Sorority, mental health, roots… There’s a lot going on in this selection of the first three novels released yesterday during this literary season. Here are our three current favorites.
” Thelmaby Caroline Bouffaulta moving novel about anorexia
With this first novel, Caroline Bouffault offers a subtle and tender text around the vertigo of adolescence and anorexia. At 15, Thelma lives under the yoke of a domestic dictator. What she calls “The Coach” rules her daily life, cheering on every meal skipped or gram lost, encouraging her to never let her guard down. To always go further. Torn between her illness and the desire to heal, the young woman throws herself and tries to make her way in the world of adults who seem as disoriented as she is.
The great success of this solar novel is being able to evoke anorexia in such a right way, without trying at all costs to explain its roots, nor to reduce its heroine to the status of a sick person.. For that is the paradox exposed here, the adolescent’s incredible appetite for life even as he carries his body to death.
We are particularly touched by the organic writing of the novelist who speaks of intoxication, but also of the suffering of a body and a spirit pushed to the limit. Favorite from our selection, this tender novel is published by Fugue, a very promising new publishing house.
*Thelma by Caroline Bouffault, published by Fugue, 256 pages, 20 euros.
” girls like us“, by Dafne Palasi Andreadesa raw novel about friendship and roots
Their names are Nadira, Anjali, Michaela, Naz, Mae, Aiza, Odalis… They are, as they call themselves, “girls of color.” Those of ” 7-Eleven’s Non-Alcoholic Beer”, “Earth”, “Grilled Hamburger Steak”, “Sand” OR ” peanut butter “. Together they form the heterogeneous chorus of this first vibrant novel that runs from childhood to death, sweeping away the emotions of adolescence, study, work, sexuality, the desire or not to have children…
They live deep in Queens and have vowed never to be apart. All of them trying to make their way, eternal balancers of a ridge line between the American culture that saw them grow up and their origins. In class they learn things that their parents don’t know and when, in the evening, they see their eyes veiled with incomprehension on the story of their discoveries, they feel petty and powerful at the same time.
Caught between their parents’ injunction to be obedient, discreet and their search for freedom, between loyalty and ambition, they try to find their place. Some decide not to leave the area, or to return, others, on the contrary, want to get away. As their paths fork, a wall stands between them. Carried by a bubbling “we”, this gritty novel written by a young woman who herself grew up in Queens in a Filipino immigrant family brings the power of female friendship and questions both weight and the gift of our roots, but also racism, feminism, class struggle and what makes a successful life.
*girls like us by Daphné Palasi Andreades, translated by Emmanuelle Aronson, published by Les Escales, 224 pages, 22 euros.
“The Choice”, by Isabelle Hanne, at the center of the United States after the repeal of the right to abortion
Leah, 16, daughter of a Republican senator who takes it off Ring of purity on the way to high school. Mark, a lost and very pious 30-year-old who has chosen childish laughter as his ringtone. Norma, mother of a child and pregnant again. And Luke, 44, a doctor at a Texas clinic that performs abortions. Four characters and destinies that gravitate and mingle around this place, regularly attacked by hordes of pro-life activists.
At a time when abortion rights are under threat in the United States, since the fall of “Roe v. Wade” in the summer of 2022, this choral novel paints the portrait of an American society torn apart by tensions and fractures. Punctuated by passages in English in the text and carried by a sober and incisive writing, this text turn the page it is based on the fieldwork of its author, Isabelle Hanne. This journalist, former correspondent in the United States for Publication covered the term of Donald Trump. Tell with precision and subtlety, the chilling divisions between anti and pro abortion, highlighting what is eminently political in the intimate. Hat !
*The choiceby Isabelle Hanne published by Goutte d’or, 352 pages, €19.50.
Source: Madmoizelle
Mary Crossley is an author at “The Fashion Vibes”. She is a seasoned journalist who is dedicated to delivering the latest news to her readers. With a keen sense of what’s important, Mary covers a wide range of topics, from politics to lifestyle and everything in between.
