What Should You Read Next? Here Are the Best Reviewed Books of the Week
Featuring Joan Didion, Marie-Helene Bertino, Emily Henry, and More
Joan Didion’s Notes to John, Marie-Helene Bertino’s Exit Zero, and Emily Henry’s Great Big Beautiful Life 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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1. Fair Play by Louise Hegarty
(Harper)
6 Rave • 1 Positive
“Terrific … A witty, knowing homage to classic detective fiction, but also a deeply sensitive examination of the loneliness and confusion of grief … Readers will enjoy the Easter eggs hidden in the underbrush … Serve[s] as a bracing meditation on the different ways we perceive death (and fiction).”
–Sarah Lyall (The New York Times Book Review)
2. Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry
(Berkley)
5 Rave • 2 Positive
“Readers will love Alice and Hayden’s grumpy/sunshine dynamic, and Margaret’s life is equally … Both longtime Henry…fans and new romance readers will devour this rivals-to-lovers slow burn, one of Henry’s best to date.”
–Whitney Kramer (Library Journal)
3. Exit Zero by Marie-Helene Bertino
(FSG Originals)
5 Rave
Read a story from Exit Zero here
“Potent and darkly funny … Delightfully bizarre … Each story is driven by energetic pacing, quick wit, and surprising twists. Bertino once again displays her formidable talent for the uncanny.”
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1. Sister, Sinner: The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Aimee Semple McPherson by Claire Hoffman
(Farrar, Straus, and Giroux)
5 Rave • 3 Positive
Read an essay by Claire Hoffman here
“Hoffman has written her own ballad, resurrecting much of the glory and tragedy of McPherson’s ministry … So gripping … Her book is wonderfully thorough, the type of biography in which you learn just the right amount about everything, from the idiosyncrasies of American religious history to the idiocy of modern celebrity culture.”
–Casey Cep (The New Yorker)
2. Notes to John by Joan Didion
(Knopf)
1 Rave • 9 Positive • 2 Mixed • 1 Pan
“An intimate chronicle … Written with her signature precision though without her usual stylistic, incantatory repetitions, it is the least guarded of Didion’s writing … [The entries’] power lies partly in their rawness … May offer insights to other parents grappling with their own children’s substance abuse.”
–Heller McAlpin (NPR)
3. America, América: A New History of the New World by Greg Grandin
(Penguin Press)
4 Rave • 2 Positive • 2 Positive
“Excellent … Grandin…is one of the best historians today at writing for both scholars and the general public. This is an extraordinarily ambitious book.”
–Daniel Geary (The Irish Times)
