Sharlene Teo recommends
Speak to Me (2023)Paula Cocozza"Cocozza is a perceptive and intuitive writer who is unafraid to dwell in the life of the mind and, most crucially, the heart."The Sleep Watcher (2023)Rowan Hisayo Buchanan"Charged with the otherworldliness and shrewd social perception found in the works of Shirley Jackson and Octavia Butler, The Sleep Watcher is a bracing and compelling portrayal of adolescence and feeling uncanny at home. Rowan Hisayo Buchanan is one of the most distinctive and luminously original novelists of her generation and I'll read anything she writes." Chrysalis (2023)Anna Metcalfe"Unputdownable, ice-cool and wittily contemporary, Chrysalis announces Anna Metcalfe as a distinctive and daring fresh literary voice. Utterly original and with shades of Ottessa Moshfegh, Patricia Lockwood, Yoko Ogawa and Alexandra Kleeman, this brilliant portrayal of desire and transcendence had me totally entranced." Violets (2022)Kyung-Sook Shin"Mesmerizing, dreamlike, and prescient in its sharpness and attentiveness to the dynamics between women and the male and female gaze, Violets feels utterly contemporary and recalls the work of Mariana Enriquez and Dorthe Nors." Housebreaking (2022)Colleen Hubbard"Darkly funny and brimming with pathos...For fans of Elizabeth Strout, Ottessa Moshfegh...This is a humorous and life-affirming trip through the fraught, weird heart of America, exploring the granular details that make and break a life." Parallel Hells (2022)Leon Craig"Both vibrantly contemporary and decadently gothic, the stories in Parallel Hells shimmer with queer power and wicked humour. At times I was reminded of the darkly wondrous work of Ramona Ausubel, Kelly Link, Patrick McGrath or Patrick Suskind -- but Leon Craig has a distinctively Dionysian literary sensibility that is all her own, and I can't wait to read everything she writes!" There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job (2020)Kikuko Tsumura"Quietly hilarious and deeply attuned to the uncanny rhythms and deadpan absurdity of the daily grind, Kikuko Tsumura's postmodern existential workplace saga both skewers and celebrates our deeply human need to function in society and keep surviving in an oftentimes senseless-seeming world." The Harpy (2020)Megan Hunter"Both timeless and timely, The Harpy is a taut and lyrical novel about cosily calibrated lives coming spectacularly undone. Compulsively absorbing yet otherworldly, both a fever dream and a gorgeous and alarming howl of rage." Bestiary (2020)K-Ming Chang"To read K-Ming Chang is to see the world in fresh, surreal technicolor. Hers is a dizzyingly imaginative, sharp-witted voice queering migration, adolescence, and questions of family and belonging in totally new and unexpected ways. Both wild and lyrical, visionary and touching. Read her!" Belladonna (2020)Anbara Salam"The Virgin Suicides meets Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr Ripley, this unputdownable and lush novel had me entranced." The Anthill (2020)Julianne Pachico"The Anthill foxes the boundaries between the political and personal in startling and tender ways. It's a novel that laughs through a mouthful of blood, which scares and touches, dazzles and compels. Julianne Pachico is a truly gifted and distinctive storyteller who takes the reader from the haunting wilderness of childhood through to the stranded, guilt-wracked tumult of the present. Brilliant and feverishly imaginative, The Anthill is a must-read for anyone who has ever missed someone or felt out of place. (Anyone with a heart, basically.)" Alligator and Other Stories (2020)Dima Alzayat"I found [Alligator] tremendously assured, wise-cracking and elegaic, with a firm pulse on the magical and mundane. I loved its hard-edged lyricism and the tremendous empathetic range and distinctiveness of vision that Dima Alzayat demonstrates in this wonderful collection that will resonate with anyone who has ever felt caught between cultures, places and the interstices of memory and the loaded everyday." Pine (2020)Francine Toon"Combines the Gothic sensibilities of Shirley Jackson with the psychologically astute suspense of Gillian Flynn ... will leave you gripped and transfixed." Queenie (2019)Candice Carty-Williams"A really special book with much to say about black female identity, sexual politics, group chats, emotional becoming in a way that feels totally unforced. Filthy, funny, and profound." Promising Young Women (2018)Caroline O'Donoghue"I loved Promising Young Women. It's like Bluebeard crossed with The Yellow Wallpaper neck-deep in zeitgeist. If Angela Carter was stuck in a soulless corporate job this would be the dark, delicious result."
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