Lauren Bufferd

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Part campus novel, part ghost story, Xochitl Gonzalez’s second novel, Anita de Monte Laughs Last, fearlessly takes on racism and misogyny in the rarefied world of fine art and art history. 

Nodding to real-life Cuban-born artist Ana Mendieta and her husband, minimalist sculptor Carl Andre, the novel opens in the late 1980s with the death of artist Anita de Monte. After a violent argument with her husband, Jack Martin, Anita was found on the sidewalk outside their apartment, leaving speculators to wonder—did she jump or was she pushed? As Andre was in his real trial, Jack is acquitted and continues his successful and lucrative career, while Anita’s art is all but forgotten. Ten years later, Raquel Toro is an art history major at Brown. Her working-class, Puerto Rican background makes her feel out of place at the university and even more so in her department, where she doesn’t fit in with the privileged “Art History Girls.” Fortunes change when Raquel begins dating art major Nick Fitzsimmons, whose wealthy parents have ties to New York’s major museums and galleries, and when her advisor enthusiastically supports Raquel’s senior thesis on Jack Martin’s career. 

The dynamic between Raquel and Nick mirrors the one between Anita and Jack, with both men trying to control their partner’s physical appearance, clothing and schedule through microaggressions and expensive gifts. As Raquel’s summer internship redirects her research to include Anita’s experience, Anita’s story, told in parallel chapters, takes a turn for the uncanny; she subtly haunts Jack from beyond the grave, transforming into a bat and shifting his meticulously displayed art works. Though told with humor and a light touch, Gonzalez doesn’t shy away from serious issues: the erasure of women from the art history canon and the racism often faced by first generation students of color at Ivy League colleges. As Raquel brings Anita’s groundbreaking sculptures to light, Anita de Monte Laughs Last boldly questions the choices behind what we are taught and demands that the complete story be disclosed.

Though told with humor and a light touch, Anita de Monte Laughs Last doesn’t shy away from serious issues: the erasure of women from the art history canon and the racism often faced by first generation students of color at Ivy League colleges.
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Behind You Is the Sea, Susan Muaddi Darraj’s debut novel, brings readers into the lives of three Palestinian families in and around Baltimore: the Salamehs, the Baladis and the Ammars. Generational disputes form the core of the novel’s action, which unfolds through weddings, graduations, unplanned pregnancies and funerals. Women’s issues are also at the fore, as each of the novel’s chapters, which function as linked stories, reveal families both divided and united by class, gender and traditional values.

In the opening chapter, “A Child of Air,” teenage Reema Baladi resolves to keep her baby, while refusing to marry her Puerto Rican boyfriend. In “Mr. Ammar Gets Drunk at the Wedding,” Walid, patriarch of the wealthy Ammar family, despairs at the lack of Arab traditions at his oldest son’s wedding to an American. “Ride Along” focuses on a police officer, Marcus Salameh, and the rift between his father and his sister, Amal, over Amal’s perceived dishonor, a rupture which grows deeper after the death of their mother.

Darraj deftly explores class tensions in the titular chapter: When the Ammars employ young Maysoon Baladi as a housekeeper, she is shocked by the couple’s indolence and their spoiled teenage kids, but flirts openly with father and husband, Demetri. In a later chapter, Demetri’s daughter Hiba moves in with her grandparents after an embarrassing incident in college and an unspoken but deeply felt lack of support from her parents. The final chapter “Escorting the Body,” the only chapter not set in the United States, sees Marcus fulfilling his father’s wish to be buried in his Palestinian village, a visit which reveals dramatic secrets about the life he left behind.

Behind You Is the Sea draws a composite portrait of Palestinian American families with sensitivity and humor, its linked stories breaking down stereotypes and embracing complexity.

Behind You Is the Sea draws a composite portrait of Palestinian American families with sensitivity and humor, its linked stories breaking down stereotypes and embracing complexity.
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Kiley Reid’s sophomore effort Come and Get It is a compelling, dialogue-driven novel about consumption, desire and class set at a state university in 2017. Readers who enjoyed Reid’s debut, Such a Fun Age, will find themselves in welcome territory.

