Others: Positive One of the most talked about fictional debuts of recent years, WHITE TEETH is a funny, generous, big-hearted novel, adored by critics and readers alike. Dealing - among many other things - with friendship, love, war, three cultures and three families over three generations, one brown mouse, and the tricky way the past has of coming back and biting you on the ankle, it is a life-affirming, riotous must-read of a book.
Lists: …
Nick Hornby
1995 · 256 pages · 1 review
Others: PositiveNick Hornby's first novel, an international bestseller and instantly recognized by critics and readers alike as a classic, helps to explain men to women, and men to men. Rob is good on music: he owns a small record shop and has strong views on what's decent and what isn't. But he's much less good on relationships. In fact, he's not at all sure that he wants to commit himself to anyone. So it's hardly surprising that his girlfriend decides that enough is enough.
What made the match, strongest first
Yasmina Reza
2014 · 224 pages · 1 review
Others: Positive1 novel. 18 people. 18 lives. Infinite combinations: families and friends, colleagues and patients, lovers and mourners... but sometimes a crowd is the loneliest place to be. An exploration of dreams and disillusionment, love and infidelity...
What made the match, strongest first
Yaa Gyasi
2016 · 320 pages · 16 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveHomegoing is the debut historical fiction novel by Ghanaian-American author Yaa Gyasi, published in 2016. Each chapter in the novel follows a different descendant of an Asante woman named Maame, starting with her two daughters, who are half-sisters, separated by circumstance: Effia marries James Collins, the British governor in charge of Cape Coast Castle, while her half-sister Esi is held captive in the dungeons below. Subsequent chapters follow their children and following generations. The novel was selected in 2016 for the National Book Foundation's "5 under 35" award, the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Award for best first book, and was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2017. It received the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for 2017, an American Book Award, and the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature.
What made the match, strongest first
Maureen Johnson
2004 · 377 pages · 1 review
Others: PositiveThe friendship of three high school girls and their relationships with their friends and families are tested when two of them fall in love with each other.
Marlon James
2014 · 696 pages · 4 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positive"From the acclaimed writer of The Book of Night Women comes a masterful novel framed as a fictional oral history that explores the events and characters surrounding the attempted assassination of Bob Marley during the political turmoil on Jamaica in the late 1970s"--
What made the match, strongest first
John Steinbeck
1952 · 602 pages · 11 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveSteinbeck considered East of Eden to be his masterpiece. In his journal, Journal of a Novel (often read as a companion to the novel) he notes that “this is the book I have always wanted and have worked and prayed to be able to write Set primarily in the Salinas Valley in the early twentieth century, the novel traces three generations of two families – the Trasks and the Hamiltons – as they grapple with the ever-present forces of good and evil. From this plot emerged some of Steinbeck’s most fascinating characters – many of whom are modeled after people in his own life. Part allegory, part autobiography, and part epic, East of Eden was an ambitious project from the start – a gift to Steinbeck’s sons that was meant to teach them about identity, grief, and what it means to be human. Tinged with biblical echoes of the fall of Adam and Eve and the rivalry of Cain and Abel, this sprawling saga has captivated audiences everywhere for generations. It is through the popularization of East of Eden that the Salinas Valley was truly transformed into “the valley of the world”; a place where everyone is able to find a piece of themselves in the golden, rolling hills.
What made the match, strongest first
Loved itwhite teeth by zadie smith amazing family story a family saga bringing together two different immigrant families in london in the late 20th century at different times truly tragic absolutely hilarious quite powerful in its statements some of its more political statements have stayed with me for the whole of the year
