A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing

Eimear McBride (Get this book)
A fresh, emotionally raw debut from Irish-born, U.K.-based author McBride. Written in halting sentences, half-sentences and dangling clauses that tumble through the text like fleeting, undigested thoughts, the story follows the female narrator as she navigates an abusive upbringing-physical, sexual and psychological-and the lingering effects of her brother's early childhood brain trauma. Lovers of straightforward storytelling will shirk, but open-minded readers (specifically those not put off by the unusual language structure) will be surprised, moved and awed by this original novel. McBride's debut garnered the inaugural Goldsmiths Prize in 2013 and the Baileys Women's Prize for fiction in 2014-and deservedly so. This is exhilarating fiction from a voice to watch.--Kirkus

Station Eleven

Emily St. John Mandel (Get this book)
Mandel's ambitious, magnificent fourth novel examines the collapse of civilization after a deadly flu wipes out most of the world's population. Moving gracefully from the first days of the plague to years before it and decades after, Mandel anchors the story to Arthur Leander, a famous actor who dies of a heart attack while playing King Lear on stage. Mandel's vision is not only achingly beautiful but also startlingly plausible, exposing the fragile beauty of the world we inhabit. In the burgeoning post-apocalyptic literary genre, Mandel's transcendent, haunting novel deserves a place alongside The Road (2006), The Passage (2010), and The Dog Stars (2012).--Booklist

Five Days Left

Julie Lawson Timmer (Get this book)
Timmer's emotional debut about saying goodbye should come with a box of tissues.Scott Coffman has five days until the little boy he's been caring for returns to his birth mother; Mara Nichols is five days away from killing herself before Huntington's disease can steal her independence. The two meet anonymously in an online therapy forum, and although their paths never cross in real life, Timmer deftly compares their shared dilemmas of when and how to let go. As Scott and Mara wrestle with ethical questions, the answers they find are both relatable and debatable.The characters are so affecting it's tough to make it to Day 5. An authentic and powerful story.--Kirkus