Millie, a woman whose college years were interrupted by helping an ill parent, has returned to the University of Arkansas as a 24-year-old senior, working as a resident assistant in her dorm. Mature and responsible, she fantasizes about Josh, her hunky supervisor, and is diligently saving to purchase a house. Agatha is a visiting faculty member in her late 30s, recently separated from a younger professional dancer who married her for health insurance. At the beginning of the semester, Agatha asks Millie to organize a small group of students for Agatha to interview as part of her research for a potential book on wedding traditions. What starts as an innocent gathering of information becomes a more complicated entanglement when Agatha begins paying Millie for access to the dorm to spy on the students’ personal conversations, which she then writes up as a series of demi-comic pieces for Teen Vogue. Meanwhile, a prank dreamed up by Tyler, the mean girl of the dorm, sparks a vengeful retaliation which threatens both Agatha and Millie’s livelihoods.

This reader’s advice is to follow the money, as much of Come and Get It is embedded in the details of ostensibly insignificant transactions. Reid prefers to serve her themes amid a frothy concoction of witty dialogue, campus capers and unrequited crushes, but underneath it all, her eye is firmly fixed on obsessive consumerism and intersecting issues of race and class. Though no crimes are committed, there are enough errors of judgment, blurred ethical lines and microaggressions to permanently alter the life trajectories of her characters. Yet Reid writes with enormous compassion, showing us flawed humans caught in systems outside of their control who are, mostly, doing the best they can.

Come and Get It is a frothy concoction of witty dialogue, campus capers and unrequited crushes, but underneath it all, Kiley Reid’s eye is firmly fixed on obsessive consumerism and intersecting issues of race and class.
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Tan Twan Eng’s third novel, which was longlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize, is set in the early 1920s, when the British writer William Somerset Maugham and his secretary (and lover) Gerald Haxton visit the coastal province of Penang, Malaysia, as the guests of Lesley and Robert Hamlyn.

Part of Penang’s European elite, Lesley and Robert live a comfortable, privileged life although their marriage is no longer as intimate as it once was and Lesley suspects Robert of having an affair. Over the course of his visit, Lesley shares her concerns with “Willie” and mentions that she was once close to the revolutionary leader Sun Yat Sen, who spent time fundraising in Penang. Lesley was also a friend of Ethel Proudlock, whose murder trial in Kuala Lumpur sent shock waves through the British expat population. These details provided the seeds for several of Maugham’s future works, most notably “The Letter,” the final story in his 1926 collection The Casuarina Tree.

The House of Doors alternates between Lesley’s and Willie’s perspectives as Lesley unburdens herself to Willie, disclosing her fears of her husband’s infidelity and her involvement in Sun’s movement. Willie draws inspiration for his stories from Lesley and other locals, while hoping to dig himself out of a financial hole and worrying that Gerald will leave him now that money is flowing less freely.

Tan’s choice to tell the story from the view of the colonizing class highlights his characters’ limitations and blind spots. Many of the characters are living double lives; Willie hides his homosexuality, and Lesley too keeps an intimate relationship secret. Perhaps this is why, for a novel about desire and revolutionary politics, the tone of The House of Doors is surprisingly cool: The moral complexities of a colonial society are hidden behind a veneer of restraint and manners. Tan’s eye for detail and understated storytelling bring a subtle edge to this thoughtfully written, atypical historical novel that searches for the emotional truth behind the facts.

Tan Twan Eng’s eye for detail and understated storytelling bring a subtle edge to this thoughtfully written, atypical historical novel that searches for the emotional truth behind the facts.
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In 2016, Naomi Alderman’s novel The Power, a radical vision of what could happen if women became the physically dominant sex, offered transformative ideas about gender and supremacy. Now, Alderman offers readers a plausible world-to-come in The Future, a daring, sexy, thrilling novel that may be the most wryly funny book about the end of civilization you’ll ever read.

As a teenager, Martha Einkorn left her father’s back-to-nature cult on the Northwest coast to become the personal assistant to a powerful social media entrepreneur. Lai Zhen survived the destruction of Hong Kong and a year in a refugee camp to become a survivalist influencer. When these two women meet, the attraction is immediate, but their romance is put on hold as news reports stream in of an impending apocalypse.

