Elif Shafak’s There are rivers in heavenAlexis Pauline Gumbs’ Survival is a promise: The eternal life of Audre Lordeand Moon Unit Zapas Earth to the Moon They are all among the best-reviewed books of the week.
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fiction
1. There are rivers in heaven by Elif Shafak
(Button)
7 Rave • 4 Positive • 1 Mixed • 2 Pan
“The risk with multiple overlapping narratives is that the reader may become more engrossed in a single one. The pace of the longer descriptive passages is slower than that of the character-based sections, but no less powerful or imaginative… This novel moves between continents, centuries, cultures and communities with intelligence and ease. Shafak raises big ideas around artifacts and the ownership of cultural heritage and handles them delicately… A celebration of the power of language.”
–Henrietta McKervey (The Irish period)
2. Sacrificial animals by Kailee Pedersen
(St. Martins Publishing)
4 enthusiastic • 2 positive
“Pedersen conveys a sense of doom, building tension and anticipation… Pedersen weaves together eerie phrases from archaic language, and the novel develops a gruesome, unsettling energy as the author reveals its connection to Chinese mythology… The novel’s final pages are a wild rush of beauty, vengeance, and viscera.”
–Heather Scott Partington (The Los Angeles Times)
3. The Volcano Daughters by Gina María Balibrera
(Pantheon)
2 enthusiastic • 3 positive • 1 mixed
“This is an epic story, a remarkable achievement for an author making her first foray into the literary landscape. Balibrera displays a fearlessness that is rare… This is not a perfect novel. Too many minor characters are introduced with much pomp throughout the story, never to appear again. The ending seems rushed, as if the Furies have suddenly been released and cannot decide which direction to go. But these are mere blots on a richly drawn canvas. What emerges triumphantly from Balibrera’s pages is, above all, a gifted new storyteller with a flair for history and an astonishing imagination.”
–Marie Arana (The New York Times Book Review)
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Non-fiction
1. Survival is a promise: The eternal life of Audre Lorde by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
5 enthusiastic • 3 positive
“An unabashed celebration of Lorde… There is no room in this book for Lorde’s mistakes; she is a goddess, an avatar, an icon. But as an introduction to Lorde’s poetry, Gumbs’s compelling, in-depth reflections create a virtuous circle, shedding light on how life produced the poems that now elucidate that life… Gumbs honors Lorde’s desire for a comprehensive legacy.”
–Ayten Tartici (The New York Times Book Review)
2. From the Earth to the Moon: A Memoir by Moon Unit Zappa
(Dey Street Books)
3 enthusiastic • 4 positive • 1 mixed
“For such a thoroughly disheartening saga, Earth to the Moon is somehow an incredibly entertaining read. This is due in no small part to the prose… It finally emerges to claim its own narrative. And what a narrative it is.”
–Nick Duerden (The Guardian)
3. The Slow Road North: How I Found Peace in an Unlikely Land by Rosie Schaap
(Sailor)
4 Raves
Read an excerpt from The slow road to the north Here
“Schaap’s prose is characterized by well-crafted, even sublime sentences, erudite literary references, and sharp, black humor… Lively… A patient book, extraordinary as Schaap shows us what brings her joy after so many years of grief. You will find a bracing dose of grace in these pages.”
–Ann Neumann (The New York Times Book Review)
