BOOK REVIEWS

In each annual print issue, Portal publishes 6 book reviews—typically 2 of fiction titles, 2 of non-fiction, and 1-2 of poetry. Sometimes we even have script!

Each member of our Masthead reviews a title published in the last year from an independent Canadian press and author. We are grateful to our past students and our partner Canadian publishers for helping us promote great Canadian talent to our readers.

2025 Reviews

Reviews by the Portal 2025 masthead listed alphabetically by title.

Bad Land
Corinna Chong

Fiction
Arsenal Pulp, 2024
248 pages
ISBN: 9781551529592
$24.95

Reviewed by
Ali Dillon-Cardinal

Encyclopaedia of Faeries
Heather Fawcett

Little Brown, 2023
315 pages
ISBN: 9780356519142
$19.00

Reviewed by 
Zoe Chong

Laser Quit Smoking Massage
Cole Nowicki

Newest Press, 2024
136 pages
ISBN: 9781774390900
$21.95

Reviewed by
Daxton Comba

Unbecoming
Neil Surkan

McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021
112 pages
ISBN: 9780228008910
$20.00

Reviewed by
Emily Brandstaetter

A Broken Blade
Melissa Blair

Melissa Blair
Union Square & Co., 2021
435 pages
ISBN: 9781454947875
$23.99

Reviewed by 
Grace Penner

An Evening with Birdy O'Day
Greg Kearney

Fiction
Arsenal Pulp Press, 2024
336 pages
ISBN: 9781551529417
$24.95

Reviewed by 
Bailey Bellosillo

The Photographer in Search of Death
Michael Mirolla

Fiction
Exile Editions, 2017
125 pages
ISBN: 9781550966862
$19.95

Reviewed by 
Elliaz A. Luna

Deep Cuts
Holly Brickley

Doubleday Canada, 2025
288 pages
ISBN: 9780593799086
$28.00

Reviewed by 
Jennavieve Strub

Heliotropia
Manahil Bandukwala

Fiction
Brick Books, 2024
99 pages
ISBN: 9781771316347
$23.95

Reviewed by 
Tara Wohlleben

The Rise and Fall of Magic Wolf
Timothy Taylor

Fiction
Dundurn Press, 2024
352 pages
ISBN: 9781459753198
$26.99

Reviewed by
Alexandra Groenwoldt

2024 Reviews

Reviews by the Portal 2024 masthead listed alphabetically by title.

A Devil Every Day
John Nyman

Palimpsest Press, 2023
83 pages
ISBN: 9781990293467
$17.95

Reviewed by
Lee Groen

Call of the Void
J.T. Siemens

NeWest Press, 2024
360 pages
ISBN: 9781774390863
$22.95

Reviewed by
Ali Dillon-Cardinal

Put Flowers Around Us and Pretend We're Dead
Catherine Graham

Wolsak and Wynn, 2023
170 pages
ISBN: 9781989496633
$20.00

Reviewed by
Tara Wohlleben

A Meditation on
Murder
Susan Juby

HarperCollins, 2024
328 pages
ISBN: 9781443469524
$24.99

Reviewed by
Paige Vandop

Finding Edward
Sheila Murray

Cormorant Books, 2022
330 pages
ISBN: 9781770866263
$24.95

Reviewed by
Casey Tweedy

Send Me in the Woods Alone
Erin Pepler

Invisible Publishing, 2022
208 pages
ISBN: 9781988784892
$20.95

Reviewed by
Tianna Vertigan

All the Shining People
Kathy Friedman

House of Anansi Press, 2022
256 pages
ISBN: 978487010409
$22.99

Reviewed by
Nittu Prasai

The Matryoshka Memoirs
Sasha Colby

ECW Press, 2023
248 pages
ISBN: 9781770417359
$24.99

Reviewed by
Gabrielle E. Josefsson

Someone is Always Watching
Kelley Armstrong

Tundra Books, 2023
349pages
ISBN: 9780735270947
$14.99

Reviewed by
Kiera Bogle

2023 Reviews

All is Well
Katherine Walker

 

Thistledown Press, 2021
229 pages
ISBN: 9781771872218
$24.95

 

Reviewed by
Tammi Carto

Danceland Diary 
Dee Hobsbawn Smith

 

Radiant Press, 2022
232 pages
ISBN: 9781989274828
$22.00

 

Reviewed by
Zeel Desai

We Cry in Silence
Smita Sharma

 

FotoEvidence, 2022
ISBN: 9781732471191
$66.95

 

Reviewed by
Seth Scott

The Boy Who Saw
the Colour of Air 
Abdo Wazen
(Translated by Nouha Homad)

