Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries, #2)
Artificial Condition was such a good sequel to All Systems Red! I’m hooked into Murderbot’s story (and life). Can’t wait to read the next one.
Author: Martha Wells
Publisher: Tor.com
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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.
Cover Description
It has a dark past – one in which a number of humans were killed. A past that caused it to christen itself “Murderbot”. But it has only vague memories of the massacre that spawned that title, and it wants to know more.
Teaming up with a Research Transport vessel named ART (you don’t want to know what the “A” stands for), Murderbot heads to the mining facility where it went rogue.
What it discovers will forever change the way it thinks…
TL;DR Review
Artificial Condition was such a good sequel to All Systems Red! I’m hooked into Murderbot’s story (and life). Can’t wait to read the next one.
For you if: You read All Systems Red, and you like relatable, funny, surprisingly human sentient robots.
Full Review
“Fear was an artificial condition. It's imposed from the outside. So it's possible to fight it. You should do the things you're afraid of.”
Yay Murderbot! This second novella built nicely on the first, which I ended intrigued by Murderbot’s life but not irretrievably hooked. This one really deepened my love for its character, and I can’t wait to read the next one.
ICYMI, Murderbot is a SecUnit, a sentient robot built to provide security for humans. It hacked its governor module, though, so it’s not under external control, and it’s finding out who it really is — and how it’s much more like humans than it (and they) might have thought. In this installment, it ventures off on its own to try to investigate what really happened during a pivotal moment of its life — that it can’t remember. We also meet a new robot, ART, who is a truly hilarious, intensely lovable secondary character.
The strength of these novellas is not only in the fun, fast-paced plots, witty dialogue, and great characters, but also in the heart. I would take a figurative bullet for Murderbot (even though technically it would be its job to take a bullet for me, lol). As always, I marvel at the ability of sci-fi to hit at the center of what makes us all human.
Content Warnings
Violence and death
Medical content
All the Birds in the Sky
All the Birds in the Sky is a whimsical, super creative novel with some really lovable characters. I loved how it blended fantasy and sci-fi. A new favorite!
Author: Charlie Jane Anders
Publisher: Tor
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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.
Cover Description
Childhood friends Patricia Delfine, a witch, and Laurence Armstead, a mad scientist, parted ways under mysterious circumstances during middle school. But as adults they both wind up in near-future San Francisco, where Laurence is an engineering genius and Patricia works with a small band of other magicians to secretly repair the world’s ever growing ailments. But something is determined to bring them back together—to either save the world, or end it.
TL;DR Review
All the Birds in the Sky is a whimsical, super creative novel with some really lovable characters. I loved how it blended fantasy and sci-fi. A new favorite!
For you if: You love a great storyteller voice.
Full Review
“A society that has to burn witches to hold itself together is a society that has already failed, and just doesn't know it yet.”
I read All the Birds in the Sky because I got it in my Page 1 Books subscription — their booksellers chose it just for me, based on my reading history. I’d also previously read The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders and wanted to read more of her novels. So voila, here was the answer. And y’all — it was literally so good.
I love a whimsical, creative book, and this had just the right touch of both. It combines low fantasy and soft sci-fi in a recognizable world, coming together as a funny, moving, engaging, and just plain fun book to read. It’s about two main characters: Patricia, who is apparently a witch (or so a giant tree told her one time), and Laurence (never Larry), who is a boy computer genius. They’re bullied throughout middle school, but have each other — until they don’t. Then they reconnect later, as adults, when the world seems to be ending. But their respective groups of people have competing ideas about what to do in response.
The pacing was a little slow in the middle (honestly, that’s true for most books), but I loved Patricia and Laurence so much that I was more than willing to spend the time with them. Neither of them is perfect, but I loved them together and their beautiful, tested, gritty friendship. Can we please have more magic + science books??
All in all, I really just loved it. I definitely want to read it again someday. And Charlie Jane Anders has become an auto-read author for me.
