Author(s): Yiyun Li

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Fabienne is dead. Her childhood best friend, Agnès, receives the news in America, far from the French countryside where the two girls were raised - the place that Fabienne helped Agnès escape ten years ago. Now, Agnès is free to tell her story. As children in a backwater town, they'd built a private world, invisible to everyone but themselves - until Fabienne hatched the plan that would change everything, launching Agnès on an epic trajectory through fame, fortune, and terrible loss.A magnificent, beguiling tale winding from the rural provinces to Paris, from an English boarding school, to the quiet Pennsylvania home where Agnès can live without her past, The Book of Goose is a story of disturbing intimacy and obsession, of exploitation and strength of will, by the celebrated author Yiyun Li.

Set in the small french town of Saint Remy during the 1950s, Li's novel explores the childhood of Agnes and the effect that her deep and unexplainable friendship with a girl in her town had on her life. I absolutely loved this book and could honestly say it was probably one of my favourite reads of the year. From the way their friendship is seen and shown through Agnes's eyes, to how she deals with the sudden unwanted fame that becomes her at a young age, I enjoyed every little bit of this story. It was interesting, captivating, and it felt so real. Another thing I really like about books in general is smaller chapters, and Li's novel is filled with lots of shorter chapters, which I loved and devoured in just a few sittings. -Maggie