 

BookLand Press, 2022
115 pages
ISBN: 9781772311808
$16.95

 

Reviewed by
Joyce Smith

I Hate the Ivy League:
Riffs and Rants on
Elite Education
Malcolm Gladwell

Pushkin Industries, 2022
5 hours 11 minutes
ASIN: B09X8J8BS6
ISBN: 9781735803265
$13.66

Reviewed by
Jack Corfield

Bystander
Mike Steeves

 

Book*hug Press, 2022
257 pages
ISBN: 9781771667104
$23.00

 

Reviewed by
Rebecca Liu

No Stars in the Sky
Martha Batiz

 

House of Anansi Press, 2022
300 pages
ISBN: 9781487010027
$22.99

 

Reviewed by
Barbara Burgardt

Past Reviews

Reviews by Portal alumni are grouped by genre and arranged by year of publication in descending order.


    • A History of My Brief Body by Billy-Ray Belcourt (2020)


    • I Overcame My Autism and All I Got Was This Lousy Anxiety Disorder by Sarah Kurchak (2020)


    • Reaching Mithymna by Steven Heighton (2020)


    • Small, Broke, and Kind of Dirty: Affirmations for the Real World by Hana Shafi (2020)


    • My Year of Living Spiritually by Anne Bokma (2019)


    • Just Let Me Look at You: On Fatherhood by Bill Gaston (2018)


    • Arrival: The Story of CanLit by Nicholas James Mount (2017)


    • Big Fit Girl: Embrace the Body You Have by Louise Green (2017)


    • The Haunting of Vancouver Island: Supernatural Encounters with the Other Side by Shanon Sinn (2017)


    • My Conversations With Canadians by Lee Maracle (2017)


    • Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City by Tanya Talaga (2017)


    • Precious Cargo: My Year of Driving the Kids on School Bus 3077 by Craig Davidson (2016)


    • An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield (2013)



    • The Annual Migration of Clouds by Premee Mohamed (2021)


    • Last Tide by Andy Zuliani (2021)


    • The List of Last Chances by Christina Myers (2021)


    • The Pump by Sydney Hegele (2021)


    • Blaze Island by Catherine Bush (2020)


    • Fontainebleau by Madeline Sonik (2020)


    • I Will Be Corrupted by Joseph A. Dandurand (2020)


    • Mirror's Edge by Alex Passey (2020)


    • Side Effects: A Footloose Journey to the Apocalypse by Montana Katz (2020)


    • Songs for the End of the World by Saleema Nawaz (2020)


    • Stoop City by Kristyn Dunnion (2020)


    • To Know You're Alive by Dakota McFadzean (2020)


    • Vanishing Monuments by John Elizabeth Stintzi (2020)


    • The Witch's Diary by Rebecca Brae (2020)


    • Days by Moonlight by André Alexis (2019)


    • Deep River Night by Patrick Lane (2019)


    • Greenwood by Michael Christie (2019)


    • Proof I Was Here by Becky Blake (2019)


    • Watermark by Christy Ann Conlin (2019)


    • Cobra Clutch by A.J. Devlin (2018)


    • Cold Skies (DreadfulWater #3) by Thomas King (2018)


    • The Boat People by Sharon Bala (2018)


    • Little Beast by Julie Demers (2018)


    • Sodom Road Exit by Amber Dawn (2018)


    • Tiger, Tiger by Johanna Skibsrud (2018)


    • Trickster Drift by Eden Robinson (2018)


    • All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai (2017)


    • Dead Reckoning: The Untold Story of the Northwest Passage by Ken McGoogan (2017)


    • The Doll's Alphabet by Camilla Grudova (2017)


    • Don't Tell Me What to Do by Dina Del Bucchia (2017)


    • Everything Is Awful And You're A Terrible Person by Daniel Zomparelli (2017)


    • The Last Neanderthal by Claire Cameron (2017)


    • One Brother Shy by Terry Fallis (2017)


    • We All Love the Beautiful Girls by Joanne Proulx (2017)


    • The Best Kind of People by Zoe Whittall (2016)


    • The Dilettantes by Michael Hingston (2013)


    • Seas of South Africa by Philip Roy (2013)


    • Revenge of the Vinyl Cafe by Stuart McLean (2012)



    • Tree Talk: Environment by Ariel Gordon (2020)


    • Mowing by Marlene Cookshaw (2019)


    • The Inflatable Life by Mark Laba (2019)


    • Afloat by John Reibetanz (2013)


    • The Lost Letters by Catherine Greenwood (2013)