Content Warnings
Bullying
Confinement
Child abuse
Suicidal thoughts
Piranesi
Piranesi is literary fiction with so much magical realism that it tips into fantasy — so basically, perfect for me. This book was intriguing and creative and I really liked it!
Author: Susanna Clarke
Publisher: Bloomsbury
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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.
Cover Description
Piranesi's house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.
There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.
TL;DR Review
Piranesi is literary fiction with so much magical realism that it tips into fantasy — so basically, perfect for me. This book was intriguing and creative and I really liked it!
For you if: You love a book that mixes genres.
Full Review
“Perhaps even people you like and admire immensely can make you see the World in ways you would rather not.”
If there was ever going to be a book for me, it’s one that gets shortlisted for the Women’s Prize and nominated for the Hugo Award. I wasn’t aware that a book could even do that … and yet here we are. And so it won’t come as any surprise that I really liked Piranesi.
The main character of the book is a man who lives in the House, aka a vast network of hundreds and hundreds grand halls filled with statues, with sky in the floors above and tides in the floors below. This man’s only friend, the Other, calls him Piranesi, even though he doesn’t think that’s his name. He spends his time exploring, cataloging the halls, and gathering food to live on (mostly fish). The story is told in the form of his journal entires over the course of six months or so.
Almost from the beginning, we as readers know something is up, even though Piranesi is content. Who is the Other, and where does he go between meetings? How does Piranesi know, like, how to do math if he grew up alone in the House? Puzzling through this mystery felt gradual and inevitable as the book went on, but it was still fun to watch the pieces come together in Piranesi’s mind.
I loved the House and his descriptions of it. I loved Piranesi’s endearing innocence. This book is just so creative and unlike anything else I’ve read. I think readers are going to either really like it or really not — the literary readers may not like the magic, and the fantasy readers may get frustrated with its character-driven pace — but for me, I appreciated the best of both.
Content Warnings
Kidnapping/confinement
All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, #1)
All Systems Red was a fun, fast-paced novella and a great start to the Murderbot series! I can’t wait for more Murderbot self-discovery and adventures.
Author: Martha Wells
Publisher: Tor.com
Goodreads | The StoryGraph
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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.
Cover Description
A murderous android discovers itself in All Systems Red, a tense science fiction adventure by Martha Wells that blends HBO's Westworld with Iain M. Banks' Culture books.
In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.
But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.
On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid — a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.
But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.
TL;DR Review
All Systems Red was a fun, fast-paced novella and a great start to the Murderbot series! I can’t wait for more Murderbot self-discovery and adventures.
For you if: You like sci-fi and heartwarming characters.
Full Review
Somehow, I hadn’t heard of Martha Wells’ Murderbot books until the fifth (!) one, Network Effect, got nominated for the Hugo Award for best novel. The first four are not novels, but rather novellas. Also, the audiobooks are on Scribd. So I decided to plunge in. Reader, I am glad I did.
Murderbot is the name our main character has given itself. In reality, it’s a part-robot, part-human clone defense unit that people can rent from “the company” for security. But recently, something went very wrong — and to prevent that from ever happening again, Murderbot hacked its governor module to break free of the company’s control. Now it just wants to be left alone to watch a TV drama called Sailor Moon. But in All Systems Red, the humans Murderbot’s been assigned to protect are different, and they treat it differently. It finds itself emotionally invested and starts to find itself.
Being a novella, this one’s not long (less than 4 hours on audio, which by the way was really well done). But it packs a punch of adventure and action and heartwarming moments. I, like everyone else who’s read these stories, was instantly endeared to Murderbot, and I can’t wait to continue this journey of its self-discovery.
Content Warnings
Blood and violence
Filthy Animals
Filthy Animals is, as we expect from Brandon Taylor, a masterful collection of stories; I especially loved the linked ones. This book more than lives up to the hype.
Author: Brandon Taylor
Publisher: Riverhead
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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.
