Weekend, here we come with these multi-starred #FridayReads in tow:

THE MERE WIFE by Maria Dahvana Headley
“Headley’s fourth novel is a stunner: a darkly electric reinterpretation of Beowulf that upends its Old English framework to comment on the nature of heroes and how we ‘other’ those different from ourselves. A strange tale told with sharp poetic imagery and mythic fervor, Headley’s novel prompts examination of how people create or become monsters.” — Booklist, starred review

“Headley recasts the geography of a place that’s most contemporary, a suburb of cul-de-sacs and playgrounds, meant to be a community but full of people who live their own isolated lives, while up on the bordering mountain of which the brochures boast, strange things are afoot… There’s not a false note in this retelling, which does the Beowulf poet and his spear-Danes proud.” — Kirkus Reviews, starred review

SEVERANCE by Ling Ma
“Embracing the [apocalyptic fiction] genre but somehow transcending it, Ma creates a truly engrossing and believable anti-Utopian world… [An] extraordinary debut.” — Booklist, starred review

“A biting indictment of late-stage capitalism and a chilling vision of what comes after… Ma also offers lovely meditations on memory and the immigrant experience. Smart, funny, humane, and superbly well-written.” — Kirkus Reviews, starred review

JUST A SHOT AWAY: Peace, Love, and Tragedy with the Rolling Stones at Altamont by Saul Austerlitz
“Austerlitz offers a blistering exploration of the deadly confluence of racism, stoned naïveté, biker belligerence, and rockstar obliviousness…at the Rolling Stones’ infamously disastrous concert in Altamont, California. This is a deeply researched and colorfully written account of the disastrous symbolic end to the 1960s.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review

“A carefully constructed examination of an incident that changed the course of popular history.” — Booklist, starred review readmoreremove