The Book of Records

The Book of Records by Madeleine Thien is the best book I have read this year. 

A novel that leaps across centuries past and future, as if different eras were separated by only a door.

Lina and her father arrive at an enclave called The Sea, a staging post between migrations, with only a few possessions. In this mysterious and shape-shifting place, a building made of time, pasts and futures collide. Lina befriends her neighbors: Bento, a Jewish scholar in seventeenth-century Amsterdam; Blucher, a philosopher in 1930s Germany fleeing Nazi persecution; and Jupiter, a poet of Tang Dynasty China.

Memory, political revolution, generational change, and the ethical imagination are at the heart of Lina’s illuminating conversations with her fellows in the Sea: how we come to believe what we believe, and how every person is an irreplaceable, unique vessel of history. Through the guidance of these great thinkers, Lina equips herself to reckon with difficult questions of guilt, responsibility, and the possibility of redemption when her ailing father begins to reveal his role in their family’s tragic past.

As Lina confronts her father’s troubling admissions, she begins to reconceptualize the world around her, gaining a deeper understanding of how our individual futures are shaped by our political circumstances, and she relies on the collective joy of art and intellectual endeavors to carry her through difficulty. A novel that voyages between centuries, generations, and ideas, The Book of Records is an indelible testament to the migratory nature of humanity and our ceaseless search for a home—in the physical world, in cyberspace, in history, and in the imagination—in the wake of catastrophe.

Thien is a beautiful writer who pulls readers into the story. She must have a brilliant mind to be able to wrestle the time periods, philosophy, and poetry into a truly amazing book. Buy this book today.

Thien, Madeleine. (2025). The Book of Records. New York: WW Norton & Co.

Never Say Never

Never Say Never by Rachael Sommers is a slow burn, age-gap romance that highlights how we should allow ourselves to be happy, especially when happiness comes so rarely.

Camila Evans has finalized her divorce. But it’s okay because she doesn’t need love to build a television empire and raise her son, Jaime, alone. What she needs is a nanny, someone who will care for Jaime as if he was their own. But finding someone who is competent, nurturing, and can elevate to her standards has proven difficult. 

Emily Walker is fresh out of college, bright, a little naive, and new to New York City. She’s charming, caring, and has been completely infatuated with Camila long before she walked into her office to interview for the nanny position. It’s a little unsettling to be working for the woman she’s had a crush on for years. 

The more time they spend together, the more the sparks of desire threaten to ignite. Professional lines start to blur, but Camila is steadfast in resisting temptation. 

Rachael Sommers is a great writer of lesbian romance. 

Sommers, Rachael. (2021). Never Say Never. Germany: Ylva Publishing. 

Ocean's Echo

Ocean's Echo by Everina Maxwell

Rich socialite, inveterate flirt, and walking disaster Tennalhin Halkana can read minds. Tennal, like all neuromodified “readers,” is a security threat on his own. But when controlled, readers are a rare asset. Not only can they read minds, but they can navigate chaotic space, the maelstroms surrounding the gateway to the wider universe.

Conscripted into the military under dubious circumstances, Tennal is placed into the care of Lieutenant Surit Yeni, a duty-bound soldier, principled leader, and the son of a notorious traitor general. Whereas Tennal can read minds, Surit can influence them. Like all other neuromodified “architects,” he can impose his will onto others, and he’s under orders to control Tennal by merging their minds.

Surit accepted a suspicious promotion-track request out of desperation, but he refuses to go through with his illegal orders to sync and control an unconsenting Tennal. So they lie: They fake a sync bond and plan Tennal's escape.

Their best chance arrives with a salvage-retrieval mission into chaotic space—to the very neuromodifcation lab that Surit's traitor mother destroyed twenty years ago. And among the rubble is a treasure both terrible and unimaginably powerful, one that upends a decades-old power struggle, and begins a war.

Tennal and Surit can no longer abandon their unit or their world. The only way to avoid life under full military control is to complete the very sync they've been faking.

This is Maxwell's second book in the same universe. I love what she does with gender presentation!

Maxwell, Everina. (2022). Ocean's Echo. New York: Tor.