Times Reads: Home

Nothing is black and white in Ingrid Persaud's novel Love After Love, which immerses readers in her native Trinidad's bewitching beauty, as well as the violent crime and prejudice that blight it.

Hannah Bock, The Straits Times

If Jesus had had a wife, what would she have been like? What if she had been a writer? American author Sue Monk Kidd imagines this in her superbly lyrical fourth novel, The Book Of Longings.

Olivia Ho, The Straits Times

Teenage love affairs are rarely governed by logic and author Jenny Lee, also of Korean descent, does a good job illustrating the fervent lust and longing of young love.

Jan Lee, The Straits Times

Seo shines in her depiction of her characters.

Walter Sim, The Straits Times

This Korean assassin thriller is so inherently cinematic, it is practically a movie beaming off the pages.

Olivia Ho, The Straits Times

[Barry] can do incredible things with the lyricism of words and he gives Winona a memorable voice that is both lithe and haunting.

Olivia Ho, The Straits Times

The writing is taut and bright and the comedy incisive. From the uneasy popularity of skin-whitening treatments to the pressures that society heaps upon mothers, Nanda takes aim at racism, privilege and unrealistic beauty standards.

Olivia Ho, The Straits Times

Atkinson is dealing with very dark stuff - trauma, sexual predators and the banal face of iniquity - but it never sinks the novel.

Olivia Ho, The Straits Times

From sensitive and devastating to downright hilarious, Evaristo ranges across the spectrum of emotions with impressive control.

Olivia Ho, The Straits Times

A propulsive thriller that more than lived up to immense hype, it sounds a surprisingly hopeful note of resistance.

Olivia Ho, The Straits Times

Now, American writer Ta-Nehisi Coates has produced a novel that combines the slave narrative with the superhero genre - and the result is unquestionably spectacular literature.

Olivia Ho, The Straits Times

Besson, on whom the protagonist appears to be based, renders the contradictions in the boys' lives with refreshing honesty through Philippe's voice.

Seow Bei Yi, The Straits Times

American author Camryn Garrett is only 19 and penned this debut novel at 17. As a teenager herself, she captures what makes adolescence special - the amplification of things that adults treat as minor or ordinary.

Jan Lee, The Straits Times

These are heavy themes, but Strout remains a captivating storyteller throughout. Her clear and powerful prose brings Olive and the townsfolk forcefully and compassionately to life so vividly that it is sad to realise that one is unlikely to come across them again.

Lydia Vasko, The Straits Times

What makes his contribution significant is the way he uses his literary gifts to not just explain the science but also inspire a sense of wonder.

Toh Wen Li, The Straits Times

If one ever wonders whether the climate crisis is serious enough to warrant the millions of students taking to the streets to call for more action, activist Naomi Klein leaves no room for doubt.

Audrey Tan, The Straits Times

Her writing is evocative in its simplicity and mostly effective in highlighting the pervasive fear and the consequence of silence.

Walter Sim, The Straits Times

It is unimaginable, the courage it must take for a victim to expose to public scrutiny a self so precariously held together and at such cost. Yet she has given the world her name and, with it, her story and her hope. What a gift.

Olivia Ho, The Straits Times

Shafak is a masterful storyteller and the strong female characters in this tale only serve to showcase the best of her ideas.

Elfarina, @pagesofelly

Collins issues her own challenge to the canon of English literature, taking a beloved genre and digging through its innards to unveil its ugly underpinnings. Like her heroine, she carves her own place in an unwelcoming space - bold, bloody, blazing.

Olivia Ho, The Straits Times