Book Review: Taipei Story by R.F. Kuang
Our Taipei Story review explores R.F. Kuang's 2026 novel about language, grief, cultural identity and one unforgettable summer in Taiwan.
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Book Reviews
Browse our latest book reviews across literary fiction, contemporary fiction, mysteries, thrillers, translated literature and Asian writing. Each review aims to go beyond synopsis and explain how the book reads, what it does well, where it may divide readers and who is most likely to enjoy it.
Book Review: Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino
It’s sharp, compulsively readable, deeply stressful in a good way, and unexpectedly emotionally perceptive beneath its chaotic surface.
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Book Review: Julie Chan Is Dead by Liann Zhang
Beneath the murder mystery and social media commentary is a novel deeply interested in visibility and desirability.
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Book Review: Early Mornings at the Laksa Cafe by Janet Tay
This is a novel about family legacy, migration, regret, ambition, and whether preserving tradition always requires personal sacrifice.
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Book Review: The Unlikely Motherhood of Shaleni May
It’s about reinvention, belonging, aging, marriage, and the reality that major life changes do not automatically resolve old emotional wounds.
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Book Review: Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
Whether you admire it may depend on your tolerance for morally abrasive protagonists and structurally chaotic psychological fiction.
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Best Korean Fiction Books in Translation: 15 Essential Novels Every Reader Should Discover
While Korean dramas, films, and music have gained international recognition, Korean novels have undergone a similar transformation.
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Book Review: Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe
It’s one of the sharpest, funniest, and most unexpectedly moving contemporary novels I’ve read in recent years.
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Book Review: Sister Snake by Amanda Lee Koe
At its heart, this is a story about two sisters who have lived for more than a thousand years and still struggle to understand each other.
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Book Review: Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-joo
It’s an accessible yet quietly devastating feminist novel, precisely because it refuses melodrama in favour of accumulated realism.
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Book Review: Now You See Us by Balli Kaur Jaswal
It’s a sharp and emotionally grounded Singapore-set novel, and one that feels particularly urgent in what it chooses to centre.
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Book Review: Sisters in Yellow by Mieko Kawakami
It’s one of Kawakami’s most emotionally sprawling works, and perhaps one of her bleakest.
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