The Future is awash with tech billionaires, preppers and an anxious population easily swayed by algorithms. It follows executives Lenk Sketlish, founder of the social network Fantail; Zimri Nommik, who runs the largest online retailer Anvil; and Ellen Bywater, who heads Medlar, a leading PC company. These powerful techies have spared no expense to create safe havens for themselves and are ready to leave the rest of the world to face destruction.

The billionaires’ plan is thwarted by a band of rebels led by Martha and Zhen, including Ellen’s nonbinary child Badger Bywater and Zimri’s soon-to-be kicked to the curb wife Selah Nommik, who also happens to be a genius coder. With their combined expertise and shared conviction of bettering our world rather than manipulating it for their own ends, this group may just save civilization after all.

That Alderman keeps the plot moving forward despite constant shifts in perspective and time is a testament to her creative skills as a writer and a game developer. The novel never slides into parody, despite the three rather clever parallels to some of our real-life billionaires and tech leaders. Clearly, Alderman cares deeply about our future and believes that we already have the skills in place to course-correct. By the end of the novel, you might too.

The Future is a daring, sexy, thrilling novel that may be the most wryly funny book about the end of civilization you’ll ever read.
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Set in the 1850s in a remote Swedish village close to the Arctic Circle, Whiting Award winner Hanna Pylväinen’s second novel, The End of Drum-Time, tells the story of Lutheran minister Lars Levi Laestadius, known as Mad Lasse for his impassioned sermons and strict religious observance. Mad Lasse’s goal is to convert the Sami people to Christianity and break the cycle of alcohol dependency that he believes threatens the very souls of the Indigenous reindeer herders. 

When shaman and prominent herder Biettar Rasti experiences a religious awakening in Mad Lasse’s church, it sets off a string of events that rips through the small village, leaving it profoundly shattered. Biettar leaves his diminished herd to his son, Ivvár, and takes up residence in Mad Lasse’s home, where he can study by the pastor’s side. 

Abandoned and angry, Ivvár begins to come into town more frequently, purchasing liquor from the village store and trying to rekindle a romance with Risten, a Sami woman from a successful herding family. But when Lasse’s daughter Willa crosses paths with Ivvár, they become infatuated with each other, and eventually Willa breaks ties with her family and community to join the Sami for their annual migration from the tundra to the sea. 

Pylväinen’s first book, We Sinners (2012), was a collection of interlocking stories about a deeply religious family struggling with loss of faith and the temptations of the secular world in modern-day Michigan. The final story, “Whisky Priest,” introduced Mad Lasse and his wife, Brita. Along with these characters, Pylväinen carries forward her sensitivity to the power, comfort and destructiveness of belief into her second novel. 

With engrossing details of reindeer herding, a beautifully rendered setting and powerful echoes of America’s own dark history of settlers forcing their religion on Indigenous peoples, The End of Drum-Time will leave a lasting impression on all readers of historical fiction. 

Echoing America’s dark history of settlers forcing their religion on Indigenous peoples, The End of Drum-Time will leave a lasting impression on all readers of historical fiction.
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In Rebecca Makkai’s engrossing novel I Have Some Questions for You, a successful podcaster and film critic takes a job at a New Hampshire boarding school where, 23 years ago, a white female student named Thalia Keith was murdered. The school’s athletic trainer, a Black man named Omar Evans, was convicted of the crime and has been imprisoned for decades.

Bodie Kane sees the invitation to teach a course on podcasting at the Granby School as an opportunity to give back to her alma mater. It’s also a chance to investigate the murder of Thalia, who was Bodie’s classmate; with her interest in true crime, Bodie has had lots of time to think about how poorly the case was initially handled. Bodie suggests to her class that revisiting the case would make a good podcast, and two of the students begin what evolves into a groundbreaking inquiry. Meanwhile, a major #MeToo scandal involving Bodie’s ex-husband, a well-known visual artist, threatens her reputation, veracity and livelihood. 

