Chika Gujarathi

FictionSatireLiterary Fiction

It’s only the end of the world

Review by Chika Gujarathi

Sadness is relative, and this is the overwhelming theme in Ottessa Moshfegh’s new novel, My Year of Rest and Relaxation. In the year 2000, a young woman has everything one might need to be happy. A recent Columbia graduate in her 20s, enviably thin and beautiful even at her worst, she lives in New York’s Upper East Side with enough inheritance to last a long time. But there is a hole in her heart that her youth, health and wealth can’t fill, and her answer to fix this mishap is to literally sleep it off.

With the help of a cocktail of pharmaceutical drugs, prescribed by the world’s worst psychiatrist, the young heroine sinks into a type of hibernation, surfacing only to take us on a journey of her sad childhood and even more despairing adulthood. Each revelation supposedly unloads the baggage for good and cleans the slate for when the hibernation ends. Keeping her company through it all is her endlessly optimistic best friend, Reva, who has a dying mother, unfulfilling job, failed relationships and poor self-confidence, and at times seems more deserving of our sympathy than the narrator.

True to her style, Moshfegh’s dark sense of humor makes the reader laugh (perhaps guiltily) when it seems least appropriate. Melancholic, ominous and even uncomfortable, My Year of Rest and Relaxation traverses a labyrinth of emotions as a young New Yorker learns to define her sadness and hope in the days leading up to September 2011.

 

This article was originally published in the July 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Sadness is relative, and this is the overwhelming theme in Ottessa Moshfegh’s new novel, My Year of Rest and Relaxation. In the year 2000, a young woman has everything one might need to be happy. A recent Columbia graduate in her 20s, enviably thin and beautiful even at her worst, she lives in New York’s Upper East Side with enough inheritance to last a long time. But there is a hole in her heart that her youth, health and wealth can’t fill, and her answer to fix this mishap is to literally sleep it off.

FictionHistorical Fiction

When Hemingway met his match

Review by Chika Gujarathi

Paula McLain’s fascination with Ernest Hemingway runs deep. She proved this seven years ago with her novel The Paris Wife, which presented the extraordinary author through the lens of his first marriage to Hadley Richardson. McLain has repeated that magic in Love and Ruin, which focuses on Hemingway’s third wife, Martha Gellhorn.

Martha, or Marty, is an aspiring writer and world traveler, two passions that lead her to become one of the first female war correspondents in modern history. In between covering major wars from the front lines, she pours her heart and experiences into an impressive collection of fiction.

Marty idolizes Ernest like many others of her time, and as fate would have it, the two fall in love while covering the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. Marty is very much a woman in a man’s world, and her fearlessness, independence and writing chops make her irresistible to Ernest. From Key West to Madrid to Havana, we follow their courtship and eventual marriage, which is full of romance, hope, inspiration and encouragement—until Marty realizes that marrying one of the most famous men in the world comes at the cost of her own goals.

McLain’s ability to base a work of fiction on real people is nothing short of superb. Readers may pick up Love and Ruin because of their obsession with Ernest Hemingway, but they’ll fall in love with it because of Marty Gellhorn.

 

This article was originally published in the May 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Paula McLain’s fascination with Ernest Hemingway runs deep. She proved this seven years ago with her novel The Paris Wife, which presented the extraordinary author through the lens of his first marriage to Hadley Richardson. McLain has repeated that magic in Love and Ruin, which focuses on Hemingway’s third wife, Martha Gellhorn.

FictionPopular FictionInspirational Fiction

Leaps of faith

Review by Chika Gujarathi

There is nothing like the nervous anticipation of an impending storm to make a person think about all they value in life and how to protect it. In Lauren K. Denton’s new novel, Hurricane Season, the weather is just the beginning of what’s keeping Betsy Franklin awake.

Living on a dairy farm in southern Alabama with the love of her life, Betsy has truly found her happy place. But the ominous weather forecast from the Gulf of Mexico isn’t the only thing ruffling the feathers of her otherwise serene existence—she has also received a call from her younger sister, Jenna, with an unexpected request.

Jenna, a single mother of two and a coffee shop manager in Nashville, has received a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to rediscover her passion for photography at a world-famous artists’ retreat. Could this be her chance to make something of herself and provide a better life for her daughters, Addie and Walsh? To find out, Jenna’s only option is to give up her job and leave Walsh and Addie in the care of Betsy, with whom she hasn’t exactly been close.

