Books shelved under “Canlit”

When I try to explain why I read Emily St. John Mandel’s books, I don’t ever have a cogent explanation. “She’s Canadian,” I mumble, as if I am somehow bound by CRTC Cancon requirements. “She never writes two novels the same,” I grasp at straws of justification. Why do I feel the need to justify? Probably because her novels straddle genre with an uncomfortable liminality: science fiction but not science fiction, fantasy but not fantasy. …

Damn but William Gibson can write! I realize this might feel like a contradictory pronouncement to the one I made at the start of my review of The Peripheral, but I assure you the statements are compatible. I wasn’t aware of this sequel, Agency, until recently, but it was nice to pluck it from my library’s shelves. While you don’t need to have read the first book—this is a very loose sequel, with…

Although over a decade old at this point, Undoing Border Imperialism still feels relevant today in 2024—maybe even more urgent and important than it was when Harsha Walia first wrote and assembled it. Part how-to, part manifesto, part oral history, this compact volume works hard to syncretize different modes of resistance, from academic theory to grassroots activism. It is a volume I sorely needed to read as I navigate my own journey trying to figure…

Damn, I don’t think I can write a review that’s going to do this book justice. It’s not just because I’m a white woman, and I’m going to miss a thousand little elements that Alicia Elliott has put in her for her fellow Indigenous readers. It’s not just because I read this weeks ago and am behind on writing reviews, so my memory has faded a bit. No, it’s mostly because And Then She Fell…

Although I have never dealt with loss of this magnitude, I understand how it can reshape someone. Bad Cree is a story about the shape of loss, the way grief carves itself into your soul even when you think you haven’t let it. Jessica Johns uses traditional Cree stories to explore the power of family, of trusting yourself, and confronting those parts of yourself that you would prefer not to look at. It’s a “horror”…

Nearly four years ago (wow), I gushed over The House of Styx, a Venusian planetary romance that swept me off my feet and into the clouds of Earth’s harsh neighbour. If you haven’t read my (spoiler-free) review of that book, go do it now so I don’t have to retread all the praise I gave it—all of which applies to The House of Saints, and then some. Derek Künsken brings this duology to…

You’re not paranoid, the saying goes, if they are actually out to get you. That’s what Scott Warms and his friend, narrator Marty Hench, learns in The Bezzle. Cory Doctorow tackles the unscrupulous American private prison system in this book, demonstrating how capitalism’s death grip on the carceral state has resulted in harm beyond the physical cruelty of solitary confinement or guards turning an eye to violence. Nowadays, it costs people money to be…

With most memoirs, I already have a good sense of who the author is, like in the case of Making It So, and I’ve picked up the memoir because I’m interested in hearing their story in their own words. In the case of But Everyone Feels This Way, I hadn’t heard of Paige Layle before. Instagram recommended a Reel by her. I don’t remember the Reel or what she said in it, but…

I read and reviewed my first M.G. Vassanji novel in 2009, when I was nineteen years old, making it among one of the earliest reviews I wrote, about a year into this project. It’s wild, going back and reading those old reviews. Kara of 2009 was so young, and self-deprecating: “I suspect that when I revisit this book as an older, more experienced person, I will see additional facets of the story that escaped…

C.L. Polk is fast becoming one of my favourite fantasy authors (love that they are Canadian to boot, eh). Even Though I Knew the End is everything I want in a novella: fast pace, great worldbuilding, and a protagonist I can get behind without too much exposition.

Helena, aka Elena, was once in training to be a “mystic,” one of few women accepted to the very sexist Brotherhood. Then she made a demonic deal, sold…

Almost a exactly a year ago, I read the first and second books in The Keeper Chronicles. Now we conclude this trilogy with Long Hot Summoning. Tanya Huff increases the role of Claire’s younger sister, Diana, giving her a Summoning of her own and more responsibility for saving the world. It’s a fresh and fun adventure with much of the charm but also most of the flaws of the first two books. Also,…

This is one of those books I heard so much buzz about I nearly didn’t read it just to be contrary—and what a mistake that would have been. Kate Heartfield’s fantastical take on the lives of two queens—Marie Antoinette and her sister Maria Carolina, also known as Charlotte—at the end of the Enlightenment is exactly the kind of historical fiction I love. From 1768 to 1793, The Embroidered Book charts the rise and fall of…

Once again Heather O’Neill proves her ability to cut deep. When We Lost Our Heads is an invigorating, frustrating, dark, beautiful, terrible tragedy. As much as I loved Lullabies for Little Criminals, I think if I went back and reread the book for a third time I would be more critical of it now—both because I’m older and because O’Neill’s writing has improved since then. When We Lost Our Heads displays a mastery over…

It feels like I have had this Massey Lectures book forever, always next on the to-read list, always another nonfiction book slipping in and taking its place but finally, finally I’ve sat down and given Esi Edugyan the time she deserves here. Out of the Sun is a great example of what the Massey Lectures can be: give someone the platform to talk about whatever they want, basically, but in a way that is…

It’s no secret that I love stories about storytelling. Similarly, as much as I love a good action-packed epic, slow stories have their own unique virtues. Close Your Eyes: A Fairy Tale is such a slow story about stories—and in particular, how the stories we tell about ourselves and one another shape our choices in life. Chris Tomasini uses the backdrop of fifteenth-century Europe and crafts a small, memorable cast of characters. I enjoyed the…

Mean Girls was a formative movie of my youth for so many reasons, to the point where it was the first movie I purchased on DVD (at the same time that I bought my first DVD player). It was released in 2004, the same year I started high school, so I was of the generation it depicted. I also loved math. Indeed, my strongest Mean Girls memory is of my AP Calculus course in Grade…

As I’ve said in the past, I am very selective about the anthologies I read. Novels are my jam when it comes to fiction, short stories and novelettes and novellas much less so. Nevertheless, when Derek Künsken’s collection Flight from the Ages And Other Stories came up on NetGalley, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to request an eARC for review. Künsken might fast become one of my favourite living science-fiction authors. Ever since I…

Time travel always opens up such interesting storytelling possibilities, loops and predestination paradoxes among them. We humans are so immured in the linearity of time that these possibilities can be tantalizing, frightening, and even bewildering. Add on top of that metafiction, the idea of a story escaping itself into the real world, and you get some truly fascinating plot ideas. Sea of Tranquility tries to create such an atmosphere of possibility. Though I wouldn’t say…

The downside of a book about a delicious pastry is that it made me want to eat pastry! Nancy Mauro is a dangerous temptress with The Sugar Thief. Set primarily in Mauro’s and my hometown of Thunder Bay, Ontario, this novel is a mystery wrapped in the warmth of family and iced with the frosting of betrayal and recrimination. It asks us what happens when people go to any lengths to establish the life…

Claire Hansen returns in this sequel to Summon the Keeper. It’s rare that I manage to read the next book in a series in such close succession, but here we go! The Second Summoning embraces and builds upon certain elements of absurdity present in the first book. I admire how Tanya Huff can write urban fantasy that is simultaneously tense and intriguing yet also funny and lighthearted. However, the plot of this book didn’t…