Ilana Masad

Lincoln

Books and Culture Critic at Freelance

Writer and critic for hire. Author of the novel ALL MY MOTHER'S LOVERS. Queer, tired, Jewish, and ill. (ilanaslightly most other places)

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Articles

Review: It’s 2044 and pink fog is enveloping Los Angeles. Chaos ensues

4 weeks ago | latimes.com | Ilana Masad

Book Review It's Not the End of the World By Jonathan Parks-RamageBloomsbury: 384 pages, $30If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores Mason Daunt said he would pick up the flowers himself. Like Mrs. Dalloway, he spends the day leading up to his big party — in his case a baby shower in Los Angeles — reminiscing and worrying.
Review: Tash Aw's epic Malaysian tale gets off to a promising start in 'The South'

1 month ago | latimes.com | Ilana Masad

Book Review The South By Tash AwFarrar, Straus and Giroux: 288 pages, $28If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores. It’s 1997, the Asian financial crisis is tanking stock markets and “I’ll Be Missing You” by Puff Daddy and Faith Evans is playing in the market of a southern Malaysian town where one teenage boy, Chuan, buys another, Jay, a knockoff Italian brand shirt. “I really don’t need anything.
Review: Welcome to Yin Manor, an Altadena estate haunted by Hollywood dreams

1 month ago | latimes.com | Ilana Masad

Christina Li’s adult fiction debut is an enjoyable read centered on the battle over a haunted Altadena estate of an Oscar-winning recluse that once starred in Chinese films.
Review: When the fact-checker in question is not exactly a reliable narrator

2 months ago | latimes.com | Ilana Masad

Austin Kelley was a fact-checker at the New Yorker and the narrator of his debut novel is clearly meant to work there as well, our critic points out. The cover of Austin Kelley’s debut novel, “The Fact Checker,” will be immediately recognizable to a certain type of person: Ah, the New Yorker, they might think, before blinking and realizing that it isn’t.
When the fact-checker in question is not exactly a reliable narrator

2 months ago | yahoo.com | Ilana Masad

The cover of Austin Kelley's debut novel, "The Fact Checker," will be immediately recognizable to a certain type of person: Ah, the New Yorker, they might think, before blinking and realizing that it isn’t. I am that kind of person; the famous weekly has been around my whole life, issues piled on the bathroom counter or lying open on the kitchen table, and I eventually read them as well.
Review: Beware the nonbinary narrator who insists they are nothing like their father

2 months ago | latimes.com | Ilana Masad

Say what you will about American exceptionalism, but one thing we really are exceptional at is lying. Some lies are small, like how we politely tell each other that we’re fine when we’re not. Some are much bigger, and are perpetuated by our president and his cronies. This is, in part, why the unnamed narrator of Zee Carlstrom’s debut novel, “Make Sure You Die Screaming,” has taken a vow of radical honesty.
Beware the nonbinary narrator who insists they are nothing like their father

2 months ago | yahoo.com | Ilana Masad

Say what you will about American exceptionalism, but one thing we really are exceptional at is lying. Some lies are small, like how we politely tell each other that we’re fine when we’re not. Some are much bigger, and are perpetuated by our president and his cronies. This is, in part, why the unnamed narrator of Zee Carlstrom’s debut novel, “Make Sure You Die Screaming,” has taken a vow of radical honesty.
Celia Laskey’s New Lesbian Rom-Com Was Inspired by Real-Life Closeted Celebrities

Mar 24, 2025 | them.us | Ilana Masad

If you’ve ever read (or watched) a romantic comedy, you’ll love the delicious set-up of Celia Laskey’s new novel, Cover Story. When our protagonist Ali began working as a Hollywood publicist, she had no idea that a big part of her job was going to be advising her clients to stay in the closet.
Review: Neither history nor language are neutral in this time-travel mystery

Mar 14, 2025 | latimes.com | Ilana Masad

Kirsten Menger-Anderson’s new book, “The Expert of Subtle Revisions,” explores the way history is affected by how it is told and who does the telling. This is how the grandfather paradox was first explained to me: Imagine a boy whose grandfather invented a time machine. The boy hates his grandfather and, in a fit of anger, uses the time machine to visit his grandfather as an adolescent and murder him.
Neither history nor language are neutral in this time-travel mystery

Mar 14, 2025 | yahoo.com | Ilana Masad

This is how the grandfather paradox was first explained to me: Imagine a boy whose grandfather invented a time machine. The boy hates his grandfather and, in a fit of anger, uses the time machine to visit his grandfather as an adolescent and murder him. By doing so, the grandfather won’t have the chance to invent the time machine nor meet the grandmother, so the boy's father and therefore the boy himself won’t be born.