Arlene Mckanic

In Claire Jia’s incisive and witty debut, former best friends Lian and Wenyu are reunited when Wenyu returns to Beijing for her engagement party, setting the two down a reckless path.

Wanting by Claire Jia has an overall rating of Positive based on 3 book reviews.

Catherine Dang’s What Hunger is a disturbing and compelling pleasure in the vein of films like Jennifer's Body and Raw.

In this companion to The Lesser Bohemians, Eimear McBride shows us imperfect people who are nevertheless both courageous and vulnerable.

In Quan Barry’s The Unveiling, a group of Antarctic castaways hide terrible secrets, and even the ice itself has ghastly history buried within it.

C.J. Farley’s Who Knows You by Heart follows the exploits of the sharp and indomitable Octavia Crenshaw, a Black coder who goes to work for a tech giant called Eustachian.

One of the pleasures of slender but well-written books like The Old Fire, by Elisa Shua Dusapin, is the opportunity to focus on the quotidian, whether it’s regional French cuisine or the daily exchanges of sisters.

Lily Brooks-Dalton doesn’t just know how to craft a gripping story. She knows much about archaeology, enough to make Ruins a puzzle that rewards attention.

Xochitl Gonzalez’s straightforward prose downplays its subtlety and brilliance, and she is Whartonesque when it comes to describing the folkways of a particular group of people at a particular time.

Whistler is exceptional: a reminder of how some people in your life may cause you pain, but if you love them, and they love you, that’s enough.