Book Club Pick

In this latest novel from author Ruth Ozeki, a troubled Japanese schoolgirl starts a diary she hopes will be found someday by a sympathetic reader.

In racially divided South Africa, a white woman and her housemaid’s daughter risk their lives and those of everyone around them when they forge a lifelong friendship.

Alex, Lora and I, along with our guest, intern Danya Cohen, discuss this scintillating debut novel by 25-year-old Shani Boianjiu. Informed by Boianjiu’s compulsory two-year service in the Israeli military, the novel shines with both humour and heartbreak.

At 24, Shani Boianjiu was one of the youngest recipients of the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 award. Her debut novel wowed us with its exhilarating, assured voice and its fresh stories about three young women who, on the cusp of adulthood, are thrust into compulsory service in the Israeli military.

Three young women head off for compulsory service in the Israeli military. What awaits them is perhaps not quite what they expect: endless days of training, men, gossip and boredom, punctuated by sheer terror.