Creation Lake

One of the most anticipated novels of 2024 and longlisted for the Booker Prize, Rachel Kushner is one of those authors on everyone's lips the past few years, and it has risen to a crescendo as of late. 'Creation Lake' is a kind of cool-girl spy novel that follows Sadie Smith, a sexy, manipulative, rogue, and untethered spy with a little bit of a drinking problem. She is hired to ingratiate herself with a French eco-commune, pretending to translate a book, thus enabling her to take down the commune by proving that they are criminals and terrorists. Whether she works for the government or a private corporation is hard to deduce, and the truth is entirely irrelevant to her professional or personal life. While on this project, she also intercepts all the emails from their leader, Bruno Lacombe, who waxes poetic about the differences between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens and lives in a cave. Sadie's character arc throughout the novel was the gold for me. I loved the ending of this book!