In a time of instability, reading can both soothe the soul and sharpen the mind. We’re blessed to be able to share the gift of shining a spotlight on some worthy local literature. For your enjoyment, here are the year’s reviews, and feature interviews, that were our most popular in 2024.

1. Monday Rent Boy by Susan Doherty (August 2024)

“Monday Rent Boy follows two schoolmates, Arthur and Ernie, as they come of age in Glastonbury, England, in the 1980s. Both are raised underprivileged and fatherless in the harsh years of Thatcher’s reign. Both are also victims of sexual abuse at the hands of the local parish priest … Monday Rent Boy is an honourable attempt to give voice to an issue which is all too often silenced.”  – Aaron Obedkoff

2. The Social Safety Net by Nora Loreto (July 2024)

“Just as the story of neoliberalism is not a happy one, Loreto’s project doesn’t sugarcoat our recent past. She isn’t interested in cheerleading for Canadian progressives’ occasional victories. Rather, The Social Safety Net is the first book in a series on ‘Canada in Decline,’ which aims to unpack the policies that set this phenomenon as Canada’s political status quo.” – Jack McClelland

3. Our Lady of Mile End by Sarah Gilbert (January 2024)

“In her latest short story collection, Sarah Gilbert, a longtime resident of Mile End, delves into the recent wave of gentrification in the area from the perspective of multiple residents who have been forced to change with their neighbourhood. As rent increases and novel storefronts bring newcomers to the community, Gilbert pulls at the tensions between old versus new, culture versus commodification.” – Ariella Kharasch

4. The War You Don’t Hate by Blaise Ndala (July 2024)

“The War You Don’t Hate focuses on the widespread aftershocks of the Second Congo War, also called Africa’s World War, the deadliest conflict since World War II … The War You Don’t Hate is a voice-driven novel with a rapier’s edge. Ndala’s tone is sly, barbed, and seasoned with gallows humour.” – Ami Sands Brodoff

5. The Lost Supper by Taras Grescoe (January 2024)

“From the caviar-like eggs of the Mexican water fly, to ancient olive trees in Puglia, Italy, to camas, the pre-contact root vegetable of the Pacific Northwest, The Lost Supper serves up an alt-gastronomic romp, promising to shuttle the reader back and forth between the foodways of antiquity and the front lines of sustainable agriculture today.” – Adam Hill

6. Buzz Kill by Michael R. DeVillaer (December 2023 – technically from last year, but as it was published on December 30, we’ll count it as 2024 for these purposes!)

“Buzz Kill looks a lot like an academic book (DeVillaer cites and refers freely to a wide variety of research), yet it’s also a chatty social and political history of many things to do with cannabis and legalization. On top of that, the book also incorporates biographical asides about DeVillaer’s experiences as a young researcher learning about drugs and decriminalization. ” – JB Staniforth

7. Elvie, Girl Under Glass by Elvira Cordileone (July 2024)

“Elvie, Girl Under Glass is an ambitious memoir following Elvira Cordileone’s early life in Montreal amid cultural revolution. The prologue reads like a fairytale, describing a recurring childhood dream of a girl trapped in a room, observing others from her window, longing to escape and be with everyone else. ” – Nadia Trudel

8. Other Maps by Rebecca Morris (July 2024)

“Tackling a sensitive topic, Morris may steer readers outside their comfort zone, yet her debut novel has grip, the road rich with unexpected twists. Here, friendship is a life-saving light on a young woman’s quest for truth in the aftermath of sexual assault.” – Kimberly Bourgeois

9. Here Is Still Here by Sivan Slapak (March 2024)

“In Sivan Slapak’s debut novel Here Is Still Here, we follow Isabel – born into a Montreal Jewish family in which the past casts overhanging shadows and the future holds the tenuous hope of fixing everything. Moving to Jerusalem first to study and then to live, Isabel navigates the contrasts and conflicts around her as she explores what identity, place, and belonging mean when here is less a place to settle than the ability to be present.” – Tina Wayland

10. Naniki by Oonya Kempadoo (March 2024)

“Naniki is a work of magic realism and Caribbean futurism. The shape-shifting co-protagonists, Amana and Skelele, elemental beings intertwined with Taíno and African ancestry, set out on an archipelagic journey with their animal avatars – their naniki – to search for the strange future seen in their dreams.” – Val Rwigema

Our most popular article this year by far was not a review or an interview, but a tribute to Robyn Fadden – mRb contributor and all-around cultural presence in Montreal – who passed away from cancer this fall. We wish the occasion to celebrate Robyn was a happier one, and we miss her as a colleague and member of the community.

In addition to our crop of recent reviews, some gems from our nearly 25-year-strong archive continue to resurface among our curious readers. mRb founding editor and frequent contributor (and local singer-songwriter) Kimberly Bourgeois’ review of Anne-Marie McDonald’s Fayne, from November 2022, was our most popular archival review this year, followed closely by Bronwyn Averett’s October 2023 review of Catherine Leroux’s acclaimed The Future.

Our readers wanted to read about Heather O’Neill, with Yara El-Soueidi’s O’Neill interview for When We Lost Our Heads, as well as O’Neill’s debut novel Lullabies for Little Criminals, reviewed in 2007 by Anne Chudobiak, ranking high. Same goes for Michel Jean, who had a busy 2023 – interviewed in March by H Felix Chau Bradley for Wapke, the collection he edited, and reviewed in July by Roxane Hudon for his novel Kukum.

Sometimes, a titillating title or subject will cause a book to rank perpetually high in our stats. We suspect this may be the case for our reviews of Kenneth Radu’s Sex in Russia (reviewed by Correy Baldwin in October 2010) and Michel Dorais’ Rent Boys: Inside the World of Male Sex Trade Workers (reviewed by Joan Eyolfson Cadham back in April 2005). Other times, the reasons are more mysterious. P.T. Smith’s September 2019 review of Matthieu Simard’s The Country Will Bring Us No Peace was up there with our most popular reviews this year. We can’t quite figure out why, but we always appreciate the attention. 

We wish you happy reading throughout the holidays, into the new year and beyond. See you in 2025!mRb