THE MOUNTAIN by Paul Yoon

Simon & Schuster
Publishing Date August 15, 2017
Stories
Literary

Synopsis;

In The Mountain, Paul Yoon displays his subtle, ethereal, and strikingly observant style with six thematically linked stories, taking place across several continents and time periods and populated with characters who are connected by their traumatic pasts, newly vagrant lives, and quests for solace in their futures. Though they exist in their own distinct worlds (from a sanatorium in the Hudson Valley to an inn in the Russian far east) they are united by the struggle to reconcile their traumatic pasts in the wake of violence, big and small, spiritual and corporeal. A morphine-addicted nurse wanders through the decimated French countryside in search of purpose; a dissatisfied wife sporadically takes a train across Spain with a much younger man in the wake of a building explosion; a lost young woman emigrates from Korea to Shanghai, where she aimlessly works in a camera sweat shop, trying fruitlessly to outrun the ghosts of her past.

Reading

THE END WE START FROM by Megan Hunter

5.5

Grove Atlantic
Publishing date November 17, 2017

Synopsis:

As London is submerged below flood waters, a woman gives birth to her first child, Z. Days later, she and her baby are forced to leave their home in search of safety. They head north through a newly dangerous country seeking refuge from place to place, shelter to shelter, to a desolate island and back again. The story traces fear and wonder, as the baby’s small fists grasp at the first colors he sees, as he grows and stretches, thriving and content against all the odds.

My thoughts;

Highly praised by literary critics, a movie in the making, THE END WE START FROM by Megan Hunter a success before it's release to the public.
Some have qualified the novel as a sci-fi others a literary novel.
Nowhere did I feel I was reading a sci-fi novel. It is centered around three people, a mother, a baby, a husband in London. Yes there is a flood and all that follows a natural disaster of great proportion.
I like to mention the beautiful poetic narrative. A real pleasure to read. 

My hope is for Megan Hunter to continue writing. This is her first novel, a mere 140 pages.
I highly recommend this novel.

Thank you NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for this advance copy.

FEVER DREAM by Samantha Schweblin / Argentina

OneWorld Publishing
Publishing Date March 11, 2017
Literature/Horror

4.5

Synopsis:
A young woman named Amanda lies dying in a rural hospital clinic. A boy named David sits beside her. She’s not his mother. He’s not her child.

The two seem anxious and, at David’s ever more insistent prompting, Amanda recounts a series of events from the apparently recent past. As David pushes her to recall whatever trauma has landed her in her terminal state, he unwittingly opens a chest of horrors, and suddenly the terrifying nature of their reality is brought into shocking focus.

One of the freshest new voices to come out of the Spanish language, Samanta Schweblin creates an aura of strange and deeply unsettling psychological menace in this cautionary tale of maternal love, broken souls and the power and desperation of family.

Review:

Coming soon