Back at Granby and surrounded by the familiar landscape, classrooms and even some of the old faculty, Bodie is overwhelmed by memories of her trauma-filled childhood and wonders how those experiences might have shaped her high school years. She also starts to question her impressions of the school’s music teacher, Denny Bloch, whom she thinks may have been involved in a sexual relationship with Thalia. Bodie cannot help but subtly shape the students’ investigation, and the more time she spends at the school, the more she questions the motives of her classmates, her professors and even herself.    

Makkai places the fictional murder of Thalia Keith and imprisonment of Omar Evans in the wider context of violence against women and institutional racism. If the book has any faults, it’s that we never hear from Omar himself, and his experiences only come to Bodie second-hand. But I Have Some Questions for You is Bodie’s story, a well-plotted indictment of systemic racism and misogyny craftily disguised as a thriller and beautifully constructed to make its points.

I Have Some Questions for You is a well-plotted indictment of systemic racism and misogyny craftily disguised as a thriller and beautifully constructed to make its points.
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Genetic engineering and mutations are a staple of fiction; think The Island of Dr. Moreau, Brave New World or, more recently, Jurassic Park. Ramona Ausubel’s sparkling novel The Last Animal focuses on a young scientist’s impulsive attempt to revive an extinct species and the impact this has on her children, who are traumatized by the accidental death of their father. 

Graduate student Jane is the only female member of a scientific team working in the Arctic Circle, searching for traces of the wooly mammoth and hoping to reignite an ecosystem that could possibly reverse the effects of global warming. She is accompanied (begrudgingly) by her two teenage daughters, the fiery, sarcastic Eve and sweetly obedient Vera. The girls crave routine and stability, and they are fiercely protective of their mother as well as each other. 

Eve and Vera’s accidental discovery of a perfectly preserved baby mammoth in the Siberian permafrost brings a flurry of excitement. But once back at the University of California, Berkeley, Jane is still washing pipettes in the lab while research grants are handed out to her male colleagues. At a departmental fundraiser, Jane has a chance encounter with a glamorous woman named Helen, who has a palatial estate and home zoo in Italy, complete with giraffes and an elephant. This leads to Jane implanting a genetically modified embryo, based on the baby mammoth’s DNA, into Helen’s elephant. The next thing you know, Jane and her daughters are flying to Lake Como to meet an animal that’s been extinct for hundreds of years. 

The Last Animal whizzes around the planet—from the steppes of Siberia to the shores of Iceland to a remote alpine village—with a dizzying, almost madcap speed, but at the novel’s heart are the deep ties between mother and daughters, sister and sister, human and animal. Though Jane, Eve and Vera are grieving, they never lose their sense of adventure and love of scientific discovery. Ausubel crafts this moving story with wit and depth, allowing readers to witness a family drawn together by both loss and a sense of wonder at an ever-changing planet.

Ramona Ausubel crafts this moving story with wit and depth, allowing readers to witness a family drawn together by both loss and a sense of wonder at an ever-changing planet.
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Much like his first novel, Real Life, Brandon Taylor’s The Late Americans follows a loosely knit circle of lovers and friends in and around a university in Iowa as they badger, seduce and provoke one another over the span of an academic year. Financial, class and racial divisions are at the core of many of their interactions, as are disputes over the value of art rooted in trauma and concerns about selling out.

The Late Americans lacks a central character; instead, the story flows from one character or pair to the next, leaving the reader to make connections and hold onto each person’s secrets and dreams. The novel opens with a blistering portrayal of a poetry workshop where Seamus is verbally attacked for critiquing a peer’s work, then later he has sex with an older Iowan visiting the hospice facility where Seamus is a cook. From there, the novel switches focus to Goran, Timo and Ivan, all of whom gave up music or dance to pursue business or finance degrees. Noah, who is still studying dance, befriends another dancer in the program, Fatima, who supports herself by working in a cafe and contemplates leaving school after she is assaulted by another student. The novel ends in early summer, when the cast gathers at a cabin in the Adirondack Mountains to bid their former lives goodbye and move into the unknown.  

