Akhtar, a highly acclaimed playwright, writes yet another brilliant piece on his experience as an American with Pakistani family roots. As with his protagonist here, Akhtar's vivid and thought-provoking memories before and after 9/11 have played a huge role in his writings. In this work of auto-fiction, he has imagined just what every young Muslim during that period must have thought of: his identity, roots, family, and his future in this country. His father, a physician to Donald Trump, opposed his son's political opinions often, and as this work shows, the two men struggle to live with their differences as Akhtar's protagonist goes into business with a wealthy Pakistani-American hedge fund manager and earns a fortune. While based in fact, this book succeeds brilliantly as fiction.
Each day is a gift composed of twenty-four hours. How many do you spend thinking about what other people think of you? What if you stopped? If your life was free from the tedium of social convention and self-judgment, could you fill it like a jewelry box? In Madeleine Ryan's debut novel, the reader enters the captivating mind of a young woman as she embarks on an epic journey--to a house party. As a woman living with autism, Ryan's narrator perceives the world with documentary clarity. She wastes nothing and savors everything (including her ritual "post-party suppers"). A tantalizing, bingeworthy read, A Room Called Earth is the literary equivalent of sitting inside of a kaleidoscope.
Althea and her husband, Procter, have been sentenced to prison after committing fraud and stealing from their flood-recovering community. Their twin girls have been left in the care of Althea’s youngest sister, Lillian, who cannot handle managing the family’s old house as well as the effects of the town’s hatred towards the entire family. When the other siblings, Viola and Joe, come to stay and help, various buried family traumas can no longer be ignored. The Butler family must confront or drown, or else they’ll bring their nieces down with them. The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls is an emotionally compelling read that deals with a lot of complicated issues, but not without the assurance that while some issues cannot have a fairytale ending, they can offer a silver lining after the storm.
