harmonies of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Nocturnes and the sensuality of Ian McEwan’s Enduring Love, At the End of the Matinee is an enchanting and thought-provoking love story.

My thoughts: I very much enjoyed spending time with this novel. A very calmly written grown-up novel about two people falling in love.

This is my second novel by Keiichirō Hirano and I’m already looking forward to reading the next one. His writing is very precise but still full of warmth. I’m grateful I got to read this ARC.

Heaven

A Novel

by Mieko Kawakami

Description
From the bestselling author of Breasts and Eggs and international literary sensation Mieko Kawakami, a sharp and illuminating novel about the impact of violence and the power of solidarity in our contemporary societies.

Hailed as a bold foray into new literary territory, Kawakami’s novel is told in the voice of a 14-year-old student subjected to relentless torment for having a lazy eye. Instead of resisting, the boy chooses to suffer in complete resignation. The only person who understands what he is going through is a female classmate who suffers similar treatment at the hands of her tormenters.

These raw and realistic portrayals of bullying are counterbalanced by textured exposition of the philosophical and religious debates concerning violence to which the weak are subjected.

Kawakami’s simple yet profound new work stands as a dazzling testament to her literary talent. There can be little doubt that it has cemented her reputation as one of the most important young authors working to expand the boundaries of contemporary Japanese literature.

My thoughts: I really enjoy Kawakami’s writing and I’m looking forward to seeing more of her work being published. This short novel about school bullying features strong writing, but also some tough to read passages concerning bullying

The Chosen and the Beautiful

by Nghi Vo

Description
“Like Jordan’s own paper creations, The Chosen and the Beautiful captivates with its artistry and its power.”—Helene Wecker

“Gatsby the way it should have been written—dark, dazzling, fantastical.”—R. F. Kuang

Immigrant. Socialite. Magician.

Jordan Baker grows up in the most rarefied circles of 1920s American society—she has money, education, a killer golf handicap, and invitations to some of the most exclusive parties of the Jazz Age. She’s also queer, Asian, adopted, and treated as an exotic attraction by her peers, while the most important doors remain closed to her.

But the world is full of wonders: infernal pacts and dazzling illusions, lost ghosts and elemental mysteries. In all paper is fire, and Jordan can burn the cut paper heart out of a man. She just has to learn how.

Nghi Vo’s debut novel The Chosen and the Beautiful reinvents this classic of the American canon as a coming-of-age story full of magic, mystery, and glittering excess, and introduces a major new literary voice.

My thoughts: The Greater Gatsby

Magical retelling of The Great Gatsby from the point of view of queer Asian-American Jordan Baker.
It’s as good as that sounds.

The Last Migration

by Charlotte McConaghy

Description
‘An extraordinary novel… as beautiful and as wrenching as anything I’ve ever read’ Emily St. John Mandel

A dark past. An impossible journey. The will to survive.

How far would you go for love? Franny Stone is determined to go to the end of the earth, following the last of the Arctic terns on what may be their final migration to Antarctica.

As animal populations plummet and commercial fishing faces prohibition, Franny talks her way onto one of the few remaining boats heading south. But as she and the eccentric crew travel further from shore and safety, the dark secrets of Franny’s life begin to unspool. A daughter’s yearning search for her mother. An impulsive, passionate marriage. A shocking crime. Haunted by love and violence, Franny must confront what she is really running towards – and from.

The Last Migration is a wild, gripping and deeply moving novel from a brilliant young writer. From the west coast of Ireland to Australia and remote Greenland, through crashing Atlantic swells to the bottom of the world, this is an ode to the wild places and creatures now threatened, and an epic story of the possibility of hope against all odds.

My thoughts:

Absolutely stunning novel. A deeply complex character within a melancholic but also hopeful story of a woman’s journey. This is without a doubt the book of the year for me and I will try to recommend it to anyone who loves great books.

Block Seventeen

by Kimiko Guthrie

Description:

Akiko “Jane” Thompson, a half Japanese, half Caucasian woman in her midthirties, is attempting to forge a quietly happy life in the Bay Area with her fiancé, Shiro. But after a bizarre car accident, things begin to unravel. An intruder ransacks their apartment but takes nothing, leaving behind only cryptic traces of his or her presence. Shiro, obsessed with government surveillance, risks their security in a plot to expose the misdeeds of his employer, the TSA. Jane’s mother has seemingly disappeared, her existence only apparent online. Jane wants to ignore these worrisome disturbances until a cry from the past robs her of all peace, forcing her to uncover a long-buried family secret.

As Jane searches for her mother, she confronts her family’s fraught history in America. She learns how they survived the internment of Japanese Americans, and how fear and humiliation can drive a person to commit desperate acts.

In melodic and suspenseful prose, Guthrie leads the reader to and from the past, through an unreliable present, and, inescapably, toward a shocking revelation. Block Seventeen, at times charming and light, at others disturbing and disorienting, explores how fear of the “other” continues to shape our supposedly more enlightened times.

My thoughts: Part historic impressions of life in an interment camp for Japanese US citizens, part dream like search for a mother who may or may not only exists online and part relation ship story. Very intriguing.