The book is set during Ash's best friend Edi's hospice stay. Far from being maudlin or cliched, the book is hilarious as well as tragic.
Ash is so incredibly real and flawed, as is the cast of rotating visitors and hospital staffers. Reading it makes you feel okay about your own questionable life decisions, if you've been reflecting on your choices, as I was when I read it, LOL! I didn't want this book to end as much as I didn't want Edi's life to end.
“Catherine Newman sees the heartbreak and comedy of life with wisdom and unflinching compassion. The way she finds the extraordinary in the everyday is nothing short of poetry. She’s a writer’s writer—and a human’s human.”—New York Times bestselling author Katherine Center
“A riotously funny and fiercely loyal love letter to female friendship. The story of Edi and Ash proves that a best friend is a gift from the gods. Newman turns her prodigious talents toward finding joy even in the friendship’s final days. I laughed while crying, and was left revived. Newman is a comic masterhand and a dazzling philosopher…
This is a book about shenanigans within the publishing industry, and every industry insider, myself included, has been passing it around, loving the super sharp, super-cutting satire.
It takes on issues of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation, as well as social media. It's the most incisive critique of the industry I've ever read. R.F. Kuang has created a fantastically un-self-aware narrator, and the book is as hilarious as it is smart.
As well, the tension is impeccably built; I was on edge all the way through to see just how far the narrator would go to keep what she thought she deserved and then what would happen when it inevitably all came crashing down...
The No. 1 Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller from literary sensation R.F. Kuang
*A Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick*
'Propulsive' SUNDAY TIMES
'Razor-sharp' TIME
'A wild ride' STYLIST
'Darkly comic' GQ
'A riot' PANDORA SYKES
'Hard to put down, harder to forget' STEPHEN KING
Athena Liu is a literary darling and June Hayward is literally nobody.
White lies When Athena dies in a freak accident, June steals her unpublished manuscript and publishes it as her own under the ambiguous name Juniper Song.
Dark humour But as evidence threatens June's stolen success, she will discover exactly how far she…
This is a sequel to a book I loved very much, Rooster.
This one is about a memorial trip taken to Paris by the family featured in Rooster, now grieving its matriarch, who never got to the city of light. As you probably sussed out in my bit about We All Want Impossible Things, I adore books about questioning main characters and chosen families and love and identity.
I'm a YA author who writes about those things, and in the adult books I read for pleasure, I look for those same elements. In Coq, characters once again question their decisions, and also, nothing goes as planned, which I love. (Because really, when does it ever?)
Finally, tone-wise, it has the mix of serious and funny I adore, evident in all my choices.
From Leacock finalist Ali Bryan, a witty and immensely fun dramedy about a family's memorial trip to the City of Love, where chaos ensues at every turn.
It's been ten years since Claudia's mother died after a tragic collision with a banana boat. Her kids are now teenagers, her brother's wife has left him, and her ex has had a spiritual awakening that has him hinting at reconciliation -- all things she can handle.
But when her septuagenarian father decides to remarry after a brief courtship with a woman who is decidedly different than their mother, the entire family is…
Is it asking too much to live a typical twelfth grade existence? Kelsey Kendler just wants to earn some money for university, hang out with friends, maybe even snag a boyfriend. But her pill-popping mom and distant dad scare off anybody she tries to bring home, making those last two things feel impossible.
Her part-time ice cream shop job’s a slog, but at least there, she can escape her parents’ constant fighting … until the COVID-19 pandemic forces a lockdown and she’s stuck at home with them 24/7.
As the lockdown takes its toll on Kelsey’s mental health, she starts to see the appeal of her mom’s pills. She hates what they do to her mom, but numbing herself to the world seems like a pretty good idea right about now. Horrified to find herself following in her mom’s footsteps, she can only hope she’ll eventually figure out some other way to cope …
