I think this would have been much better if it were shorter. Smith's sentences and juxtapositions if powerful women with the narrator were fascinating, but the heart was in the early narrative of childhood.

The ideas, relationships, and insights were sometimes powerful. The book seemed told from an arm's length, and the character development suffered for it. The prose can be reinvigorating if you want something very different (fragments, plays inside of the novel). The book is too long and a lot of the conflicts happen off the page..

The dialogue is funny and the pacing is fast, but the plot was so stereotypically "on-the-lam" fiction that I had a hard time relating to the initially promising characters. The peppy tone and Americana-style violence might do it for some readers, but I ended the novel feeling like I missed the train.

Moshfegh's short stories felt more earnest than Eileen, but for me the connection was hit & miss. The physicality and humor that made Eileen pop exist here, but the profuse loathing throughout make it a collection readers like me (annoying, empathetic types) may want to read slowly and sparingly.

Come for the insight into refugee life, stay for the rare, truthful love story. Hamid weaves fantastical elements exist in a world that feels just one step left (or forward) of ours, but the unreal only adds to the gravity of the rich characters and important themes.

This book should be read at breakneck speed in a single sitting. If you need moments of lightness in even short, serious novels, skip this one. It hurts like grief. But if you want to a real story of loss, this is as real as any can feel.

Nguyen delivers cutting social satire through an empathetic spy protagonist. The pacing is similar to a Russian epic. The tone is rage--intellectual, wounded rage.

Lalami gives us a complicated, tender protagonist in Mustafa and dense, lyrical prose. You don't need to have read Cabeza de Vaca to appreciate this novel, but if you have, you'll be intrigued even more.