What Should You Read Next? Here Are the Best Reviewed Books of the Week

Paul Yoon’s Etna, Dave Zirin’s The People’s Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn, and Chris Bohjalian’s The Amateur all feature among the best reviewed books of the week.

Brought to you by Book Marks, Lit Hub’s home for book reviews.

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Fiction

1. Etna by Paul Yoon
(Scribner)

7 Rave • 1 Positive • 1 Mixed
Read an excerpt from Etna here

“For all its compactness, Etna has the shape of an epic … Stands out among Yoon’s work … This is, at times, a wrenching novel, strewn with broken bodies, but its atrocities never overwhelm its faith in creaturely communion, and in grief and longing that clarify, rather than obscure, one’s desires and selfhood.”

–Rachel Vorona Cote (The Atlantic)

2. The Amateur by Chris Bohjalian
(Doubleday)

6 Rave
Read an essay by Chris Bohjalian here

“Bohjalian’s wonderful book is a morality tale, a snapshot of a strange, careless time in a particular slice of America, a psychological exploration of guilt and its repercussions, a portrait of a girl going off the rails—and then, because of an exciting plot twist, a courtroom drama.”

–Sarah Lyall (The New York Times Book Review)

3. Queen Mab by Emily McBride
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

5 Rave

“There’s an immediate psychological tension running through Emily McBride’s debut novel, Queen Mab. Marrying literary drama and folk horror to depict the madness of new motherhood and the transformation that is pregnancy, this dreamy, haunting journey is the must-read arrival of a potent new voice in fiction … Whether you come for the fairy lore or the boundless drama of life with a new baby, Queen Mab is a gripping debut.”

–Matthew Jackson (BookPage)

4. The Blue Flame by George Pelecanos
(Cardinal)

3 Rave • 2 Positive

“Gritty, dark, violent … Pelecanos’ realistic descriptions of life in the Black communities of Washington, DC, and his vividly depicted characters, authentic dialogue, and ability to infuse a story with both violence and warmth make this an outstanding read.”

–Emily Melton (Booklist)

5. Triage by Claudia Rankine
(Graywolf)

2 Rave • 3 Positive • 2 Mixed

“Colorfully, referentially, and intellectually dynamic … A glossy-paged, art exhibition catalog-worthy book … Though the narrative’s ending verges on negative abstraction, Rankine clearly demands that we confront our failure to prioritize Gazans and reckon the massive resultant losses, personal, ethical, and human alike.”

–Walton Muyumba (The Boston Globe)

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Nonfiction

1. The Ego Trip: Psychedelic Toads, a Trail of Deaths, and the Guru Who Peddled Transcendence by Kimon de Greef
(Doubleday)

4 Rave • 1 Positive

“A marvelous trip, exploring centuries of the Seris’ tribulations, the growth of commercial toad milking in a region dominated by narco gangsters, quarrels among rival gurus and competition between the sons of an English countess and a German baroness to develop 5-MeO-DMT into a pharmaceutical.”

–Annie Bartlett (BookPage)

2. The People’s Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn by Dave Zirin
(Dutton)

2 Rave • 3 Positive • 2 Mixed

“Rousing … It’s a wonderful portrait of a historian who reshaped America’s understanding of its potential for change.”

–Publishers Weekly

3. Empire of Ashes: Truman, Hirohito, and the Descent Into Total War by James M. Scott
(W.W. Norton & Company)

4 Rave

“The book showcases Mr. Scott’s forte: conveying the human cost of war … Scott describes the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with relentless pacing and harrowing detail … Scott has established himself as a master of conveying the human cost of war.”

–Jonathan W. Jordan (The Wall Street Journal)

4. Don’t Be Evil: Bad Bosses, Fake Promises, and My Escape from Big Tech by Claire Stapleton
(William Morrow and Company)

3 Rave • 1 Positive • 1 Mixed

“A blunt account of one woman’s transformation from eager-to-please corporate striver to clear-eyed activist. It well earns its place alongside other recent accounts of the misdeeds of Big Tech like Sarah Wynn-Williams’ Careless People and Anna Wiener’s Uncanny Valley … Books like Stapleton’s will at least arm people determined to reform them with information they’ll need to make that effort.”

–Harvey Freedenberg (BookPage)

5. The Story of Your Life: How Social Media Shapes the Way We Experience Everything by Kathryn Jezer-Morton
(Viking)

2 Rave • 2 Positive • 1 Mixed

“A compelling look into this increasingly fraught microcosm. Jezer-Morton’s work is well researched and thoughtful, exploring the often negative influence of social networking sites on human behavior. This is a timely book that is a must-read for our online world.”

–Philip Zozzaro (Booklist)