Cover Description
A group portrait of young adults enmeshed in desire and violence, a hotly charged, deeply satisfying new work of fiction from the author of Booker Prize finalist Real Life
In the series of linked stories at the heart of Filthy Animals, set among young creatives in the American Midwest, a young man treads delicate emotional waters as he navigates a series of sexually fraught encounters with two dancers in an open relationship, forcing him to weigh his vulnerabilities against his loneliness. In other stories, a young woman battles with the cancers draining her body and her family; menacing undercurrents among a group of teenagers explode in violence on a winter night; a little girl tears through a house like a tornado, driving her babysitter to the brink; and couples feel out the jagged edges of connection, comfort, and cruelty.
One of the breakout literary stars of 2020, Brandon Taylor has been hailed by Roxane Gay as "a writer who wields his craft in absolutely unforgettable ways." With Filthy Animals he renews and expands on the promise made in Real Life, training his precise and unsentimental gaze on the tensions among friends and family, lovers and others. Psychologically taut and quietly devastating, Filthy Animals is a tender portrait of the fierce longing for intimacy, the lingering presence of pain, and the desire for love in a world that seems, more often than not, to withhold it.
TL;DR Review
Filthy Animals is, as we expect from Brandon Taylor, a masterful collection of stories; I especially loved the linked ones. This book more than lives up to the hype.
For you if: You like queer short stories and excellent character-driven writing.
Full Review
First, thank you to Riverhead for granting me a review copy of this collection on NetGalley! Filthy Animals is one of the most anticipated books of the year, and it absolutely lives up to the hype.
The collection opens with a story about a man named Lionel, who has hit a particularly difficult point in his life, and who meets two dancers in an open relationship at a friend’s potluck dinner. Every alternating story in the collection returns to these three characters, which, strung together, could have even become a novella. I really liked this format, the promise that we will come back and learn more about them, return to the near-tangible tension between them, see what happens next. But all the other stories in the collection are incredible, too, as one would expect from Brandon Taylor.
I feel, now, that I could recognize Taylor’s writing anywhere, just by the level of detail he includes on every page. His writing zooms in on practically everything, which draws meaning and poignancy out of the otherwise mundane. Reading his stories, I feel like I could be an ant inside them, viewing every surface, every facial expression, every moment from close up. And then he zooms out when it comes to dialogue, letting every word ring and echo in hollow space. The result is both quiet and loud.
This is one of those books where I think the back-cover blurb is especially on the nose: “Psychologically taut and quietly devastating,” and “a tender portrait of the fierce longing for intimacy, the lingering presence of pain, and the desire for love in a world that seems, more often than not, to withhold it.” I really can’t sum it up any better than that.
Content Warnings
Description of suicide attempt and suicidal thoughts (central theme)
Rape (off screen/recounted later)
Pedophilia (briefly remembered)
Bulimia (described in the past)
Terminal illness
Racism and homophobia
Rule of Wolves (King of Scars, #2)
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Publisher: Imprint
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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.
Cover Description
***Description is spoiler for King of Scars***
The wolves are circling. And Ravka's time is running out.
The Demon King. As Fjerda's massive army prepares to invade, Nikolai Lantsov will summon every bit of his ingenuity and charm—and even the monster within—to win this fight. But a dark threat looms that cannot be defeated by a young king's gift for the impossible.
The Stormwitch. Zoya Nazyalensky has lost too much to war. She saw her mentor die and her worst enemy resurrected, and she refuses to bury another friend. Now duty demands she embrace her powers to become the weapon her country needs. No matter the cost.
The Queen of Mourning. Deep undercover, Nina Zenik risks discovery and death as she wages war on Fjerda from inside its capital. But her desire for revenge may cost her country its chance at freedom and Nina the chance to heal her grieving heart.
King. General. Spy. Together they must find a way to forge a future in the darkness. Or watch a nation fall.
TL;DR Review
It’s not easy to wrap up a whole universe, and it wasn’t perfect, but I loved Rule of Wolves as the Grishaverse series conclusion. It made me laugh and cry (!) and shake my fists and cheer.
For you if: You have read the other Grishaverse books!
