By Kiara Brinkman
336 pages; Grove

Could be the most oddly moving debut novel since The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (by Mark Haddon): Kiara Brinkman's Up High in the Trees (Grove), told by a gentle, precariously sensitive young boy with Asperger's syndrome who viscerally mourns his mother's death and tries to connect with his wounded family, in a voice as quietly urgent as a prayer.

— Cathleen Medwick