Isabella Zhou, Book Reviewer

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Book Review

Mr. Patches Is Bored!

by Isabella Zhou

Creativity and fun are bolstered at the visual, aural, and textual levels in Mr. Patches is Bored!, a feline-focused picture book that brims with color and adventures. A spectacular cat who’s tired of mundane living sets off on wild... Read More

Book Review

Forty Years to Life

by Isabella Zhou

Analytical and entrenched in personal experiences, "Forty Years to Life" is a singular exploration of the experiences of late-transitioning trans people. Brenda Bradford Ward’s memoir–cum–social science survey "Forty Years to Life"... Read More

Book Review

All I Know

by Isabella Zhou

Young members of intertwined families forge a complicated bond in the tense coming-of-age novel "All I Know". As she grows up from girlhood, a young woman comes to terms with the devastating effects of her family trauma in Holly C.... Read More

Book Review

Emotion Catchers

by Isabella Zhou

"Emotion Catchers" is a quaint modern fairy tale that’s most focused on the happenings of daily life. In Beatrice Descamps’s charming coming-of-age novel "Emotion Catchers", girls harness their empathic powers to fight off evil... Read More

Book Review

Animals

by Isabella Zhou

In Eva Menasse’s short story collection "Animals", families, parents, and lovers are understood in terms of excerpted zoological descriptions of animal behavior. “Butterfly, Bee, Crocodile” delves into the private grief of a woman... Read More

Book Review

Daughter of a Promise

by Isabella Zhou

Women storytellers and communal bases of women’s knowledge undergird a woman’s year of self-discovery in New York in the intimate novel "Daughter of a Promise". In Jeanne McWilliams Blasberg’s coming-of-age novel "Daughter of a... Read More

Book Review

The Prophets of Gentilly Terrace

by Isabella Zhou

Political scheming reveals the complicated historical webs that plague diverse contemporary New Orleans in the thrilling novel "The Prophets of Gentilly Terrace". An extortion-related political conspiracy unravels against New Orleans’s... Read More

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