Between Betsy and her husband dealing with their little guests (and their own marriage and unfruitful parenthood) and Jenna chasing her artistic calling (which keeps taking longer and longer), Denton artfully explores the struggle between caring for one’s own dreams and helping someone else achieve theirs. Any reader who values the comfort of family, the possibility of second chances and the simple truths of love and sisterhood will devour Denton’s novel. In many ways, Hurricane Season feels like the calm before a storm that changes everything—for the better.

 

This article was originally published in the April 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

There is nothing like the nervous anticipation of an impending storm to make a person think about all they value in life and how to protect it. In Lauren K. Denton’s new novel, Hurricane Season, the weather is just the beginning of what’s keeping Betsy Franklin awake.

FictionPopular Fiction

A little library with a big heart

Review by Chika Gujarathi

For lovers of books, the virtues of a library are not hard to sell, but in Riverton, New Hampshire, a small mill town that has seen better days, the books are usually the last things to bring people to the library. Named after a once-famous resident who no one really remembers, Robbers Library has become a place where residents of this faded town go to socialize, hide, use the computers and, yes, sometimes even read.

When 15-year-old Sunny gets caught for shoplifting a dictionary from the local mall, the judge requires her to serve her sentence at this library. A sweet child raised by hippie parents, Sunny becomes a fixture of Robbers during one summer—along with the Four, a group of retired old friends, and Rusty, a young Wall Street banker who has lost it all and has come to Riverton with a treasure map of sorts. Babysitting them all is the head librarian, Kit Jarvis, smart and kind but with her own hidden story of what brought her to Riverton. Kit’s plan was to live a life of solitude, but despite her best efforts, she is thrown into the mix of everyone else’s summertime drama, forcing her to reveal her own ghosts, too.

Told partly from Sunny’s perspective and partly from Kit’s, Summer Hours at the Robbers Library uses the differences in the two protagonists’ ages, experiences and upbringing to its advantage. With her new novel, Sue Halpern offers the perfect way to experience a small-town community filled with lovable characters, mysterious happenings, a little bit of romance and hopeful endings.

For lovers of books, the virtues of a library are not hard to sell, but in Riverton, New Hampshire, a small mill town that has seen better days, the books are usually the last things to bring people to the library. Named after a once famous resident who no one really remembers, Robbers Library has become a place where residents of this faded town go to socialize, hide, use the computers and, yes, sometimes even read.

FictionComic Fiction

Condo crimes in political times

Review by Chika Gujarathi

In the second novel from Paul Goldberg (The Yid, 2016), we meet Bill Katzenelenbogen, an award-winning science reporter who has come upon hard times after being fired for insubordination by The Washington Post. With no other lucrative prospects and a quickly dwindling bank account, 52-year-old Bill takes the only lead he can get, which is to investigate the mysterious and unusual death of Miami’s most prominent butt plastic surgeon, Dr. Wronski, aka the “Butt God of Miami Beach.”

Too poor to afford anything else, Bill is forced to stay with his estranged father, Melsor Katzenelenbogen, and stepmother, Nella, in what once was a grand, oceanfront condominium called the Château Sedan Neuve in South Florida. A Russian Jewish immigrant, 83-year-old Melsor is on his own secret quest to unravel the money-laundering shenanigans of the Château’s condominium association. For Bill, who thinks he has escaped the politics of D.C., it doesn’t take long to get sidetracked from the late Butt God investigation by the tangled political games at the Château, which—with Goldberg's wit and ingenuity—on a micro level parallel the real-world political drama that has been unfolding on our TV screens and newspapers throughout the Trump administration.

Full of dark humor, cheap vodka, Russian poems and political anecdotes, The Château somehow perfectly captures the political travesty that is all too real in this day and age.

In the second novel from Paul Goldberg (The Yid, 2016), we meet Bill Katzenelenbogen, an award-winning science reporter who has come upon hard times after being fired for insubordination by the Washington Post. With no other lucrative prospects and a quickly dwindling bank account, 52-year-old Bill takes the only lead he can get, which is to investigate the mysterious and unusual death of Miami’s most prominent butt plastic surgeon, Dr Wronski, aka the “Butt God of Miami Beach.”