Full Review
“This is what love does. In the stories, love healed your wounds, fixed what was broken, allowed you to go on. But love wasn’t a spell, some kind of benediction to be whispered, a balm or a cure-all. It was a single, fragile thread, which grew stronger through connection, through shared hardship and trust.”
It’s not going to be easy to review this book without spoilers for other books in the universe, but I am going to try! (If you’ve read it, DM me on Instagram because I have a lot of thoughts I can’t say here, lol.)
Basically, Leigh Bardugo had a tall order on her hands here. How do you write a conclusion to a universe and all its conflicts — one with a massive, very dedicated fan base (with very strong opinions)? Well, I think she pulled it off well. This book had me IN MY EMOTIONS. I laughed, I cried (!!!), I shook my fists, I cheered. There are a few choices that I’m not quite sure how I feel about — and obviously parts that made me VERY SAD, LEIGH, but okay fine, I recognize the necessity — but overall, I’m a happy reader.
One of Leigh’s greatest strengths has always been her characters, and that talent really shines in Rule of Wolves. The growth for our main characters is incredible — from all the way back in Shadow and Bone, yes, but even just going back to the start of King of Scars. I love them all. PROTECT EVERYONE.
If you’re making your way through the Grishaverse books, keep going! You have a good one to look forward to.
Content Warnings
Drug addiction
Abduction/confinement
Of Women and Salt
Author: Gabriela Garcia
Publisher: Flatiron Books
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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.
Cover Description
A daughter's fateful choice, a mother motivated by her own past, and a family legacy that begins in Cuba before either of them were born
In present-day Miami, Jeanette is battling addiction. Daughter of Carmen, a Cuban immigrant, she is determined to learn more about her family history from her reticent mother and makes the snap decision to take in the daughter of a neighbor detained by ICE. Carmen, still wrestling with the trauma of displacement, must process her difficult relationship with her own mother while trying to raise a wayward Jeanette. Steadfast in her quest for understanding, Jeanette travels to Cuba to see her grandmother and reckon with secrets from the past destined to erupt.
From 19th-century cigar factories to present-day detention centers, from Cuba to Mexico, Gabriela Garcia's Of Women and Salt is a kaleidoscopic portrait of betrayals--personal and political, self-inflicted and those done by others--that have shaped the lives of these extraordinary women. A haunting meditation on the choices of mothers, the legacy of the memories they carry, and the tenacity of women who choose to tell their stories despite those who wish to silence them, this is more than a diaspora story; it is a story of America's most tangled, honest, human roots.
TL;DR Review
Of Women and Salt was a gorgeous, unforgettable book, with a feeling somewhere between a novel and short stories. I’m so glad I read it.
For you if: You like character-driven novels by poets.
Full Review
“María Isabel thought it had always been women who wove the future out of the scraps, always the characters, never the authors. She knew a woman could learn to resent this post, but she would instead find a hundred books to read.”
I read Of Women and Salt as part of Roxane Gay’s Audacious book club via Literati, and it was so good, y’all. Seriously. From the very first chapter, I knew I was going to love it. Searing stories, sweeping history, sharp women who reach for you right out of the page. And prose that cuts like a knife. What else could you ask for?
The book is a novel, but it’s written in chapters that bounce around in time and between narrators, so it almost has a connected short story collection type of feeling to it. I don’t want to give too much away, but the characters are stretch back generations, from the family matriarch in Cuba in the 1800s to a young woman (Jeanette) struggling with addiction today.
It’s rich with history and multigenerational legacy, an homage to Latinx women throughout the past few centuries. I particularly loved the first chapter, about Maria Isabel in a cigar factory in the 1800s, and one close to the middle from the POV of Jeanette’s mother (IYKYK). Gabriela Garcia is also a poet, and it absolutely shows. Literary and moving and beautiful and painful all at once.
Plenty of content warnings on this one, but if you are OK with them, it’s so worth it. I may reread this one in the future. I definitely, definitely recommend.
Content Warnings
Drug abuse and addiction
Domestic violence
Sexual assault
Things We Lost to the Water
Author: Eric Nguyen
Publisher: Knopf
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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.
