Babysitter is yet another example of Oates’ daring to tread where other writers might avoid. Hannah, an essentially uninteresting character, manages to come alive, even if the choices that she makes at different junctures make sympathy for her difficult. This is an in-depth look at the randomness of human evil, and at its effects on the mind of an ordinary woman.
Clement Yong, The Straits Times
It is full of insights into Pratchett’s writing process . . . Through Wilkins’ eyes, one witnesses the genius of Pratchett and how hard he worked.
Olivia Ho, The Straits Times
Babysitter is yet another example of Oates’ daring to tread where other writers might avoid. Hannah, an essentially uninteresting character, manages to come alive, even if the choices that she makes at different junctures make sympathy for her difficult. This is an in-depth look at the randomness of human evil, and at its effects on the mind of an ordinary woman.
Clement Yong, The Straits Times
Without a doubt, though, McEwan’s languid, sensitive prose remains one of the most articulate in modern literature. He writes of youth and old age with equal perspicacity, never allowing sentimentality to compromise how his characters behave.
Clement Yong, The Straits Times
Atkinson’s world teems with sordid colour drawn from scrupulous research. . . . It is a fine read with which to ring in yet another year of these less-than-roaring Twenties.
Olivia Ho, The Straits Times
Babel, the latest to hit the shelves, is a delight to read and a testament to the magic of translation. It will hold particular appeal for readers who love languages, words and their etymologies.
Toh Wen Li, The Straits Times
Hauser builds her life’s inventory out of deconstructed personal narratives, resulting in a reading experience that’s rich like a complicated dessert—not for wolfing down but for savoring in small bites.
Mary Laura Philpott, The New York Times
This is a boy meets girl story that is never a romance – though it is romantic… Zevin blurs the lines between reality and play… Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is an artfully balanced novel – charming but never saccharine. The world Zevin has created is textured, expansive and, just like those built by her characters, playful.
Pippa Bailey, The Guardian
Kohda ends up weaving an unsettling yet moving universal tale that contemplates what it means to be a young woman, a minority and to be alive.
Jan Lee, The Straits Times
Its heroines may be faking it till they make it, but Singaporean Kirstin Chen's third novel is the real deal.
Olivia Ho, The Straits Times
Scenes of the cultural clashes between Meddy and Nathan's family, as well as Nathan's mother's increasingly hostile attitude towards Meddy's aunties, feel painfully real. They highlight the vast differences within the Asian diaspora of the world.
Jan Lee, The Straits Times
Li's prose is unusually lyrical, given the genre. She writes with a painterly eye, with charcoal motion and cadmium yellow flowers, and imbues with beauty "the slow, complicated matter of peeling a museum apart".
Olivia Ho, The Straits Times
A Lady's Guide To Fortune-Hunting turns out to be the perfect summer beach read - a smart and shockingly entertaining update of the genre. ... While the plot devices are borrowed from Heyer, Irwin depicts her characters' motives and actions with a psychological acuity that gives them contemporary verve. ... This cleverly constructed tale is as decadently pleasurable as a cream tea with all the trimmings.
Ong Sor Fern, The Straits Times
Ho paints a frank, funny portrait of pregnancy, supernumerary nipples and all, that will be relatable to those who are mothers and eye-opening to those who are not. She also takes care to flesh out Lucie's other relationships, from her frosty family interactions to her bond with her best friends, Suzie and Weina.
Olivia Ho, The Straits Times
What makes the book a worthwhile read is how Shepherd captures the magic of maps. Cartography buffs will delight in the profusion of iconic maps in these pages - from historical marvels like the mediaeval Venetian Fra Mauro, to maps of fantasy realms such as J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth or Terry Pratchett's Discworld.
Olivia Ho, The Straits Times
Lessons In Chemistry by the debut London-based novelist Bonnie Garmus is one of the most engaging novels I have read in recent years. . . . This is a novel that reads like it was made for the screen. No surprise, then, that an Apple TV+ adaptation starring Brie Larson is under way.
Toh Wen Li, The Straits Times
For those who found Tracker's machismo and misogyny exhausting, Sogolon's voice will be a revelation. She, too, inhabits a world of extraordinary violence, but battles it in a way that makes her one of the most remarkable fantasy heroines in recent publication.
Olivia Ho, The Straits Times
Mandel fans will delight in the intertextuality of this novel, her most metafictional to date. ... Reading about a pandemic when the real world is still recovering from one would have been heavy going, were it not for the unerring grace of Mandel's prose.
Olivia Ho, The Straits Times
There is much to admire in the way that Yanagihara subtly shifts her language to suit each time period, moving adroitly from the mannered language of the fin-de-siècle novel to numbing Orwellian horror. That said, it is in the middle section that she truly shines, producing passages of visionary writing so blazingly good, it made the hair on my arms stand on end.
Olivia Ho, The Straits Times
Yet this metafictional epic, in the storied tradition of books about books, intricately plots its way to a pay-off that is sweet without being cloying. ... Cloud Cuckoo Land both celebrates the power of literature to provide escape, consolation and hope, and locates its limits.
Olivia Ho, The Straits Times