Taylor has previously written stories about ballet, and his plotting and style mirror the art form. In dance, our focus moves from performer to performer, now watching a pas de deux, now a solo. His novel functions similarly, seamlessly shifting our gaze from the individual to the duo, to the group and back again until, almost magically, the story is told and the piece comes to a close. A thought-provoking and lyrical novel about a group of people on the precipice of change, The Late Americans is a perceptive look at passion, sacrifice and intimacy among friends. 

A thought-provoking and lyrical story about a group of people on the precipice of change, The Late Americans is a perceptive look at passion, sacrifice and intimacy among friends.
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New York City gentrification and structural racism undergird the 10 stories in Jamel Brinkley’s exceptional second collection, Witness, in which a range of characters—from children to adult siblings to ghosts—observe, take responsibility for and occasionally speak out against the moral ambiguity they see around them.

A group of high school friends in “Blessed Deliverance” takes interest in a new pet store in Brooklyn, but they are upset when they see how management treats an employee from their own Bed-Stuy neighborhood. “Comfort” tells the story of a woman spending her days and nights drinking and drugging after her brother’s murder by a police officer. Compassion from a male visitor she calls “Bamboo” helps to numb the pain of her loss, even as he takes advantage of her addiction. In “Bartow Station,” the narrator’s job with UPS leads to a relationship with a florist on his route, but the courtship unravels when he confides to her about his cousin’s tragic death, leaving him lonelier than he was at the start. 

The two strongest stories in the collection explore the impact of systemic trauma on memory and family. In “The Happiest House on Union Street,” Beverly recalls a past October so warm that the Halloween pumpkins rotted before the holiday; in her memory, the decaying gourds are connected to a domestic disagreement that she witnessed between her father and uncle, and the resulting loss of the family’s beloved Brooklyn brownstone. In the title story, Silas has moved in with his sister, Bernice, in Crown Heights while he looks for work. Bernice forms a romantic attachment to an indigent DJ she meets on the street, but at the same time she begins to experience debilitating headaches. When Bernice’s illness worsens, their mother comes to stay, and her rage against the inadequate care that Bernice receives is infectious, growing daily with devastating results. 

Witness covers much of the same ground as Brinkley’s award-winning debut, A Lucky Man, a collection of stories in which Black men and boys are tested by incarceration, generational trauma and sexual violence. However, this new collection displays how Brinkley’s already superb craftsmanship and subtle plotting have grown. Though his stories don’t range beyond New York City, they journey deep into the human heart with precise language and a generous spirit.

Though the stories in Jamel Brinkley’s exceptional second collection don’t range beyond New York City, they journey deep into the human heart with precise language and a generous spirit.
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Any new novel by the acclaimed British writer Zadie Smith (Swing Time) is cause for celebration, but her first foray into historical fiction will garner fresh admirers with its detailed 19th-century narrative, while also satisfying fans who have long enjoyed her on-target observations and richly drawn characters.

Witty and incisive, The Fraud is based on actual events in Victorian England surrounding the Tichborne trial, in which a lowly butcher claimed to be the heir to a wealthy English family. The case quickly divided British citizens over the very notions of truth and entitlement.

Scottish housekeeper Eliza Touchet is cousin and employee of William Ainsworth, a prolific novelist whose books once outsold Charles Dickens’ but who, by 1868, is wallowing in obscurity. William recently married a housemaid named Sarah Wells, who is obsessed with the man claiming to be Sir Tichborne, inheritor of a family fortune who reportedly drowned in a shipwreck. Quite likely a local butcher from East London, the “Claimant,” as he is called, is passionately defended by many working-class Londoners who regard him as a true man of the people being treated poorly by the elite.

Eliza’s interest in the trial is piqued by Andrew Bogle, who was formerly enslaved by the Tichborne family in Jamaica and is called to testify. A Catholic and an abolitionist (and the secret lover of William’s first wife), Eliza relates to Andrew as a fellow outsider, although she is often unable to see beyond her privilege.

Smith writes eloquent, powerful and often quite humorous novels with social issues at the fore, and The Fraud is no exception. As with Lauren Groff’s Matrix or Maggie O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait, the novel’s firm grounding in the past offers a rich reflection of the present—and the ways race and class impact our understanding of ourselves and our complicated history.

