ProblemsBy Jade SharmaEmily Books/Coffee House Press208 pp; $24.95When we first meet Maya, the protagonist of Jade Sharma’s debut novel Problems, her life is about to teeter into chaos. Problems might begin as a promising alternative to typical addiction narratives, but it ends as a disappointing, unstructured repetition of the same old themes. If “likeable” means “PG-13,” Maya certainly doesn’t talk like a typically likeable protagonist. As structures for narratives go, you can’t really beat addiction for timelessness. As her using gets worse, her marriage breaks down and the affair she’s been having comes to an end.

Source: National Post July 27, 2016 13:30 UTC