The Last Language, by Jennifer duBois: WOW. A whole gamut of emotions and responses while reading this, from intrigue to delight (at all of the linguistic tidbits) to shock to horror. I didn’t recognize the author’s name when I borrowed this; after looking her up I realized I read one of her other books, Cartwheel, and though I remember enjoying it, the experience didn’t compare to this one. Mesmerizing.
Waiting to Be Arrested at Night, by Tahir Hamut Izgil: The memoir of a Uighur poet and his family’s escape from China – difficult and important. There’s nothing flashy in his prose, but he perfectly demonstrates the quotidian torture of life as a minority under China’s current (and past) government.
Birnam Wood, by Eleanor Catton: So much of this is great. Catton’s satire has the sharpest, finest, most cutting point, and in many ways the book is quite funny. What I appreciated most, though, were the “minor” conversations between characters, those that didn’t advance the plot but which were more profound than the “big” takeaways. I did struggle with the cartoonish element of one character, and the ending left me in a bleak state.
The Snakehead, by Patrick Radden Keefe: I’ll read anything by Radden Keefe, and this was a fascinating examination immigration, corruption, human trafficking, and interconnectedness among different communities.
Penance, by Eliza Clark: I thought I would enjoy this more than I did, alas. The voice never quite landed for me, and the framing devices felt like gimmicks rather than additions that meaningfully affected the book. The story of a teenage British girl’s gruesome murder – by her classmates – this had more main characters than I could keep straight for the first half of the novel, and the ultimate narrator was unsatisfying.
