Book Reviews

I am Book Reviews Editor for The Sunlight Press, where I’ve contributed reviews of fiction and nonfiction books since 2017.

Lincoln In The Bardo by George Saunders

Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders’ highly anticipated first novel, tries to answer two big questions. How does a parent go on living after the unimaginable loss of a child? And where do we go, what happens to us, after we die?”

The Wonder by Emma Donoghue

“I am not one of the millions of readers who made Room a bestseller. My only prior introduction to Emma Donoghue’s work was Astray, a charming collection of historical travel stories inspired by real events. The Wonder, Donoghue’s latest novel, is also historical and fact-based. Set in mid-nineteenth century Ireland, not long after the potato famine, The Wonder is a story of two heroines: Anna O’Donnell, an eleven-year-old who claims to subsist only on “manna from heaven,” and Lib, one of two nurses hired to watch Anna for a fortnight to determine if her claims are truthful.”

Swing Time by Zadie Smith

“‘Intersectional’ is a popular adjective in contemporary political discourse, especially feminist theory. It simply means the study of overlapping identities and it’s a theme in all of Zadie Smith’s work. Swing Time, her fifth novel, is the finest rendering yet of Smith’s intersectional vision.”