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

Chang-Rae Lee’s A Tender Age, Virginia Eubanks’s A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving, and Téa Obreht’s Sunrise 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. A Tender Age by Chang Rae-Lee
(Riverhead)

10 Rave • 1 Mixed

“Luminous … In his masterful almost-ending, Lee shrouds what exactly happened on that life-altering precipice, brilliantly inviting room for interrogation and interpretation..”

–Terry Hong (Shelf Awareness)

2. Sunrise by Téa Obreht
(Random House)

7 Rave • 1 Pan
Read an interview with Téa Obreht here

“Obreht is riveting in each time frame as she exults in emulating and subverting tales of the Old West while exposing the poisonous complexities of gender, taboo love, myth, history, and our desecration of the wild in a breathtaking, shocking, and reverberating survival story.”

–Donna Seaman (Booklist)

3. Under the Falls by Richard Russo
(Knopf)

1 Rave • 7 Positive • 2 Mixed • 2 Pan

“Russo’s dark and brooding novel is cinematically lush and emotionally potent, a shrewd treatise on the perils of reunion, remorse, and the quest for redemption.”

–Carol Haggas (Booklist)

=4. The Responsible Party by Claire Carusillo
(Henry Holt & Company)

3 Rave • 1 Positive

“[An] extraordinary tale … Terrifically comic … Carusillo is a master of the vigorous and inclusive aside, employing a crackling blend of high and low diction … Affirms that we can’t necessarily escape the conduct of our predecessors, while gleefully celebrating, one smashing sentence at a time, that there’s alchemy to be found in the hands of the right legatee.”

–Elizabeth McKenzie (The New York Times Book Review)

=4. Hocus Pocus by Brinda Charry
(Scribner)

3 Rave • 1 Positive 

“A vividly lived-in portrait of a Boston scarcely removed from the American Revolution … A pretty gentle and welcoming novel, infused with a sense of empathy that extends to secondary characters … A stirring work of historical fiction that strives for both concrete detail and the rich contradictions of its specific time and place. If that setting is freezing cold, the end result is satisfying and even warm in its depiction of fantasy and authenticity, showmanship and, of course, magic.”

–Chris Vognar (The Boston Globe)

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Nonfiction

1. Are They Dead Yet?: The Art of the Obit by Sam Roberts
(Bloomsbury)

3 Rave • 1 Positive
Read an essay by Sam Roberts here

“Delightful … Obit­u­ary-writ­ing is a seri­ous occu­pa­tion but, sur­pris­ing­ly, it also has its lighter moments. Roberts cap­tures these and pays warm-heart­ed trib­ute to his fel­low obit­u­ar­ists as well as their deserv­ing (and some­times unde­serv­ing) sub­jects. He is a genial, if some­times rep­e­ti­tious, guide through the com­plex­i­ties of the genre.”

–Martin Green (Jewish Book Council)

2. A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving: Lessons on Love, Care, and Survival: A Memoir by Virginia Eubanks
(Farrar, Straus, and Giroux)

3 Rave

“It’s hard to know whether this memoir will land in the hands of exhausted caregivers, intrepid explorers or government officials who have the power to help the most vulnerable among us. It belongs with all three, although each might take issue with a different part … there’s an admirable rigor to Eubanks’s account. She really does dive into the wreck, applying the same level of scrutiny to her own impatience and peevishness as she does to J.’s suffering … Stylish and informative.”

–Elisabeth Egan (The New York Times Book Review)

3. Depraved: The Story of Dangerous Art by Daisy Dixon
(Viking)

3 Rave • 1 Positive • 1 Mixed • 1 Pan
Read an excerpt from Depraved here

“Art that depicts rape, slaughter, and problematic historical figures should be criticized but not necessarily censored, according to this probing debut treatise … Dixon insists that concerns about morality and justice are important without losing sight of art’s aesthetic imperatives, and she writes incisively about the interplay between the two. The result is an insightful, timely analysis that gives full weight to both art and conscience.”

–Publishers Weekly

4. Fed Up: What Evolution Reveals about Food, Diet, Health, and Eating Well by David E. Lieberman
(Knopf)

2 Rave • 1 Positive

“A well-researched explanation of how evolution has affected people’s eating habits and weight … Nuanced and evidence-based, this is a life raft for readers navigating the deluge of nutrition advice.”

–Publishers Weekly

5. Days of Miracle and Wonder: Paul Simon and the Trials and Triumphs of Graceland by Ashley Kahn
(Atria)

2 Rave • 1 Mixed

“The research that went into the book is peerless, done over decades. Kahn displays a musical sensibility that holds anyone with musical knowledge enthralled throughout … Kahn achieves an admirably balanced equilibrium between the elements of the story … It is a life-affirming story that will appeal to a broad audience and have them replaying their favorite tracks. Against considerable odds, Days of Miracle and Wonder is a joyous, triumphant book.”

–Mike Raftery (Open Letters Review)