Check out the latest book reviews of independently published books.

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Book Review

Finding Normal

by Vivian Turnbull

Laden with symbolism, Jen Doktorski’s heartrending novel "Finding Normal" follows two teenagers with disordered eating on a cross-country road trip. Gemma is sick of living on the hospital’s eating disorder floor. Forced to do group... Read More

Book Review

Moral Treatment

by Meg Nola

Stephanie Carpenter’s compelling novel "Moral Treatment" explores curative and troubling therapies in a Michigan psychiatric hospital alongside the institutionalization of a young patient. In 1889, seventeen-year-old Amy is certified... Read More

Book Review

Theory & Practice

by Isabella Zhou

In Michelle de Kretser’s novel Theory & Practice, a Sri Lankan graduate student completes her thesis while embroiled in a love affair. In 1986, a woman takes rooms in Melbourne to research her thesis on Virginia Woolf. She wrestles... Read More

Book Review

The Edge of Water

by Isabella Zhou

Shifting between Nigeria and the US, Olufunke Grace Bankole’s novel "The Edge of Water" is about the separation and reunion of mothers and daughters. Esther details her experience of motherhood through letters to her daughter Amina,... Read More

Book Review

Honey Hunger

by Isabella Zhou

A smitten Omani man’s beekeeping consumes Zahran Alqasmi’s novel "Honey Hunger". Returning to his home village after a tough winter that forced the temporary relocation of his bee colony to the desert region of Juba, Azzan, a... Read More

Book Review

The New Internationals

by Meg Nola

In David Wright Faladé’s immersive novel "The New Internationals", cross-cultural friendships and romances challenge racial barriers in post–World War II Paris. During the Nazi occupation, Cecile’s parents enrolled her in a... Read More

Book Review

Darkenbloom

by Meg Nola

In Eva Menasse’s historical novel "Darkenbloom", the wartime secrets of a small Austrian town are compromised by the urgent demands of the present. The book begins in 1989 in the Austrian village of Darkenbloom. Though it’s no longer... Read More

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