Children's & YAPicture Book

Strut your stuff

Review by Chika Gujarathi

It’s a little ironic to judge Derrick Barnes’ Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut by its cover, but this picture book is all about making a good appearance, so why not? The boy on Crown’s cover is beaming with pride—nothing can keep him down. Behold the alchemy of a good haircut on a black boy’s soul.

Inspired by his own weekly childhood haircuts by a man named Mr. Tony, Barnes tells a story of a young boy who walks into a barbershop with the weight of the world on his shoulders, and walks out looking and feeling like he can handle anything. Ace that geography exam? Sure! Impress that girl? Absolutely. Rule the world? You know it. This boy’s got it made. A fresh haircut in the barber’s chair is transformative, allowing the boy to see the world as a little less overwhelming and more as a place to belong and be happy.

Positive self-esteem is a fragile commodity among children, especially those from diverse backgrounds. With vibrant illustrations from Gordon C. James, Crown is an extraordinary and fun reminder that embracing your looks and putting your best foot forward are the first steps in tackling anything. Because when you look good, you feel good. And when you feel good, the sky is the limit.

It’s a little ironic to judge Derrick Barnes’ Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut by its cover, but this picture book is all about making a good appearance, so why not? The boy on Crown’s cover is beaming with pride—nothing can keep him down. Behold the alchemy of a good haircut on a black boy’s soul.

Children's & YAPicture Book

A message for all women

Review by Chika Gujarathi

With this wonderful picture book, the late Amy Krouse Rosenthal and her daughter, Paris, encourage young girls to always be bold and fearless.

An advice book of sorts, Dear Girl, is filled with lessons that remind the reader to be inquisitive, to defy gender stereotypes and to love oneself no matter what. But what makes the Rosenthals’ book slightly different from other female empowerment children’s books is that it also stresses the importance of the lesser-known virtues of being bored from time to time, listening to your gut and saying no, and even having a good cry when necessary. Girls can move mountains, but there is no shame in spending a day writing in a journal or staring out the window. Accompanying illustrations from Holly Hatam, a perfect blend of minimalism and whimsy, make this message pop.

Dear Girl, feels like the warm embrace that every parent wants to give their child when the going gets tough. With a sense of wonder, kindness and creativity, this book carries on Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s legacy of being fun and delightful while spreading a message to girls and women of all ages to believe in themselves.

With this wonderful picture book, the late Amy Krouse Rosenthal and her daughter, Paris, encourage young girls to always be bold and fearless.

FictionPopular Fiction

A new lease on life

Review by Chika Gujarathi

Nora Stuart could have lived her whole life without ever again stepping foot in her hometown, the tiny island of Scupper, Maine, where she spent her first 15 years being too chubby, too smart and too lonely. But then she gets hit by a Beantown Bug Killer van while crossing the street near the Boston hospital where she works as a gastroenterologist.

When she awakes in a hospital bed, happy to know that death has spared her, she knows it’s time to go back home and set things right. One might expect a homecoming 15 years in the making to be met with hugs, at least from one’s own mother, but that’s not the case for Nora—not that she’s surprised.

Armed with humor and an unshakable faith in happiness, Nora returns home to discover her stoic mother has a strange new side hustle, her niece is an eye-rolling, punk-rock teenager, and the rest of her high school class has all grown up. It’s clear to Nora that healing her wounds, both physical and emotional, won’t be as easy as she’d hoped.

As Nora deals with burgeoning romances, old family secrets, sad realities and hopeful new alliances, bestselling author Kristan Higgins adds humor at every opportunity to Now That You Mention It and proves that it is possible to deal with our past demons without losing our minds.

This page-turner is filled with laughs, nostalgia and the seemingly outlandish suggestion that sometimes being hit by a van is exactly what one needs to venture back home.

 

This article was originally published in the January 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Nora Stuart could have lived her whole life without ever again stepping foot in her hometown, the tiny island of Scupper, Maine, where she spent her first 15 years being too chubby, too smart and too lonely. But then she gets hit by a Beantown Bug Killer van while crossing the street near the Boston hospital where she works as a gastroenterologist.

