Category: family-life
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A while ago, I had tried to read The Women, also by the same author, but I had to drop it at just around the 15%-20% mark. There was just something that bugged me. This turned out to be the flat and uninspiring writing. It just felt like a chore to read, and I was…

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Of the many historical fiction novels I’ve read, I don’t believe I’ve read one set during WWII in Malaya. The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan piqued my interest with its positive reviews, beautiful cover, along with it being a literary novel based on espionage and how it can tear a normal family apart. Upon…

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The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky is a Russian literary novel first published in 1880. The version I’ve read, newly translated in 2024, is from Michael R. Katz. I first heard of this novel after having read The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong, in which the main character attempts to read the hefty novel.…

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The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong is a literary fictional novel set in a town called East Gladness in Connecticut. The novel depicts a boy on the verge of ending his own life by jumping off a bridge when he’s saved unexpectedly by an old lady. The story tackles issues such as poverty, drug…

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The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt is a coming-of-age fiction novel that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2014. It’s a wonderful novel but one that requires patience, being that it is over 700 pages long. It explores the grief and sadness of a young boy as he is forced to grow up having lost his mother…

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Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy is a literary novel set entirely on a remote island where a family of four has been tasked by the government to safeguard and protect the seeds of the many species of plants and flowers known to man. The idea is that with climate change getting worse, the planet…

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Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a literary fiction novel about four women, around middle-aged and with African heritage, and the exploration of their dreams and what it means for them to be successful based on how they perceive life. It’s an expansive book that explores many themes. This is my first book from…

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There There by Thomas Orange is a contemporary novel surrounding a dozen or so members of the Native community and how their lives will inevitably be intertwined and affected. There There, unfortunately for me, is one of the worst novels I’ve fully completed in a while. There are just so many things that I did…

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The God of the Woods by Liz Moore is a psychological criminal and mystery thriller novel. With over 30k+ reviews on Amazon sitting at 4.5 stars along with high praises from practically everyone in the literary world, I couldn’t wait to begin. Upon taking just a few days to complete, I can confidently add my…

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A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy by Nathan Thrall goes over a tragic bus accident in Jerusalem in which aboard were many kindergartner children. Having won the 2024 Pulitzer prize in the General Non-Fiction category, the book obviously has a lot to live up to. Although the main…
