fiction
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Last year, biographies held my attention. I’m always eager to learn, but biographies are especially helpful when I find myself navigating the difficulties of life. Reading about other people’s lives and how they handled challenges and setbacks helps me feel less alone. This year was a tough one. The following books kept me company. Astrid
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The Far Field by Madhuri Vijay My rating: 4 of 5 stars Quietly devastating. That’s how I would sum up The Far Field. Vijay’s prose isn’t flowery or ornate. It tells the story simply, going back and forth in time as we follow the main character, as a child always close by her mother who
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And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini My rating: 5 of 5 stars This is a difficult book to describe in a nutshell. Beautifully written, but not fast-paced, it’s one you sink your teeth into and relish. Only nine chapters, but they’re long and told from different perspectives as you travel from Afghanistan to Paris
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All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr My rating: 5 of 5 stars “All the Light We Cannot See” is a rich, evocative novel set during World War II. The third person narrator primarily follows two characters: a blind French girl whose father is a locksmith at a museum in Paris, and an
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The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer My rating: 5 of 5 stars A stream-of-consciousness narrative tackling dual themes of mental illness (schizophrenia, in particular) and grief, “The Shock of the Fall” follows 19-year-old Matthew Homes as he seeks to write his story, partly on his treatment program’s computer and partly on the typewriter
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Hawkins’ words don’t paint lush portraits or jump to poetic heights. They’re too busy drawing you close to the characters, especially Rachel whose perspective begins and ends the book. As you read, you immerse into the complexity that is a human being whose past she both regrets and can’t leave behind.
Meredith Sell 