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Brother Book Review

David Chariandy
The boys in this story dig around for tenderness, belonging, and respect in a hard city. It's difficult not to compare this against Zadie Smith's *White Teeth* or Stephan Kelman's *Pigeon English*. But *Brother* falls short in creating that immersive world-within-a-world. The first-person narration often sounds too grown-up and removed from the character's point of view. Smart turns of phrase get repeated a little too often.

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Tracks Book Review

Louise Erdrich
Small-town drama. Whose child is she carrying? What dark secrets don’t people talk about? Wrapped in the historical context of 1910s settlers forcing native communities off reservations. But this is not a political book. It’s spiritual, it’s heart-tugging, it weaves a story right up in front of your nose so you can never see the whole picture at once.

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No Turning Back Book Review

Rania Abouzeid
This book asks the reader to be present with those in Syria's civil war. To understand their surroundings. To see the day-to-day realities that we call a revolution. Taste their hope and feel it turn bitter. Become numb to terror. This book is war correspondence without the glamour or sensationalism. These are human portraits and, like getting to know a person in real life, these stories take patience to understand.

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Moon of the Crusted Snow Book Review

Waubgeshig Rice
Many friends of mine like to muse about buying a plot of land up North, where they could escape to in case of an apocalypse. This thriller pokes a hole in that naïve daydream, exploring what it actually looks like for people in today's society to be forced into self-sufficiency. Wrapped up in Anishinaabe culture, this page-turner is also a great primer for understanding Indigenous resilience in the face of ongoing colonisation.

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