Rachel Khong recommends
Headshot (2024)Rita Bullwinkel"Headshot is a knockout, a novel as fierce and vibrant as its girl boxers. I've never read a book like this, that captures girlhood and life itself in the fleeting moments that make us."Land of Milk and Honey (2023)C Pam Zhang"No one writes like C. Pam Zhang. Ferocious, sensual, and all consuming, Land of Milk and Honey is both a heartsick elegy for a world we are on the verge of losing and vibrant homage to pleasure and appetite. This book swallowed me whole and spit me out changed in the best way: buzzing, astonished, and alive." Kill for Love (2023)Laura Picklesimer"In her clear and visceral sentences that evoke a world both like and unlike our own, Picklesimer places you completely in the narrator's haunting, singular journey." Everything's Fine (2023)Cecilia Rabess"Funny, felt, and riveting, all at once-a story for anyone who's ever fallen in love that's less than straightforward. Cecilia Rabess is equal parts comedian and sorcerer, reminding us that none of us are (only) as we appear." Bellies (2023)Nicola Dinan"In this dryly comedic, richly drawn portrait of friends and lovers in early adulthood, Nicola Dinan charts the complexities, contradictions, and joys of human entanglement, and reminds us of the inevitability of being changed by those we love. Bellies is a book that not only explores transformation, but transforms the reader, too. I loved this powerful, mortal, moving debut." Self-Portrait with Ghost (2022)Meng Jin"Self-Portrait with Ghost is both haunted and haunting, populated with indelible characters who seem to live and breathe. And haunting, in that each of these stories casts a spell over ordinary life. Meng Jin writes with perception, precision, and humor, drawing from a well deep with desire - for love, for experience, for life itself. I will read anything she writes." Counterfeit (2022)Kirstin Chen"Counterfeit is as stylish and smart as its mastermind heroines. Kirstin Chen writes, with humor and verve, prose that's as addictive as a luxury handbag habit, and psychologically rich characters, too. Come for the con, stay for the insights into identity and self discovery, and the ever-elusive American dream." Unlikely Animals (2022)Annie Hartnett"Unlikely Animals is a modern fairy tale that beguiles and breaks the heart. Annie Hartnett walks a tightrope of comedy and tragedy in tender, sparkling prose cut with wit. This is a large-hearted story populated by an original and amiable cast of characters--human, animal, spirit--about living, dying, and all the messiness in between." Happy for You (2022)Claire Stanford"Happy for You is the optimal novel for the strange times we find ourselves in. In prose that's at once droll, incisive, and moving, Claire Stanford covers a murderer's row of twenty-first century preoccupations: technology, privacy, and contentment in the time of capitalism. This is a book for anyone who's ever looked around at this brave new world--and wondered about your own place in it." The Archer (2021)Shruti Swamy"The Archer is a stunning novel, as intimate and visceral as an expertly executed dance. Swamy's arresting and immersive prose vibrates with attention, and does what the best writing does: it leaves me more alive in my own body, and renders the world around me richer--more layered--with meaning. Meditating on what it means to be an artist (and a woman), Swamy has created her own wondrous work of art--singular, unforgettable, and important." Immediate Family (2021)Ashley Nelson Levy"This unsparing and absorbing family portrait broke my heart and remade it a hundred times over. In prose that is distilled, astute, and precise, Immediate Family covers the territory of life that words are often insufficient for, those challenges that are at once isolating and universal-waiting, the imperfect love that binds a family, what you choose and what is chosen for you." Cheat Day (2021)Liv Stratman"Cheat Day is a deliciously readable and lively debut novel about adulthood and its discontents. With frankness, assurance, and compassion, Liv Stratman writes deftly about the complexities of lust and love, wellness and deprivation, responsibility and freedom, and asks: In the age of late capitalism, how can we know what we want, when all we’re told to want is more?" Take Me Apart (2020)Sara Sligar"Take Me Apart is an ambitious, intelligent, and ridiculously readable literary thriller that takes on art, sexism, violence, and mental illness?all set against an evocatively rendered Northern Californian landscape. I've lived in the Bay Area for a decade, and though I was quite certain the book's California town was made up, I still googled "Callinas," just in case. That's how good Sara Sligar is." The Knockout Queen (2020)Rufi Thorpe"Is it cheesy to say The Knockout Queen knocked me off my feet? I couldn’t put it down, and when I had to, I did so only reluctantly, shakily. With unrelenting humor and terrifying intelligence, Rufi Thorpe tells the story of an unlikely high school friendship—the kind of friendship from which you never recover—with intensity and attentiveness. This captivating, generous book is a moving examination on human motivation, darkness, and love—calling attention to the ways we can be deeply different, and yet so much the same." Hex (2020)Rebecca Dinerstein Knight"Offbeat yet entirely precise; original and universal. Hex is a nut with sweet meat and a poison shell, at once disarming and quietly devastating. This is a book for anyone who’s ever felt adrift, or felt alone, or loved someone out of reach, or all the above." Severance (2018)Ling Ma"As a look into where our overconsumption might lead us, Ling Ma’s Severance rings terrifyingly true. More than that, it’s a moving meditation on home, belonging, and life itself?all rendered in cool yet affecting prose that’s too good not to keep reading." Anthologies containing stories by Rachel Khong
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