In a very real sense, there are no obvious spoilers in a novel like They Both Die at the End. Adam Silvera’s achingly beautiful, New York City-set story of two older teenagers who are forced to live an entire life in one after a phone call just after midnight from Continue Reading
Books
Book review: Shrouded Loyalties by Reese Hogan
One of the great and laudable hallmarks of the human condition is our willingness to place trust in others. It is rarely an entirely rational act, fuelled as much by gut instinct and hope as it is by dispassionate weighing of the facts, and underpinned always by the need to Continue Reading
Book review: Shelf Life by Livia Franchini
You have likely read this type of novel a thousand times over. Couple breaks up over reasons devastatingly huge and languishingly trivial, one half of a once-tonight partnership finds themselves reeling and without initially wanting to, finds themselves being forced to reinvent themselves with heartwarmingly and predictably uplifting results. It’s Continue Reading
Book review: My Name is Monster by Katie Hale
With the human experience awash in apocalyptical tales, including a pandemic one that sits rather uncomfortably at the heart of modern reality, you could be forgiven for thinking that one of the end of the world story looks much like the other. And while it’s true that all of them Continue Reading
What might the near future be like? The City Inside has some ideas
SNAPSHOTJoey is a Reality Controller in near future Delhi. Her job is to supervise the multimedia multi-reality livestreams of Indi, one of South Asia’s fastest rising online celebrities—who also happens to be her college ex. Joey’s job gives her considerable culture-power, but she’s too caught up in day-to-day crisis-handling to Continue Reading
Book review: Thursdays at Orange Blossom House by Sophie Green
We like to think in this hyperconnected digital age of ours that we are closer than ever to those around us, and even those far, far away. And while there is some intimacy and value that comes from trading thoughts on everything from politics to cake recipes on social media Continue Reading
Book review: The Arrest by Jonathan Lethem
In our pandemic-saturated times, it is all too easy to picture the world ending. That may sound overly bleak and troublingly dark but the truth is that while we all wish for things to improve and for the world to regain its healthy civilisational glow, the reality is that COVID Continue Reading
Book review: The Road Trip by Beth O’Leary
One of life’s great truisms, as least if you are a lover of supposedly self-evident truths masquerading as slightly cheesy slogans, is that you can never really go back. Sure, you can revisit the past with your therapist or think sweetly and nostalgically on it when the present gets too Continue Reading
Book review: For the Wolf by Hannah Whitten
People often live and die by the power of their beliefs. So enduring are they in many instances that even when there is evidence that they may not be as true as has been preached and believed, people hold to their faith doggedly, preferring entrenched belief to palpable evidence on Continue Reading
Book review: Still Life by Sarah Winman
If you take a good hard look at love in the real world, it is far from the light, fluffy confection of romantic comedy legend. Sure, that’s appealing and who doesn’t want to feel wafted along on Cupid’s lighter-than-air ministrations, but the reality is that love, real love, is muscular Continue Reading