The Five Wounds by Kirstin Valdez Quade review – a family with crosses to bear
This immersive novel follows a New Mexico household facing challenges and chances of redemption
Trans by Helen Joyce; Material Girls by Kathleen Stock – reviews
Two weighty books on the debate around gender-critical feminism and transgender rights strike different tones
Three Rooms by Jo Hamya review – some room of one’s own, please
A young woman struggles to find a home and stable job in a smart and acerbic debut that inverts the coming-of-age arc
Hatchet Man review: Bill Barr as Trump loyalist – and fairly typical AG
Elie Honig excoriates the man who ran interference over Russia. He might have considered attorneys general gone before
An Ugly Truth by Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang review – Facebook’s battle for domination
Russian hacking, smear campaigns and livestreamed massacres are the price of Mark Zuckerberg’s quest for connectivity, grippingly probed by two New York Times journalists
Social Warming by Charles Arthur review – a coolly prosecutorial look at social media
Social media giants contribute to global conflicts and allow misinformation. What are they doing to our lives, and what can we do about it?
Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder review – a feral debut
In this mischievous commentary on the neuroses of modern womanhood, a middle-class mother appears to be turning into a dog
Fear Street Part 3: 1666 review – hokey horror trilogy ends on a high
Netflix’s big-bet slasher franchise goes back in time before leaping forward again in a rousing and immensely satisfying finale
I Alone Can Fix It review: Donald Trump as wannabe Führer – in another riveting read
Gen Mark Milley saw that the US was in a ‘Reichstag moment’ – four days before the Capitol riot. With this and much more startling reporting, Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker of the Washington Post deliver the goods once again
The best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror – review roundup
When the Sparrow Falls by Neil Sharpson; A Strange and Brilliant Light by Eli Lee; Robot by Adam Wiśniewski-Snerg; Come Closer by Sara Gran; The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig and The 22 Murders of Madison May by Max Barry
The Authority Gap by Mary Ann Sieghart review – why men are still on top
A thorough and sometimes enraging book shows how women are stripped of authority, why that’s bad news for everyone and what we can all do about it
The Rabbits by Sophie Overett review – a unique and captivating tangle of magic and mystery
It’s an ambitious undertaking to interweave literary fiction and magic realism, but Overett executes it beautifully in this deliciously unsettling debut
Petrov’s Flu review – feverish tale of a pandemic and societal breakdown
Kirill Serebrennikov’s prescient and audacious but oppressive drama is set in a post-Soviet Russia in the grip of a flu epidemic
A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam review – a journey into the trauma of war
A young man reflects on Sri Lanka’s civil war, in a meticulous but frustrating meditation on violence and memory
Walking the Invisible by Michael Stewart review – following in the Brontës’ footsteps
A walking tour of the north of England becomes a celebration of the Brontës’ work and a love letter to the wily, windy places that inspired them