contemporary | Mijnsite

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

The Fiction Fox

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

The Fiction Fox

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

The Fiction Fox

Review: Maybe the Body: Poems - Asa Drake

Genre: Poetry Published: Tin House, February 2026 My Rating: 4/5 stars “Beloved, if I titled this poem My Mothers America, would it contain her mother? And how long before you know the urgency of this sentence is lost” Maybe the Body is a debut poetry collection by Filipino-American author Asa Drake, that centers themes of belonging, nature-vs-nurture and body, alongside undertones of political dissonance and predator-prey-dynamics in our everyday lives. I was positively sur

The Fiction Fox

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

The Fiction Fox

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

The Fiction Fox

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

The Fiction Fox