Paradise Logic by Sophie Kemp review – a TikTok Stepford Wives for the Pornhub era

This startling debut follows a young woman on a surreal and bluntly graphic quest to be the perfect girlfriend

Out of the Woods by Gretchen Shirm review – a compelling reflection on bearing witness

For her fourth novel, the former lawyer draws on her experience working as a legal intern in the UN tribunal for former Yugoslavia

Sister Europe by Nell Zink review – ramshackle wanderers in Berlin

Zink’s seventh novel, about a night of conversation and adventure, is full of wit and marvellous writing, but ultimately trails off

In brief: The Homemade God; Mythica; There Are Rivers in the Sky – review

Long-buried truths leave siblings reeling when their father dies; a fascinating reclamation of Homer’s forgotten women; and still waters run deep in a centuries-spanning novel

Novelist Kiley Reid: ‘Consumption cannot fix racism’

The American author on the follow-up to her bestselling debut Such a Fun Age, why she loves characters you want to shake, and reading 160 novels for the Booker prize

‘Marriage feels like a hostage situation, and motherhood a curse’: Japanese author Sayaka Murata

The Convenience Store Woman author is renowned for challenging social norms in darkly weird near-future fiction. She discusses sex, feminism and her struggles to be an ‘ordinary earthling’

The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce review – portrait of a patriarch

The mysterious death of an artist causes havoc among siblings in a novel that astutely observes family dynamics

The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

Fair Play by Louise Hegarty; All the Other Mothers Hate Me by Sarah Harman; This Is Not a Game by Kelly Mullen; The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne by Ron Currie; Death and Other Occupations by Veronika Dapunt

The Passenger Seat by Vijay Khurana review – a startling road trip as original as it is timely

Two discontented young men embark on a journey that the reader quickly knows will be violent and doomed – and yet this novel remains almost unbearably tense

Days of Light by Megan Hunter review – Bohemian rhapsody

The privileged world of Bloomsbury group is vividly evoked in this novel of a life shaped by devastating loss

Fun and Games by John Patrick McHugh review – teenage dreams

The tale of a 17-year-old Irish boy’s painful summer of romance and uncertain friendship captures the tenderness and menace of young men

Audition by Katie Kitamura review – a literary performance of true uncanniness

An actor’s story becomes a thrillingly radical deconstruction of family relationships and the social roles we play

Crime and thrillers of the month – review

A couple’s struggle to survive a serial killer, a prank that goes terribly wrong – and the hunt for an old friend who went missing in the woods

Mario Vargas Llosa obituary

Peruvian novelist, essayist and aspiring politician who was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 2010

The big idea: will sci-fi end up destroying the world?

Skewed interpretations of classic works are feeding the dark visions of tech moguls, from Musk to Thiel