Book Reviews
CategoryAudiobook review: Naoise Dolan’s “The Happy Couple” revives the quarter-life crisis
Audiobook narrators Ayoola Smart and Ben Seymour play it bone-dry. The characters strain to find joy in life, and so too does the listener.
Audiobook review: Patrick Stewart’s “Making It So” blasts into warp
The “Star Trek” actor’s memoir is carefully judged, richly detailed, often very funny, and — as one would hope — captivatingly performed.
Audiobook review: In Daniel Kraus’s “Whalefall,” it’s a long way down
This audiobook does indeed convey the sensation of being jammed inside an ailing sperm whale. If only it unfolded in real time.
Audiobook review: “Hollywood Wives” at 40
While the foibles of Jackie Collins’s characters remain recognizable, the world they lived in is long gone.
Audiobook review: Kate Flannery’s “Strip Tees” gives American Apparel a dressing-down
The author narrates her own account of years working at American Apparel during the company’s hipster heyday.
Audiobook review: “Where Are the Children Now?” Great question, glad you asked.
‘Where Are the Children Now?’ is suspenseful, sure, but it never generates nearly as much steam as the harrowing original.
Audiobook review: “Big Swiss” is an affair to remember
Jen Beagin’s new novel follows a self-loathing character into a dishonest affair, yet it’s surprisingly charming and empathetic.
Audiobook review: Maya Phillips on her life as a proud “Nerd”
“Nerd” constitutes an argument for the power of imagined universes, and for the importance of remaining critically engaged.
Book review: Frances Kai-Hwa Wang’s “You Cannot Resist Me When My Hair Is In Braids”
This is a work of mature consideration, of hard-learned truths: a highly specific personal history, situated in a broader historical context.
Audiobook Review: Jill Gutowitz’s “Girls Can Kiss Now” Is a Bingeworthy Essay Collection
Jill Gutowitz both celebrates the rapid rise in pop-culture queer representation and chronicles how very, very late that’s been in coming.
At 100, “Babbitt” Is Still Incisive
Sinclair Lewis’s novel remains essential as a razor-sharp — and highly entertaining — critique of a social system built to buttress Babbitts.
Audiobook Review: “Falling” Finds Terror In the Skies
Like its pilot hero, this debut novel by former flight attendant T.J. Newman makes a promise and aims to keep it.