Everything Is Fine Here by Iryn Tushabe
Everything Is Fine Here is a great introduction to Ugandan culture, and a tender coming-of-age story in a mix of cultures and beliefs.
coming of age
Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley
In her self-portrait from a chronological distance, Percy celebrates a semi-misspent youth—all of its fiery enthusiasms and blind alleys, its dramas and earnestness, its lessons learned, misunderstandings, messiness, unbridled pleasures, and excesses. And, yes, humiliations.
Yellow Barks Spider by Harman Burns
There’s palpable tension in the spare opening pages of Yellow Barks Spider, a debut novella by Vancouver-based Saskatchewan transplant Harman Burns. Even before the story begins, a dedication—“for ██████ wherever you are” —draws any curious eye. A technique Burns revisits later, redaction—with its there/not there visibility—prompts inevitable questions: what’s the masked name and the story behind …
One Book, Two Reviews: Johnny Delivers by Wayne Ng
Johnny Delivers by Wayne Ng is a top read of this year for me … Family tensions dominate the action in Wayne’s Ng’s pulsating novel, Johnny Delivers.
All Hookers Go To Heaven by Angel B.H.
In pondering what to write about All Hookers Go To Heaven by Angel B.H., I kept coming back to the idea of joy.
Oil People by David Huebert
Part generational saga, part eco-gothic fable, Oil People is a luminous debut novel about history and family, land and power, and oil as an object of toxic wonder. – McClelland & stewart
Mina’s Matchbox by Yoko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder
As Tomoko reflects on her life from middle-age, one year stands out in shining glory, a year she thoroughly loved, despite the reasons for its beginning and tragedy at the end: the year she was twelve, in 1972.
The Journal of Anxious Izzy Parker by Alma Fullerton
Izzy has just moved from Toronto to a farm on Prince Edward Island, that was once a bed and breakfast. She does not like change or leaving her best friend Jane or her Dad, but the sounds of the waves and seagulls, the slower pace of life, having her own craft room (bunkie), and a soft-serve ice cream machine in their new kitchen helps to balance out most of the negatives of moving.
The Education of Aubrey McKee by Alex Pugsley
All the way through, I felt like I knew Aubrey McKee — especially when he admitted his strange paranoias and personal shortcomings, wondering whether he’d ever measure up, even whether anyone might ever fall in love with him.
Experienced by Kate Young
Experienced by Kate Young is billed as a sapphic romantic comedy. It is a late coming of age story, about Bette, a woman who came out much later in life than most.
Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit by Nadine Sander-Green
Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit is a story centered around Millicent, a shy, 24-year-old reporter who moves to Whitehorse after graduating from college, where she focused more on poetry than journalism. Yet off to journalism she goes, to work at the Golden Nugget, a failing daily newspaper with three staff.
The Marvels of Youth by Tim Bowling
Tim Bowling is the author of twenty-two works of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. He is the recipient of numerous honours, including two Edmonton Artists’ Trust Fund Awards, five Alberta Literary Awards, a Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal, two Writers’ Trust of Canada nominations, two Governor General’s Literary Award nominations and a Guggenheim Fellowship in recognition of his entire body of work.
Back in the Land of the Living by Eva Crocker
A sexy, unforgettable story about love and longing in a time of chaos by Scotiabank Giller Prize longlisted author Eva Crocker.
And the Walls Came Down by Denise Da Costa
Back in the low-income neighbourhood where she was raised, a young woman rediscovers the importance of community, home, and finding one’s voice.
Pride and Prejudice and Pittsburgh by Rachel Lippincott
From the New York Times bestselling coauthor of Five Feet Apart and She Gets the Girl comes a fresh and inventive sapphic romantic comedy that’s What If It’s Us meets Bridgerton.