FictionPopular Fiction

Expats in a harrowing mystery

Review by Chika Gujarathi

At some point in our life, many of us have dreamed of taking the leap and moving abroad to a new country. In Jessica Keener’s new novel, Strangers in Budapest, we meet Will and Annie Gordon, a young couple from Boston, who are brave enough to make this dream a reality.

The year is 1995, and Hungary is now rebuilding after the fall of communism. For Will, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to set up a communications business in Budapest, and tap into the unfathomable progress that is bound to follow. For Annie, supporting her husband in this endeavor is a no-brainer, but secretly she is more excited about exploring a new city void of her sad past, and bonding with her adopted infant son, Leo.

Keener starts the story when Will and Annie have already been in Budapest for eight months. The spell of a new city has long worn off, and their reality mostly includes putting up with bureaucracy and cultural differences that have yet to catch up with the changing times. A diversion comes when a mysterious fax from their old neighbor in Boston begs Will and Annie to check on a man named Edward Weiss.

Edward is old, frail and, from what Will and Annie can tell, perpetually pissed off. Will is happy to check on him this once, as requested, and move on, but Annie is oddly drawn to Edward’s rude and brutally honest temperament. She keeps going back to see him and eventually finds herself tangled up in a vendetta that the old man refuses to let go.

Keener expertly weaves together a story that not only showcases an expat life, but also shares the tragedies, memories and grudges of strangers in a beautiful city who are more connected than they have come to believe.

At some point in our life, many of us have dreamed of taking the leap and moving abroad to a new country. In Jessica Keener’s new novel, Strangers in Budapest, we meet Will and Annie Gordon, a young couple from Boston, who are brave enough to make this dream a reality.

Children's & YAMiddle Grade

Building a life, one step at a time

Review by Chika Gujarathi

In David Barclay Moore’s page-turning debut novel, The Stars Beneath Our Feet, Wallace “Lolly” Rachpaul isn’t even a teenager yet, but growing up in the projects of New York City has stripped him of anything resembling a normal childhood. Every day is a battle to keep away from the neighborhood gangs and to avoid the fate of his older brother, Jermaine. Jermaine’s shooting death just a few months earlier has added a level of anger and frustration to Lolly’s life that he doesn’t quite know how to handle.

Thankfully, the adage “it takes a village” holds true on the streets of Harlem, as Lolly finds that the community he resents also provides a sort of respite from reality. Mr. Ali, the after-school counselor, provides a space for Lolly to pursue his ultimate Lego obsession with the construction of a giant make-believe city. In the process, Lolly gets stuck with Big Rose, the strangest girl in the after-school program. But the two have more in common than they think and end up being each other’s silent cheerleaders.

Despite the best intentions from family, friends and the community, Lolly ultimately must learn that the power of choice lies in his own hands and no one else’s. Will he choose wisely to pave his own path out of the projects, or will he succumb to his brother’s unfortunate destiny? Moore leaves us wondering until the very end.

 

This article was originally published in the October 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

In David Barclay Moore’s page-turning debut novel, The Stars Beneath Our Feet, Wallace “Lolly” Rachpaul isn’t even a teenager yet, but growing up in the projects of New York City has stripped him of anything resembling a normal childhood.

FictionDebut Fiction

Magic across generations

Review by Chika Gujarathi

The Holocaust is one of the darkest chapters in human history, and yet the stories that are born of it seem to be the most extraordinary examples of love and life. Emanuel Bergmann’s first novel, The Trick, which begins soon after the end of World War I, is no exception.

For Rabbi Laibl Goldenhirsch and his wife, Rifka, there is another reason to celebrate the return of peace to Prague—the birth of their son, Moshe. The new child briefly provides a respite from an otherwise unexciting postwar life. However, things take a turn as Rifka’s health deteriorates, leaving Moshe to deal with an abusive, depressed and drunk rabbi of a father.

Everything changes for Moshe when a neighbor takes him to a traveling circus as a cheerful distraction. So transformed is Moshe by what he sees that he wants nothing more than to become part of the troupe. With the determination of a child who is not yet unnerved by the possibility of failure, Moshe sets out in search of the circus, leaving his father, his city and his religion and changing his destiny from that of the many who stay behind.

