Years after a mysterious border shut Area X off from the rest of the continent, the Southern Reach research organization has sent in a dozen expeditions. When Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation opens, readers know little about the four experts making the twelfth trek. By the time the novel closes, we hardly know more, but the ride … Continue reading Annihilation: A Review
New School alum Sarah Gerard's Binary Star is a veritable unicorn --- a lyrical novel that burns brightly from start to finish. If your 25-year-old heart romanticized the worst possible courtships, then related its feelings in sharp verse, it would be a close approximation of this striking debut. Gerard's tale of a young astronomy professor's … Continue reading Binary Star: A Review
If you like stories with rough heroes, societal villains, and moral lessons on what to do after life throws you a curve ball, you can't go wrong choosing 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas. Marie-Helene Bertino weaves together three narratives and four protagonists in this tale of a fateful Christmas Eve Eve in Philadelphia. Lifehacker … Continue reading 2 A.M. at The Cat’s Pajamas: A Review
After a Lenny Letter revealed that many of the events in Jessica Knoll's debut novel were autobiographical, all eyes turned back to Luckiest Girl Alive. I can't say it's a novel I would have picked up without the hype, but I'm glad I did. Knoll's story winds so tight that it explodes in an utterly … Continue reading Luckiest Girl Alive: A Review
When important movements have broad applications, it can be difficult to craft condense, pro-position arguments. That's where We Should All Be Feminists comes in. At just 48 pages, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's essay on the ubiquitous necessity of the women's movement is a defense concise enough to slide into anyone's hand. It's difficult to understate the … Continue reading We Should All Be Feminists: A Review