Book Reviews

"Meta" isn't quite sufficient to describe Rainbow Rowell's latest, which brings a fictional Harry Potteresque series described in her previous novel Fangirl to warm, messy, beautiful life.

Anthony Marra's new short story collection is a hundred-year relay of Russian history, full of black, bone-dry humor and characters who are often (but not always) as awful as the worlds they live in.

Ann Leckie's powerhouse space-opera trilogy followed a soldier out to bring down a galactic empress. Critic Genevieve Valentine says the final volume is rich in detail, and a fitting capstone.

Theater critic Michael Riedel dishes some juicy backstage anecdotes in his new book about Broadway's Shubert Organization, but fails to bring its deal-makers and their troubles to convincing life.

Cartoonist Bill Griffith discovered as an adult that his mother had had a 16-year affair with another man, also a cartoonist. In Invisible Ink, he digs into the secrets surrounding his family.

Patti Smith's new memoir is a dreamy, elegiac recollection of loved ones gone too soon, energized by her interests and travels. It jumps in time, from her husband's death in 1994 to Hurricane Sandy.

Jojo Moyes' follow-up to her 2012 best-seller Me Before You picks up with heroine Lou, heartbroken after the death of her love Will. Stuck in a bad job and numb with grief, Lou must build a new world.

Leigh Bardugo's latest invites comparison to Ocean's 11, one of the best heist stories ever told. Critic Jason Sheehan says the teenage crows seem too mature, but praises the immersive world-building.

Margaret Atwood's new novel started life as a digital serial about a young couple who join a strange prison-based planned community. But their hapless shallowness makes the book deeply frustrating.