Zadie Smith writes eloquent, powerful and often quite humorous novels with social issues at the fore, and The Fraud is no exception.
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For Bryan Washington, cooking, eating together or even refusing a home-cooked meal has far-reaching emotional repercussions. In his new novel, Family Meal, the relationships among friends are defined by the food they prepare and strengthened by the meals they share. Food provides the ultimate opportunity for community and witness against a backdrop of personal hardship and urban gentrification.

Cam is back in his hometown of Houston after the traumatic death of his boyfriend, Kai, who worked as a translator and split his time between Los Angeles and Osaka, Japan. Unable to shake the violent circumstances of Kai’s death, Cam is haunted by Kai’s memory and his nights spiral into bouts of indulgent drug use and casual sex. He eventually ends up at the bakery where he once worked, which is owned by Mae. She and her late husband, Jin, took Cam in after the death of his parents, raising him alongside their son TJ. Though the boys were once close, they drifted apart as adults, and TJ struggles to navigate Cam’s limitless despair and self-destructive behavior (Washington provides a content note suggesting that readers for whom self-harm, addiction and disordered eating are sensitive issues should go at their own pace). Feeling stuck in a relationship with a married man, TJ tentatively begins a new relationship with another employee at the bakery and explores his own nascent wish for independence. Meanwhile, Mae is under pressure to sell the business, and her thoughts about expansion are dependent on TJ’s plans. Or are they?

Although facing the people you’ve loved and left behind is often painful, as Washington demonstrates in Family Meal, it can reveal the unconditional love that remains. Shifting between points of view, Washington shows us characters at their most vulnerable, using food culture to explore conflict, desire, pleasure and passion. The meals his characters enjoy together through it all—from congee to collards to croissants—remind us of the many ways that love, like food, sustains us.

Bryan Washington shows us characters at their most vulnerable, using food culture to explore conflict, desire, pleasure and passion.
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Shubeik lubeik translates from the Arabic to “your wish is my command,” an iconic fairy-tale phrase that’s also the title of a brilliantly original graphic novel from Egyptian comics creator Deena Mohamed. Her richly detailed drawings imbue contemporary Cairo—and its all-too-familiar atmosphere of bureaucracy, rigid laws and class-based bias—with the magic of wishes, dragons, flying cars and talking donkeys. 

Originally self-published, Shubeik Lubeik won the grand prize at the Cairo Comix Festival in 2017; by the end of the year, Mohamed had signed on with the agent who discovered Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. For the book’s highly anticipated American publication, Mohamed translated Shubeik Lubeik into English herself and requested that the book be printed like Arabic books, to be read from right to left.

Mohamed’s novel introduces a world where wishes are real and sold in three tiers. First-class wishes are the most expensive and last the longest, while third-class wishes are the budget option, carrying a higher risk of things going wrong. The story begins at a modest kiosk where three first-class wishes are for sale. The first is purchased by Aziza, a struggling widow whose economic status makes it difficult for her to own—let alone use—her wish. The second wish goes to Nour, a privileged college student who is conflicted about wishing away their severe depression. Finally, Shokry, owner of the kiosk and thus the remaining wish, struggles with the morality of using his wish to improve the health of a dear friend. 

Mohamed’s bold, expressive illustrations split the difference between cartoon and realism, with brightly colored details contrasting against the monochromatic tedium of government documents. Records of wish laws, facts and trivia are as dense as any legal text, but they also offer a sly nod to such real-life social issues as mental health, poverty and sexism. The rendering of Nour’s depression via graphs, charts and maps is particularly effective. 

These characters’ struggles and successes are equally heartbreaking and uplifting, creating a wholly satisfying reading experience. Our wish is Mohamed’s command.

This article was updated to correct the description of Nour.

Deena Mohamed’s richly detailed drawings imbue contemporary Cairo—and its all-too-familiar atmosphere of bureaucracy, rigid laws and class-based bias—with the magic of wishes, dragons, flying cars and talking donkeys.

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