Decades later in Los Angeles, a young boy named Max Cohn takes a similar leap of faith to keep his parents from divorcing. His answer comes in the form of an old vinyl record of love spells by the Great Zabbatini, a magician who can make anything possible.

And just like that, Bergmann expertly collides Moshe’s and Max’s universes. They may face two very different realities, but they share the tenacity to change their futures. The tragedy of the past weaves together with humor, love and a belief in the impossible in The Trick.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read a Behind the Book essay from Emanuel Bergmann on The Trick.

This article was originally published in the October 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

The Holocaust is one of the darkest chapters in human history, and yet the stories that are born of it seem to be the most extraordinary examples of love and life. Emanuel Bergmann’s first novel, The Trick, which begins soon after the end of World War I, is no exception.

FictionLiterary Fiction

Back to basics

Review by Chika Gujarathi

In Robin Sloan’s latest novel, Sourdough, Lois Clary is a 20-something Michigan transplant, well on her way to being one of the rich and geeky residents of Silicon Valley. Working hard at promising start-up General Dexterity, she has joined the techie milieu with her overpriced apartment where she hardly spends any time and a meal-replacement slurry she consumes two to three times a week. But like all young people starting off, Lois is content and hasn’t yet felt the void of being the proverbial peg in the unstoppable machine.

An epiphany transpires in the most unassuming way, when Lois takes possession of a sourdough starter from the two guys who used to run her favorite neighborhood take-out joint. Lois knows nothing about being a foodie, but even she can’t deny the mysterious vibes from this starter, which seems to beckon her with its singing and talking.

And so Lois bakes. Starting in the tiny virgin oven of her apartment to a brick oven she builds herself in the backyard to the industrial kitchen of a peculiar collective called the Marrow Fair, the sourdough ends up being more consuming than the high-paying job that landed her here in the first place.

But this isn’t a story of how to give up your day job and start a neighborhood bakery. Sloan has imagined a funny and curious novel unlike anything else, a perfect combination of self-discovery through all sorts of weird passions. Like truly good sourdough, this namesake is the perfectly tangy, chewy and airy addition to anyone’s reading list—minus the gluten and calories, of course.

Sloan has imagined a funny and curious novel unlike anything else, a perfect combination of self-discovery through all sorts of weird passions. Like truly good sourdough, this namesake is the perfectly tangy, chewy and airy addition to anyone’s reading list—minus the gluten and calories, of course.

FictionHistorical FictionDebut Fiction

Life, love and art

Review by Chika Gujarathi

Margery Williams Bianco is best known as the author of the beloved children’s classic The Velveteen Rabbit. Few are likely to know that in her personal life, Margery was a mother to a rather prodigious daughter, Pamela, who at the tender age of 4 had already captivated the art scene in Europe.

While the Bianco women shared a natural creativity and both achieved much success in their respective endeavors, the similarities end at their personal dispositions. While Margery was upbeat, social and sure of herself, Pamela, perhaps due to early success facilitated by an overbearing father, spent most of her life doubting her craft and not knowing exactly where she fit in this world.

Debut author Laurel Davis Huber chronicles this mother-daughter relationship of almost 45 years and sheds light on an artist whom history seems to have mostly forgotten in the aptly titled, fascinating The Velveteen Daughter.

Based in extensive fact and research, the story takes us from Italy to New York, covering the lively art scene of the early 20th century. Many of the supporting characters include other famous celebrities of the time like Pablo Picasso, Richard Hughes and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, who is personally credited for introducing the Bianco family to America.

Huber honors all aspects of Pamela’s life, as we learn not just about her artistic achievements and her family life, but also her debilitating, obsessive relationships and two peculiar marriages.

Pamela outlived both her parents and continued to live in New York until her own passing in 1994, which by all accounts seems like recent history. With a wonderful touch, Huber makes a lost artist come alive in vibrant yet melancholic colors.

Margery Williams Bianco is best known as the author of the beloved children’s classic The Velveteen Rabbit. Few are likely to know that in her personal life, Margery was a mother to a rather prodigious daughter, Pamela, who at the tender age of 4 had already captivated the art scene in Europe.

Sign Up

Stay on top of new releases: Sign up for our newsletter to receive reading recommendations in your favorite genres.

Sign up now

Trending Features

All Features