Book reviews from Tin House Press — fiction, nonfiction, children’s and independent titles, read and reviewed by our editorial team.
At 17, Anthony Baxter becomes an orphan after losing both his mother, Helena, and his father, Edward, to AIDS in 2005 and 2010, respectively. Due to his family’s secretive ways, Anthony only learned the diagnosis at 11, when a friend showed him the film Philadelphia. On the day of his father’s funeral, Anthony seeks out …
Stretching from the 1820s to the 1970s, this novel tells a sweeping story anchored by the matriarchs of two interconnected families in Oceania. The prologue, titled “Three Dreams of Grandmother,” introduces motifs that recur throughout: trees, song, water, the kingfisher bird. These images are the family inheritance and take on meaning only as the story …
Enrique Pedraza is a 17-year-old high school senior in San Antonio. Even though his father insists that “Mexicans don’t play tennis,” Enrique loves the sport. As the best player in his district, he has the chance to teach at a kids’ summer camp at St. Benedict’s, a local college, in exchange for free lessons. On …
Emily Castillo is a struggling Mexican American writer barely subsisting as a high school English teacher when her brilliant and socially awkward tech bro ex-boyfriend, Theo Smith, makes her an AI assistant. Emily has an MFA from Iowa and a few published short stories but no agent and only a partially completed novel. Without her …
How does one become the CEO—or, as this book puts it, the “Chief Evolution Officer”—of their own life? This self-help book borrows themes from the business world to direct readers toward better balance in their lives. Each of 22 chapters contains explanations of the author’s ideas, which revolve around the concepts of “Vision,” “Purpose,” “Values,” …
London Overhead, a fantastical city above London, is invisible except to its winged human Librae. Eleven-year-old Astrid, new to this world, loves London Overhead and was eager to finally fledge—and fly. Disastrously, though, her wings don’t work, which may spell banishment, a fate her unfledged Pakistani British friend, Pent, also faces. A monthlong festival brings …
Louna, a rising pop star on her first stadium tour in Marseille, is a famous face hiding a buried identity. Backstage after her set, an intruder startles her with words in Arabic: “I found you, Jamila”—revealing by the use of her birth name that someone from her past has tracked her down. Ten years earlier, …
The author’s cousin Robert’s life reads like a cautionary tale, with many pages devoted to his yearslong involvement in criminal activity and after-hours gambling. As readers take in the stories of Robert’s shocking dealings with Irish gang members in New York City and his encounters with the law in the late 1960s and early ’70s, …
Fia Ives’ magic is “rather fickle,” and ever since her mother’s death, their spellshop has gone quiet, much like Fia’s life. Until the night she breaks into the Thistledown archives seeking a spell strong enough to lead her to her mother’s missing spellbook. Unfortunately, Fia is accused of stealing a powerful grimoire from the archives …
Noor pats her drum—“TAP! TAP! TAP!”—as “she sits and waits for a familiar sound to ring in the night.” Soon, “GONG! GONG! GONG!” It’s the Storyteller, calling Noor and her neighbors to gather. “Night after night,” Noor perches at his feet as the Storyteller entrances crowds with his “colorful characters” and tales weaving “proverbs and …
