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
Such a premise would be delightful in itself. That it belongs to the last complete novel left behind by spy fiction grandmaster John le Carre, who died last year [2020] aged 89, is nothing short of a wonder.
Olivia Ho, The Straits Times
For a novel about the death penalty, The Fortune Men is a book that brims with life and colour. ... As the book winds down to its inevitable conclusion, the reader is forced to ask what has changed since Mahmood's unjust death and what forces still remain to be challenged in the new millennium.
Ong Sor Fern, The Straits Times
For all its richness, however, the true strength of Arudpragasam's prose is its restraint. While a book of such ambition could easily balloon in length and lose focus, he is able to weave each seemingly meandering tangent back into a cohesive whole.
Ng Wei Kai, The Straits Times
Lockwood, who is herself something of a Twitter luminary, captures with a wry poetry the absurd chaos of online existence, especially against the backdrop of a real world on the verge of collapse. ... The way this novel transforms its substance from superficial to subliminal is stunning. Don't scroll past this one.
Olivia Ho, The Straits Times
Dual narratives like this often sink. Great Circle is a rare instance of near-perfect balance. Marian's story is so fascinating it could easily have overwhelmed the novel, but Shipstead modulates it adroitly. Hadley, self-absorbed and self-destructive, could have been annoying, but is given sass and a surprising depth.
Olivia Ho, The Straits Times
This is a novel of profound interiority, all the more remarkable for being crafted mostly out of detached exteriority. In the rare instance when it enters a character's mind, the effect is marvellous.
Olivia Ho, The Straits Times
Dreamy and atmospheric, it is so evocatively drawn that one can almost hear the waves, feel the sand and taste the ocean. ... The novel is, at its heart, a touching exploration of what it means to be a parent and, more importantly, what it means to love.
Jan Lee, The Straits Times
If there is one thing Shafak unfailingly excels at, it is scene-setting. Her portrait of Cyprus seems to spring off the page in all its fresh beauty.
Olivia Ho, The Straits Times
At once intuitive and analytical, Cusk masterfully anchors her uncompromising interrogation of self, art, freedom and gender in her lively signature prose and the honesty of her characters.
Lydia Vasko, The Straits Times