What I’m Reading: “Akin” by Emma Donoghue

Just over eleven years ago, I read and enjoyed Room by Emma Donoghue—so I’m somewhat amazed it’s taken me this long to read another of her novels!

I read Akin immediately after Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table, which turned out to be interesting because they are “akin” in a number of ways. Perhaps I should say “strangely interesting” because there is no real, substantive connection between the two works, but the overlaps between them were fascinatingly coincidental for me as a reader.

Levi’s The...