
Budhos's latest novel is Watched.
Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Her reply:
This summer I finally read Jacqueline Woodson’s memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming. What a gorgeous, spare, and apt book. I am not one of those who has taken to the novel in verse form which is especially popular in middle grade and YA. I’m something of aVisit Marina Budhos's website.conventional, sink into a fictional narrative reader. But I felt myself on a silky ride and was impressed by Woodson’s conjuring magic of childhood, the South, her family, and her journey north to Brooklyn.
I also read Shining Sea, by Anne Korkeakivi, since I will be hosting her at my local bookstore, Words, in October. Anne is such a graceful writer and I was deeply impressed with how she managed to write an utterly different book from her debut novel, An Unexpected Guest. She also showed herself, in this novel, to be a very funny dialogue writer, particularly in scenes wherethere’s a cacophony of family voices butting in, interrupting each other.
Finally I just began The Vegetarian, by Han Kang—so far a pitch-perfect example of not just the unreliable narrator, but the ferociously unlikeable narrator of a husband. Reading the narrator is almost like exacting revenge on him, because you know, despite himself, he is revealing his wife who you are quietly cheering. I have no idea where it’s going, but it’s so far excellent.
My Book, The Movie: Watched.
The Page 69 Test: Watched.
--Marshal Zeringue