Editorial reviews

In his latest book, Ethiopian-American writer Dinaw Mengestu explores the nature of loneliness, violence and love.

Without inventing a past that Albert can't remember himself, she cherry-picks moments to color in careful detail — then immediately drops them to pick up others, sometimes miles or years away.

To write a novel in which well-to-do Germans are the main characters as well as the victims of the war is a precarious undertaking.

A murder mystery, properly executed, is a wonderful thing, and Li shows great dexterity at delaying the explanation of Shaoai’s murder till the last possible moment.

Villalobos mines Mexico for its everyday surrealism, even as he mocks how outsiders exoticize his country.

Three words for you: Food Nerds Unite.

Mr. Butler makes his characters sufficiently different to create all sorts of memorable interactions when their paths cross.

Oyeyemi’s perfectly crafted prose ensures that the three title characters and the hauntingly beautiful settings in which they interact will stay with you for a long time.

"Boy, Snow, Bird," her strongest novel to date, explores how race is in the eye of the beholder in a way that is, as befits the best fairy tales, thoroughly spellbinding.

The complexities of race, assimilation and cultural stereotypes are thoughtfully observed.

This carefully wrought novel transcends mere character study, offering up Stella’s story as a portrait of how accidents and happenstance can cohere into a life.

the reader is left to dissect a book that works as both character study and morality play, filled with questions that have no easy answers.

The emotional power of “All Our Names” seeps through lines that seem placid on the surface.

This novel shows its author blossoming into her talent with her own innovative, at times pulse-quickening style, distilling startling language from loss.

Quesadillas is pure fantastical rapture, a kaleidoscopic story about anger and adolescence.

While her story is certainly one filled with tragedy, Three Souls as a whole is still a wonderfully wrought story filled with hope.

The novel is an intensely dramatic ride, even taken apart from its Snow White conceit, full of a cast of peripheral characters who reappear throughout and convey their significance to the story.

The Weirdness is absolutely, positively one of the most original takes on the nearing middle age, suffering male writer bit.

Mr. Mengestu writes from the points of view of Helen and Isaac with poignancy and psychological precision, deftly evoking their very different takes on the world.