All the Giller Ladies
Well, most of them.
The stars aligned the other day: the kids were at school, I was at home, and I was inspired to make a Booktube video. Behold:
The “Try a Chapter” tag’s been around since late last year, but I gave it a topical twist: I used it to figure out which Giller Prize longlister I’m going to read. I meant to try the first chapter of each longlister written by a woman, but I had to exclude The Wonder by Emma Donoghue (not released yet) and Death Valley by Susan Perly (no ebook version, and I was using Kobo previews.)
More “Try a Chapter” inspiraton:
Original video by Book Paradise
Amanda Center’s video
Mercy’s Musings’ video
Steve Donoghue’s video
Books I tried:
13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad
The Party Wall by Catherine Leroux, translated by Lazer Lederhendler
The Two of Us by Kathy Page
Willem De Koomings Paintbrush by Kerry Lee Powell
Do Not Say That We Have Nothing by Madeline Thien
The Best Kind of People by Zoe Whittall
Reading in Bed 
Fun idea. And, good choice!
You would like The Party Wall, too, I think.
I love the title. And I reviewed 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl awhile ago . . . I found it, shall we say, problematic. It’s not YA, though (though the first story sounds that way). Anyway, for books with fat protagonists (more of these, please!), Dietland can’t be beat.
Well! Somehow I missed both those reviews. The Dietland one was so delightful, and it’s been on my shelf since December…
It probably took me until the middle of the book, but I enjoyed reading Do Not Say We Have Nothing. From the rest of the list, I would probably like to read The Best Kind of People because the subject matter seems timely.
I’m still on the fence with Thien. I don’t know if I have time to wait around for half the book!
All the Giller buzz I’ve heard so far puts Thien in the top spot. I just got it this week so we’ll see what we see… but this was a really lovely way to (vicariously) dip my toes into some of the other books on the longlist, so thanks!
Do Not Say We Have Nothing is one of my favourite books so far this year. Epic tale of survival. Eloquent. Tragic.