“Audition” by Katie Kitamura
If anyone can create a thick tension just with words, it’s certainly author and NYU professor Katie Kitamura. “Audition,” Kitamura’s newest book which was shortlisted for this year’s Booker Prize, follows an unnamed actress as she grapples with a confusing relationship with a younger man. The story that unfolds seeks to answer who he is, and why he is in her life, but we are left with more questions than we started with.
The novel is split into two sections, and the man’s place in our narrator’s life changes halfway through the book. Kitamura weaves an alluring tale for each chapter with underlying suspense and tension, leading the reader on edge. Though it’s never quite clear exactly what’s happening, Kitamura’s prose and characters make it easy to care about our protagonist and her situation.
— Alexa Donovan, Editor-at-Large
“One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez’s novel weaves politics and magic into the Buendía family, bringing the fictional town of Macondo to life. Beginning with the eldest member of the family, José Arcadio Buendía, and his work establishing this mythical Colombian town, the novel unravels to span seven generations of the family. Though it is admittedly difficult to not confuse the four José Arcadios, a name that is continuously passed down from father to son, the story fosters a familiar connection between the characters and the readers.
Márquez’s magical realism fabricates paranormal occurrences, such as a rain of yellow flowers and family members returning from the dead, against a background of political violence and uprisings in Macondo. These mystical details in the book express the family’s history through means that surpass reality alone.
— Eva Mundo, Deputy News Editor
“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams
Amid the absurdity of our present world, here is a book that will match it. Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” though aggressively comedic, will leave readers wondering if anything really matters. For some people that might be depressing, but for others that idea is a comfort.
After discovering that his house and the entire planet are soon to be demolished to make way for an interstellar highway, Arthur Dent is forced to hitch a ride with an alien spaceship. His adventure begins and he encounters a delightful cast of characters. The two-headed president of the universe, Zaphod Beeblebrox, and Marvin the Paranoid Android, the deeply depressed robot, leave the reader wondering how Adams could conceive such strange dialogues and sequences. This story stands out not only because of its creative plot but also because of Adams’ singularly absurd and inventive voice.
— Matthew Singh, Deputy Sports Editor
“People We Meet on Vacation” by Emily Henry
Poppy is messy, indecisive and the kind of person who could get a Ph.D. in yearning. Alex, on the other hand, is precise, dependable and entirely allergic to chaos. In “People We Meet on Vacation,” Emily Henry makes these heartfelt opposites a couple readers can’t help but root for.
The novel follows the spontaneous travel writer and her stuck up best friend as they reunite after two years of silence for one last attempt at their tradition of summer vacations. Through awkward mishaps and tender moments, Henry explores how friendship and romantic love can easily blur together, revealing the difficulties of saying what you really feel to the person who matters most. Her writing captures hilarious vacation mishaps, quiet aches and realizations that “your person” may just have been in front of you this whole time. “People We Meet on Vacation” reminds me that sometimes getting lost is how you find your way back.
— Rhea Kohli, Contributing Writer
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