Again – this is the official Short List:
Marlon James (Jamaica) A Brief History of Seven Killings
Tom McCarthy (UK) Satin Island
Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria) The Fishermen
Sunjeev Sahota (UK) The Year of the Runaways
Anne Tyler (US) A Spool of Blue Thread
Hanya Yanagihara (US) A Little Life
And I’m still torn – The best novels of the bunch are the James and the Yanagihara – but the James is unsparingly violent and the Yanagihira is thoroughly emotionally manipulative as well as structured like pornography (the abuse parts get worse and worse and worse until the grand finale).
Meanwhile, Satin Island is pretty experimental. Tyler is quite sweet. Obioma is good and really almost there and I’m wondering … but I’ve not read The Year of the Runaways – (not available in the States) and nobody has it as a favorite – we’ll see.
I guess I’ll go with the James but … sigh –
Becky's Books - 
The only one of these that I’ve read is A Little Life, which I absolutely loved. I am planning to try The Fishermen before the year is out and I’ve requested The Year of the Runaways for next year. Will be interesting to see how it shakes out.
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A Little Life is such an excellent novel – I had a righteously hard time deciding between it and Seven Killings – and then after all that maybe some other novel will win – lol –
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