This is one of those books that you feel like you’re living in, with the characters becoming your friends and the things they do (in this case, creating amazing-sounding video games – and I’m not even a gamer) as tangible as if they really exist.
I especially loved that the relationship between the two main characters is a friendship, a complicated one which evolves in a natural, believable way (though I also adored the love interest, who is just wonderful).
I also give it lots of extra points for centering a smart, confident, complex woman in STEM – and for taking on the challenges of working in a male-dominated world while not making it the main feature of her character.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow takes us on a dazzling imaginative quest, examining identity, creativity and our need to connect.
This is not a romance, but it is about love.
'I just love this book and I hope you love it too' JOHN GREEN, TikTok
Sam and Sadie meet in a hospital in 1987. Sadie is visiting her sister, Sam is recovering from a car crash. The days and months are long there, but playing together brings joy, escape, fierce competition -- and a special friendship. Then all too soon that time is…
At
first glance, this book is not my thing at all: it is very conceptual, very
fantastical, and has a second-person narrative voice. But I’m a well-behaved book-club
member, so I cracked it open and was blown away from the very first page.
This
is superb, beautiful, masterful writing. It’s writing that makes you want to go
back to school so you can have another go at learning how to do it yourself.
Read it to remember that a good sentence is a thing of beauty, to learn a bit
of Sri Lankan history – and for a laugh too, because it’s very funny!
Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida-war photographer, gambler, and closet queen-has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the serene Beira Lake and he has no idea who killed him. In a country where scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers, and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts with grudges who cluster round can attest. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has seven moons to contact the man and woman he loves most and lead them to…
Demon Copperfield was my third Kingsolver, and I find her more amazing with each one.
Her books take place in completely different settings, and they are all meticulously researched but don’t come off as history lessons. And she approaches difficult topics – here, the opioid crisis in the American Midwest – with warmth, openness, and a shining sense of humor.
She does this by illustrating different sides of the topic with a cast of characters that are rich, distinct and real, and writing in all shades of grey: generous with everyone, but also not letting anyone off the hook. I read the last few pages of the book in a café, which was a bad idea as I couldn’t stop crying!
Demon's story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, looking 'like a little blue prizefighter.' For the life ahead of him he would need all of that fighting spirit, along with buckets of charm, a quick wit, and some unexpected talents, legal and otherwise.
In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty isn't an idea, it's as natural as the grass grows. For a generation growing up in this world, at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, addiction isn't an abstraction, it's neighbours, parents, and friends. 'Family' could mean love, or reluctant foster…
Clara's last year at school is looking pretty uneventful, apart from the stress of uni applications. Until one day, classmate Ty (on whom she happens to have a pretty big crush) asks for her help. His computer genius brother has just disappeared, leaving behind a laptop to which access is granted only when you answer a maths question - and maths isn't exactly Ty's strong suit.
One question turns into many when Clara and Ty follow his brother's trail and start spending a whole lot of time together. As she works on maths problems more exciting that anything she's ever done in class, Clara also has to deal with everyone in her life suddenly acting strange all at the same time: best friend M's gone silent on her, little sister Emma has become a devil child, and even her parents are up to something...
