fiction review
BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / ‘Huckleberry Finn’ through the eyes of Jim
Everett’s breezy, fast-moving retelling of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) is about putting in some due respect.
BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / All our heroes end up dead
Review of ‘The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida’ (Sort of Books, 2022) by Shehan Karunatilaka
BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / It’s summer, it’s New York, and the girls are dressed up (and broke)
Happy Hour greeted me like a warm hug. This is definitely one of the sweetest books I’ve read this year, and possibly one of the sweetest books I will ever read.
BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / Agonies of the downtrodden
Anasru Ishwar written by Kazi Labonno is an impressive work of fiction, shedding light on the deepest gloom pervading the remotest corner of society.
BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / Mermaids are real: A story of the Haenyeo
Dear readers. I want you to do something with me. Take three long breaths—as deep as you can. Now hold it for two minutes! How long did you hold? I only survived one minute and 23 seconds. And I’m used to spending time in the water.
BOOK REVIEW : FICTION / Riding the early years of motherhood through ‘Soldier Sailor’
While reading it, one might feel that they are reading a mother’s confessions while she takes care of her son.
BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / A “knockout” debut from Rita Bullwinkel
The eight girls in Headshot clearly hope to escape the chaos of their lives in the ring.
BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / 'Prophet Song': Full of sound, fury, and significance
The 309-page-long dystopian novel is an oppressive account of Eilish who tries to keep her family from falling apart as everything around her crumbles.
BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / Otherness and invisible identities
'The Hippo Girl and Other Stories' holds up a mirror to a society that judges and ridicules those that do not adhere to its shortsighted vision of a homogenised culture.
The ethics of ghostwriting in fiction
Ghostwriting is not new, and Millie Bobby Brown is not the first celebrity to hire a ghostwriter. But, soon after she published her book, she came under fire for using one.
Learning to let go
As the novel progresses, you peel back layers of history between Claire and her grandparents and realise that the Korea issue isn’t as straightforward as our protagonist imagined.
Discovering something not-so new with ‘The Turtle of Oman’
The melancholic, tuned nostalgia of finishing a journey was being caressed by the soft yet upbeat rhythm of the journey coming forth.
Human virtue questioned in the not-so-small things
At a time when everyone is grappling with financial instability while combating the icy spree, Bill is grateful enough to have survived another year with his wife Eileen and five daughters.
Keep your secrets close and your tech support closer
Addison Square is one of those hidden enclaves where well-heeled Londoners tuck themselves away to create bubbles of “civilised life” from which they can exclude the riffraff surrounding them in the mega-city they call home.
In search of lost eden
From the beginning we see Benjamin Honey, the patriarch of the island, longing to return to his past, in a garden, the Eden of his childhood where he reminisces about being with a woman who might or might not have been her mother.
Despair and death in ‘Truth or Dare’
Bangladeshi literature in English has had a considerably late start compared to its South Asian counterparts in India and Pakistan. A few exceptions aside, a consistency came to be seen only by the early 2010s.
A masterful portrait of normalised misogyny and sexism
Award winning Irish writer Claire Keegan is a master of short fiction. Her previous novel, Small Things Like
The complete works of Mahmudul Haque: The chorus of a unique sun
Mahmudul Haque was a writer who championed the modern and independent stream of Bangla literature.
Love, lies and loneliness
The very first time I came across a description of this book, previously published under the title The Nigerwife (Atria Books, 2023),