Literary Fiction

Welcome reader!

Thank you for visiting my little corner of the internet. Consider it my virtual book-lair where I talk about the books I read, and invite you to join me in that converstation. Feel free to browse around!

One Leg on Earth - 'Pemi Aguda

Genre: magical realism Published: W. W. Norton & Company (print) & RB Media (audio) My Rating: 4.5/5 stars "This state of pregnancy is not so different from what we’re doing here. We’re gestating a city, Yosoye. Soon we will birth greatness. Isn’t it all creation? Isn’t it all holy work?" There’s an interesting microtrend of “women walking into bodies of water” going on among spring 2026 releases. In March, we had Westward Women by Alice Martin, in which women were drawn towa

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Review: An Impossibility of Crows - Kirsten Kaschock

Genre: horror Published: University of Massachusetts Press, March 2026 My rating: 5/5 stars "No matter what it’s meant to grow, a lab works on principles of limitation and elimination, defined by what it excludes. Like the barn where I kept Solo. Like the house where I was kept. Isolation is a tool of analysis. It is not a state to maintain indefinitely." It’s been almost two months and a partial reread, and I still cannot find the words to do justice to the way I admired and

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Review: The Weathering - Artem Chapeye

Translator : Daisy Gibbons (Ukrainian -> English) Genre: Speculative Fiction, Dystopian Published: Seven Stories Press, April 2026 My Rating: 4/5 stars "The weathering away of every person is a weathering away inside everyone left behind. Any man’s death diminishes me." With echoes of The Road and Roadside Picnic , and clear resonance to recent history, The Weathering is a Ukrainian-set dystopian novel that feels timely and timeless at the same time. The Story: A young U

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Review: Counting Backwards - Binnie Kirshenbaum

Genre: Contemporary Fiction Published: Soho Press, March 2025 My Rating: 1/5 stars "You look at him, puppy-eyed. At this man who looks like Leo, but isn’t Leo and want to say “my husband always kept pens in his pocket too. I miss you already.” I thought long and hard on how to rate this novel. What I eventually ended up with was the longest review I've ever written, and a rating of a single star. Although it has a bunch of redeeming qualities, which I will address below, I u

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Eco-fiction-February – 3 Tales of Nature and Transformation reviewed

During the past month, I’ve been on a bit of an eco-fiction-kick, picking up stories that deal with environmentalism, nature vs humanity, and growth and transformation in various ways. Today, I want to combine 3 recent releases- each with their own spin on this theme – and review them side-by-side. From young-adult horror to literary fiction with a speculative twist; modern eco-fiction has something for everyone. Despite the fact that I didn’t rate any of these books very hig

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Review: Eradiction - Jonathan Miles

Genre: Eco-fiction, novella Published: Quercus Books by Riverrun, February 2026 My Rating: 4/5 stars “Nature doesn’t give a fuck.” Eradication is an apt eco-novella with a strong undercurrent of grief and morality, both personal and with regard to the larger world around us. We follow Adi, a former jazz musician-turned-schoolteacher, as he accepts a curious “eco-conservation” job on the tiny, isolated Pacific Island of Santa Flora. Here, armed with nothing but survival gear

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Review: Hemlock - Melissa Faliveno

Genre: literary horror, gothic, queer Published: Little Brown and Company, January 2026 My Rating: 5/5 stars, first favourite of 2026 "Because no matter how far you run, she knew—no matter how hard you try to shed your old skin and become something else—the place you come from stays with you. It always calls you back." The second I finished Hemlock , I realized two things. First, this was going to be a marmite-book that I won’t be able to recommend to just any wide audience.

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Review: Mass Mothering - Sarah Bruni

Genre: literary fiction Published: Henry Holt and Co, February 2026 My Rating: 2/5 stars Framed as a story within a story, Sarah Bruni has crafted a tale of motherhood and power disparity, that unfortunately didn’t click with me. We follow A., an unnamed translator, living alone in an unforgiving, late-capitalist metropolis. She is still recovering from a medical trauma that took her reproductive organs, and spends her days nannying for another woman’s boy and her nights out

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Review: It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over - Anne De Marcken

Genre: Literary Fiction Novella, Magical Realism, Post-apocalyptic. Published: New Directions (US)/ Fitzcarraldo Editions (UK) , March 2024 My Rating: 1/5 stars "That was the future. This is now. The end of the world looks exactly the way you remember. Don’t try to picture the apocalypse. Everything is the same." I wanted to love this novella so bad. A magical realism story of an undead woman, tracking across a desolate landscape with a crow living inside her chest, explori

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Review: The Merge - Grace Walker

Genre: Science Fiction Published: Mariner Books, November 2025 My Rating: 2/5 stars “I knew that she was right. She would forget me. but perhaps I could make sure of it; even long after she was gone, the world would never forget her.” It took me a while to put my thoughts to paper, as this book gave me the biggest whiplash I’ve experienced in a long time. For the first half or so, it was on a five-star-course. I absolutely loved the ideas this book engaged with, and was hook

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Review: The Extremities - Samantha Kimmey

Genre: Literary Fiction, Disability/Illness Published: October 2025 My Rating: 2/5 stars ‘I was fearful of disturbing it, like the disorder was some animal that would go berserk if it realised it was confined in the cage of my body.’ One day at work, a young newspaper reporter is suddenly struck with a mysterious pain in her hands that renders her unable to type. A string of doctors offer her a string of diagnoses, ranging from carpal tunnel, to arthritis, to her body’s way o

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