Others: Overwhelmingly positive "In a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet-- sensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a furtive love affair, and are soon cloistered in a premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city. When it explodes, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts, they begin to hear whispers about doors-- doors that can whisk people far away, if perilously and for a price. As the violence escalates, Nadia and Saeed decide that they no longer have a choice. Leaving their homeland and their old lives behind, they find a door and step through. [This book] follows the couple as they emerge into an alien and uncertain future, struggling to hold on to each other, to their past, to the very sense of who they are."--From regular print book.
Genres: fantasy, romance, literary fiction
Lists: …
Kevin Wilson
2019 · 254 pages · 12 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveLillian and Madison were unlikely roommates and yet inseparable friends at their elite boarding school. But then Lillian had to leave the school unexpectedly in the wake of a scandal and they’ve barely spoken since. Until now, when Lillian gets a letter from Madison pleading for her help. Madison’s twin stepkids are moving in with her family and she wants Lillian to be their caretaker. However, there’s a catch: the twins spontaneously combust when they get agitated, flames igniting from their skin in a startling but beautiful way. Lillian is convinced Madison is pulling her leg, but it’s the truth. Thinking of her dead-end life at home, the life that has consistently disappointed her, Lillian figures she has nothing to lose. Over the course of one humid, demanding summer, Lillian and the twins learn to trust each other—and stay cool—while also staying out of the way of Madison’s buttoned-up politician husband. Surprised by her own ingenuity yet unused to the intense feelings of protectiveness she feels for them, Lillian ultimately begins to accept that she needs these strange children as much as they need her—urgently and fiercely. Couldn’t this be the start of the amazing life she’d always hoped for?
What made the match, strongest first
Ruth L. Ozeki
2013 · 480 pages · 4 reviews
Others: Mostly positiveIn Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there's only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates' bullying. But before she ends it all, she plans to document the life of her great-grandmother, a Buddhist nun who's lived more than a century. A diary is Nao's only solace. Across the Pacific a novelist living on a remote island discovers artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox and is pulled into Nao's drama and her unknown fate. (Bestseller)
What made the match, strongest first
Han Kang
2014 · 221 pages · 4 reviews
Others: Mostly positiveIn the midst of a violent student uprising in South Korea, a young boy named Dong-ho is shockingly killed. The story of this tragic episode unfolds in a sequence of interconnected chapters as the victims and the bereaved encounter suppression, denial, and the echoing agony of the massacre. From Dong-ho’s best friend who meets his own fateful end; to an editor struggling against censorship; to a prisoner and a factory worker, each suffering from traumatic memories; and to Dong-ho's own grief-stricken mother; and through their collective heartbreak and acts of hope is the tale of a brutalized people in search of a voice. An award-winning, controversial bestseller, Human Acts is a timeless, pointillist portrait of an historic event with reverberations still being felt today, by turns tracing the harsh reality of oppression and the resounding, extraordinary poetry of humanity.
What made the match, strongest first
Emily Habeck
2023 · 416 pages · 2 reviews
Others: Mostly negativeFor Lewis and Wren, their first year of marriage is also their last. A few weeks after their wedding, Lewis receives a rare diagnosis. He will retain most of his consciousness, memories, and intellect, but his physical body will gradually turn into a great white shark. As Lewis develops the features and impulses of one of the most predatory creatures in the ocean, his complicated artist’s heart struggles to make peace with his unfulfilled dreams. At first, Wren internally resists her husband’s fate. Is there a way for them to be together after Lewis changes? Then, a glimpse of Lewis’s developing carnivorous nature activates long-repressed memories for Wren, whose story vacillates between her childhood living on a houseboat in Oklahoma, her time with her college ex-girlfriend, and her unusual friendship with a woman pregnant with twin birds. Woven throughout this heart-wringing novel is the story of Wren’s mother, Angela, who becomes pregnant with Wren at fifteen in an abusive relationship amidst her parents’ crumbling marriage. In the present, all of Wren’s grief eventually collides, and she is forced to make an impossible choice.
What made the match, strongest first
Ann Patchett
1997 · 357 pages · 1 review
Others: PositiveWhat is to become of a magician's assistant without her magician? This is the question Sabine asks herself after the death of Parsifal, the magician she worked with for more than twenty years and her husband for only a few months. Parsifal loved men, especially Phan, and though Sabine loved Parsifal, she contented herself with his friendship. Now Parsifal and Phan are both gone, and Sabine is left with full responsibility for their possessions and their histories. Always the assistant, her life is still defined by service to Parsifal. But in the world of illusion Sabine has occupied for her entire life, things are rarely what they seem. According to Parsifal, he had no living relatives. Now, with his death, comes the news that he has a mother and two sisters living in Alliance, Nebraska. Inevitably, the strangers will meet and Sabine will be carried away from her beloved Los Angeles to seek the truth of Parsifal's past in the bitterly windswept steppes of Nebraska in winter. It is here that Sabine will learn the truth about Parsifal's father, which lies at the heart of his son's abandonment of his family and of his identity. As the members of Parsifal's family turn to Sabine for help, she realizes that she is something of a magician herself. In this newfound strength Sabine may at last find the kind of love she had always been denied.
What made the match, strongest first
Louise Erdrich
2017 · 288 pages · 3 reviews
Others: PositiveThe world as we know it is ending. As Cedar Hawk Songmaker goes back to her own biological beginnings, society around her begins to disintegrate, fueled by a swelling panic about the end of humanity.
What made the match, strongest first
Loved itI would recommend Exit West. This is a 2017 release. It follows a couple also with very strong personalities. though they most of the book they are living and actively fleeing from a war torn country and trying to find somewhere to be.
Loved itan excellent speculative fiction story with a very unusual writing style ... very good it was like my first read of 2023 and it was amazing
Loved itI really like Exit West I don't even know where my copy is, I actually bought a copy. I could buy another one. It's not a big deal.
Loved itThis book is really, I think, unexpected. It doesn't go where you think it's going to go and I just found it to be completely, completely moving.
