This week’s BEST BOOKS
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Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman Before e Queen Falls (Serpent’s Tail, £16.99) Asleep by Huzama Habayeb, translated by Kay Heikkinen (Maclehose Press, £10.99)
Anyone who has ever worked in a large shop will find familiar territory in Help Wanted. And if you haven’t, strap in for a delicious introduction.
The story follows members of a team who start work at 3.55am to unload deliveries at a superstore in upstate New York. The work is tough, the pay is low and they’re not given enough hours to qualify for benefits and health insurance.
But when store manager Big Will leaves, there’s a glimmer of hope: can they get rid of their nightmare line manager? And could one of them get promoted?
Writer Adelle Waldman takes us into the minds and lives of each team member as the plot unfolds.
It’s funny, gloriously real and empathetic, and a moving reminder that everyone is the main character of their own life.
Abi Jackson
What a mother sacrifices for her child is immeasurable, but Palestinian writer Huzama Habayeb does a brilliant job at conveying such sacrifices.
Jihad, a Palestinian woman, and her family have been displaced from their homeland and live in Kuwait.
As Jihad shares stories of her childhood with her teenage daughter Maleka every night – reminiscent of Scheherazade in One Thousand And One Nights – we come to find out more about the struggles she endured to give
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Maleka the life she lives.
This moving novel highlights the many hardships that displaced families endure and the love they share.
Maryam Munir
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Medea by Rosie Hewlett (Bantam, £16.99)
In this retelling of the Ancient Greek myth, the sorceress Medea becomes the focus of a tragic tale. The novel unravels how the witch of Colchis begins life as a tormented outcast before unleashing her dangerous power that spirals into darkness.
Rooted in the story of Jason and the Argonauts’ quest for the Golden Fleece, Medea takes the group’s arrival as a way to escape her oppressed existence and forge a new path for herself.
Here, author Rosie Hewlett succeeds in offering a humanising voice to this notorious character. The author lays bare the inner turmoil of Medea and her toxic relationship with Jason, which ends with calamitous consequences.