The Inheritance of Loss
By Kiran Desai

Anyone starting Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss should be aware that, wrapped in flowing prose and colorful, visceral imagery, is a story that is essentially about solitude and disappointment.

The story is set partly in the Himalayan north of India at a time when the indigenous Gorkhas were rising up to demand their own state, and partly in the alleys and basements of an illegal immigrant's New York. There are several connected plotlines, one of which centers around Sai, a young orphan who has come to live with her grandfather, a retired judge and a cold, withered man with no affection for anyone besides his pet dog. Flashbacks attempt to illustrate how his life has led him to this emotional dehydration, but his actions are so unfeeling that it is hard to find sympathy despite his suffering. Meanwhile the other members of Sai's small community try to adjust to the changing times and dangers posed by the rebellion.

Desai uses brilliant imagery, not so much to describe the scenes of New York and northern India, but to illustrate the moments in which environmental sources-vistas, objects, and sensations-affect the characters' emotions. Despite being conjured in such poetic terms, the characters' emotions are most often loneliness, frustration, and alienation, and the entire book leaves the reader with a sense of the difficulty of surmounting past and present sufferings to carve out any happiness for oneself. -Chloe Smith

This is Not Chick Lit: Original Stories by America's Best Women Writers

Don't let the bright pink lettering on the cover fool you-This Is Not Chick Lit: Original Stories by America's Best Women Writers is a book that prides itself on not being stereotypically girly. As is evident from its title, the collection contains a variety of short stories authored by well-known women. In her introduction, editor Elizabeth Merrick states that her purpose is to show that not all fiction "for women by women" has to be cliched and shallow. The collection certainly backs up her claim. The well-written stories it contains tackle topics as disparate as a gay man describing his first and only heterosexual crush and a disgraced PR expert trying to make over the image of a South American dictator. Standouts include the aforementioned tales by Cristina Henriquez and Jennifer Egan, respectively, as well as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's poignant portrayal of a young Nigerian woman adjusting to life in the U.S., and Curtis Sittenfeld's "Volunteers Are Shining Stars," which is not nearly as trite as its title may suggest. If you're beginning to feel like bookshelves these days are sagging under the weight of all the novels about Manolos and man troubles, This Is Not Chick Lit will serve as a welcome change of pace and is a supremely satisfying read in its own right. -Hillary Busis

Trouble
By Patrick Somerville

Trouble, a collection of short stories and the first work of fiction by teacher-turned-author Patrick Somerville, is an outrageous and poignant look at what it means to be an American male. First, in "Puberty," young Brandon wants to fit in and tries to expedite his hormonal growth by popping what he thinks are vitamins from his family's pantry. His efforts are repeatedly foiled, most hilariously after his father's naked, prostrate body is exposed to some school-bound classmates, earning him the nickname "Brown Star." The highlight of the book is "English Cousin," a piece so absurdly surreal from the start that it can be excused a fair amount of structural elements, allowing Somerville's boldly creative voice and inventive humor to really shine through. In other stories, such as "Crow Moon," Somerville manages to maintain this ingenuity while demonstrating a truly keen understanding of ego and emotion.

The only problem with Trouble is that it can be too painfully clever at times, almost to the point of making you wish Somerville would chose between witty quips or stilted rhythm instead of accosting you with both. But just when the writing seems too contrived or self-consciously smart, he injects a line so genuinely funny, so bizarrely original, that it makes you want to grab the nearest stranger and make him read it again with you. -Gizem Orbey

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
By Haruki Murakami

Wise, whimsical, and wistful, Haruki Murakami's latest collection of short stories, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, attempts to uncover the gamut of life's smallest experiences. While most of the stories defy literary analysis, excavating the subtext of life's meanings and nuances seems to be the task that Murakami pursues in each piece. In the title story, we confront a man who has to bring his deaf cousin to the hospital, though the author never tells the reader either of the characters' names. Intriguingly, the most interesting parts of the story-those in which the main character recalls a limpid summer spent by the hospital bedside of a female friend-are interspersed with the main action with seemingly little connection. However, underneath the matter-of-fact tone is a sense of regret that life is easily lived without appreciation of the deeper subtleties of existence.

The story "New York Mining Disaster" is even more baffling in its technique. The protagonist is mourning the sudden deaths of his young peers and recognizes the fragility of temporal life. Yet all but the last paragraph is devoted to the protagonist's dealings with these unexpected deaths, and the only mention of a mining accident comes through an italicized final section that seems completely disparate from the rest of the story. In the end, one can only speculate that this mysterious ending is a comment on how quickly both life and narration can change. Ultimately, Murakami is more concerned with the past than the future, and he writes stunningly about the psychological difficulties life has inflicted on everyone. -Estelle Chan

To Feel Stuff
Andrea Seigel

The key word in the fittingly vague title of Andrea Seigel's novel To Feel Stuff is, in fact, "stuff." The plot certainly contains a lot of it: There's a primer on various diseases, an opposites-attract brand of romance, and a ghost with unknown origins. These varied storylines all involve Elodie, a Brown University student who mysteriously contracts illnesses without ever sustaining permanent damage. What she is never given room to do, unfortunately, is develop a personality that would render any of these disjointed plotlines interesting. Certain scenes, like that in which Elodie sings the Smiths' "Girlfriend in a Coma" to her boyfriend, might come off as edgy or effecting in an indie film. But on the page, these scenes fail to bring life to the painfully flat characters. This is mostly due to the awkward dialogue, of both the internal and spoken varieties, that switches between forced casualness and soul-exposing declarations without ever managing to sound sincere. Anyone who wants to explore the entanglement of the physical pain of disease and the mental pain of isolation may find a quick, sometimes amusing read in Stuff. But in the end, the novel's overstuffed yet underdeveloped plot weighs it down, preventing the reader from feeling anything more than boredom. -Bethany Schaid