Book Reviews

Orlean's descriptions of the animals on the Hudson Valley farm where she once lived may evoke a warm feeling — but those of donkeys in Fez and others in her essays may conjure other emotions.

The Death of Jane Lawrence asks that age-old question of gothic novels and fairy tales: What do you do if your very attractive husband is hiding a very dark secret in his crumbling manor house?

Myriam J.A. Chancy's new novel What Storm, What Thunder lays out the lives of people affected by the 2010 disaster with precision and compassion, giving even the most abject agency over their lives.

While the book is very much the tale of young Dasani Coates, Andrea Elliott uses her story and that of her family to examine the many who find themselves in similarly impossible circumstances.

James Han Mattson's Reprieve — set at a full-contact escape room attraction where actors can attack players — is overstuffed with character arcs and concepts, but somehow he makes it all work.

Miriam Toews based the women of Fight Night on the women in her own life — her battles are their battles; against pompous religious leaders, abusive husbands and the lies depression can tell.

Alix E. Harrow's A Spindle Splintered gives us a Sleeping Beauty for today, cursed not by an evil fairy but by an industrial accident, and yanked into another dimension where she must save a princess.

Smile records Sarah Ruhl's coming to terms with her new face and the conundrums it presents — after the playwright wondered for ten years whether the story deserved to live on the page.

Set in the early summer of 1954, The Lincoln Highway follows a crew of kids — some fresh out of reform school — who hit the road in search of a better future, with a few detours along the way.

I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness follows a woman, also named Claire, who abandons her family during a bout of postpartum depression in favor of a road trip through significant places in her past.