Jennifer D

BookBrowse Reviewer

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BookBrowse Reviewer Jennifer is a BookBrowse Reviewer and has written reviews featured in The BookBrowse Review.

Jennifer Dawson Oakes works as a freelance writer and has many publishing credits, including The Globe and Mail, to her name. She is an avid reader and book-lover who has been reviewing books for publishers since May of 2010. She has her own blog, "Literal Life", dedicated to sharing her love of reading. As well, Jennifer co-moderates an on-line book group (at GoodReads) called "Bookish" where all things literary, both fiction and nonfiction, are discussed, ideas exchanged and quality reading is highly valued. Based in Toronto, Ontario, Jennifer hopes to one day finish writing her "great novel" which she will then recommend to everyone.

BookBrowse Editorial Reviews (11)

BookBrowse Editorial Review

Philida
by Andre Brink

(3/6/2013)

Philida does everything great fiction should: it captures the imagination, takes us to another time and place, moves us viscerally, informs us and leaves us feeling the need to do better in this world.

BookBrowse Editorial Review

The Painted Girls
by Cathy Marie Buchanan

(3/6/2013)

Cathy Marie Buchanan offers an unsentimental look at family and love during an era more noted for its glamor and optimism, wealth and excess. While the story can be heartbreaking at moments, Buchanan's beautiful prose gives this emotional read, hope.

BookBrowse Editorial Review

The Virgin Cure: A Novel
by Ami McKay

(6/28/2012)

While much of my description of the book and the information in this review may seem dark or heavy, The Virgin Cure is to be commended for addressing a difficult subject with humanity and in a way that is very accessible to readers. This story is full of life, and the will of a young girl to find a better way in the world than the one she knows is so strong on every page. McKay doesn't make Moth's journey easy, and that is to her credit. Moth must travel the path set out from her birth. T

BookBrowse Editorial Review

Wish You Were Here
by Graham Swift

(5/16/2012)

In his ninth novel, Swift returns to the same motifs - broken family relationships, English landscapes, and an internal narrative based on memory - that run through nearly all of his books... Swift delivers a truly remarkable story about one very unhappy family. He is a deeply affecting writer, one who explores the murky crevices of his characters and their lives... While a reader may not emerge emotionally unscathed, they will have had a deeply felt experience in reading this dark and aching no

BookBrowse Editorial Review

The Truth of All Things: A Novel
by Kieran Shields

(4/18/2012)

Kieran Shields's novel, The Truth of All Things, is one literary fusion that's a real treat for readers. It is hard to neatly categorize this novel, and I think to do so would be to miss out on the riches of Shields's storytelling. At once a literary novel and a work of historical fiction, this book is also equal parts great mystery and page-turning gothic-thriller.

BookBrowse Editorial Review

Irma Voth: A Novel
by Miriam Toews

(10/19/2011)

Toews writes honestly and with humour, and her balanced style makes her work accessible to readers. We are given a beautiful literary story that becomes much more real with Toews's interjections of observational wit. Her narrative never seems forced, and it feels as though you are listening to a friend relay a tale.

BookBrowse Editorial Review

In the Sea There are Crocodiles: Based on the True Story of Enaiatollah Akbari
by Fabio Geda

(10/19/2011)

Every now and then, a quiet, little book comes along that really grabs the attention of readers. The voice and tone of a book like this requires your full concentration - as though an old storyteller were sitting in the room with you... you lean in, just a little closer, listening carefully so as to not miss a single word of his tale. In the Sea There Are Crocodiles, the first work of Italian author Fabio Geda to be translated into English, is just such a tale. Our narrator, Enaiatollah A

BookBrowse Editorial Review

The Submission: A Novel
by Amy Waldman

(10/5/2011)

Waldman has created something I really love when reading fiction - unreliable narrators. Several main characters - Claire Burwell, Mo Khan, and Sean Gallagher - dig their heels in, waver, reevaluate themselves and others, and cause rippling consequences.... [T]hrough her gifted prose and fully realized characters, [Waldman] has created a very powerful reading experience.

BookBrowse Editorial Review

Galore: A Novel
by Michael Crummey

(4/20/2011)

To begin reading Galore is to be invited into an epic novel of historical fiction that will compel you forward as you are overtaken by beautiful storytelling and fantastical events. For those who love to escape into their reading, this book will serve you well as it offers a true, unputdownable distraction from the reality of our more regular and everyday lives.

BookBrowse Editorial Review

Bird Cloud: A Memoir
by Annie Proulx

(2/16/2011)

Bird Cloud, Annie Proulx's first work of nonfiction in twenty years, is subtitled "A Memoir." To many readers who might be hoping for a full-blown, linear account of Proulx's life, this subtitle will be somewhat misleading and possibly disappointing. For careful readers and those with strong, natural curiosity, however, Bird Cloud will be a treasure in which Proulx reveals herself – sometimes directly and other times in more subtle ways. Proulx's memoir is a great example of being shown what a p

BookBrowse Editorial Review

Up from the Blue: A Novel
by Susan Henderson

(11/17/2010)

Susan Henderson has gifted readers with a poignant story of family, resilience and hope "as we accompany Tillie on an emotional journey, which takes her to both the possibility of forgiveness and a future not determined by the bonds of her past".

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