Cover Description
When Huong arrives in New Orleans with her two young sons, she is jobless, homeless, and worried about her husband, Cong, who remains in Vietnam. As she and her boys begin to settle in to life in America, she continues to send letters and tapes back to Cong, hopeful that they will be reunited and her children will grow up with a father.
But with time, Huong realizes she will never see her husband again. While she copes with this loss, her sons, Tuan and Binh grow up in their absent father's shadow, haunted by a man and a country trapped in their memory and imagination. As they push forward, the three adapt to life in America in different ways: Huong takes up with a Vietnamese car salesman who is also new in town; Tuan tries to connect with his heritage by joining a local Vietnamese gang; and Binh, now going by Ben, embraces his adopted homeland and his burgeoning sexuality. Their search for identity — as individuals and as a family — threatens to tear them apart. But then disaster strikes the city they now call home, and they must find a new way to come together and honor the ties that bind them.
A stunning debut novel about an immigrant Vietnamese family who settles in New Orleans and struggles to remain connected to one another as their lives are inextricably reshaped.
TL;DR Review
Things We Lost to the Water is a beautiful novel with excellent writing and full characters., about the post-war Vietnamese immigrant experience. I liked it a lot.
For you if: You like multi-POV literary novels.
Full Review
Big thanks to Knopf for granting me a review copy of this book via NetGalley! It was beautiful. I really liked it.
Things We Lost to the Water follows three characters: Huong, who fled Vietnam during the war and came to New Orleans, and her two sons, Tuan and Binh (Ben). We follow their lives over the course of years, from right after Huong arrived in 1978 to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Looming behind everything is Huong’s husband and the boys’ father (or perhaps the idea of him), who was supposed to join them in the US. What follows is a story of heartbreak, growth, hope, memory, family, coming of age, and home.
There’s no denying that Eric Nguyen is an excellent, beautiful writer. There were two chapters in particular — one about halfway through and the other at the very end — that took my breath away. They spin around and around, dizzying, suspenseful, and rich with emotion. And the characters in this novel are gorgeous, full and endearing; you root for all of them. I did enjoy the first half of the book better than the second half (which jumps forward in time much more quickly), but the ending chapter was more than worth it. I’ll be watching for what Nguyen writes next, for sure.
Content Warnings
Anti-Asian racism and racist slurs
Bullying
War violence and torture (off screen)
Homophobia
Revival Season
Revival Season is a well-paced, impressive debut novel with big, full characters and a central conflict that’s as unique as it is familiar. I really enjoyed it.
Author: Monica West
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.
Cover Description
The daughter of one of the South’s most famous Baptist preachers discovers a shocking secret about her father that puts her at odds with both her faith and her family in this “tender and wise” (Ann Patchett, author of Commonwealth) debut novel.
Every summer, fifteen-year-old Miriam Horton and her family pack themselves tight in their old minivan and travel through small southern towns for revival season: the time when Miriam’s father—one of the South’s most famous preachers—holds massive healing services for people desperate to be cured of ailments and disease. This summer, the revival season doesn’t go as planned, and after one service in which Reverend Horton’s healing powers are tested like never before, Miriam witnesses a shocking act of violence that shakes her belief in her father—and in her faith.
When the Hortons return home, Miriam’s confusion only grows as she discovers she might have the power to heal—even though her father and the church have always made it clear that such power is denied to women. Over the course of the next year, Miriam must decide between her faith, her family, and her newfound power that might be able to save others, but, if discovered by her father, could destroy Miriam.
Celebrating both feminism and faith, Revival Season is a story of spiritual awakening and disillusionment in a Southern, black, Evangelical community. Monica West’s transporting coming-of-age novel explores complicated family and what it means to live among the community of the faithful.
TL;DR Review
Revival Season is a well-paced, impressive debut novel with big, full characters and a central conflict that’s as unique as it is familiar. I really enjoyed it.
For you if: You like contemporary fiction with a more literary feel.
Full Review
First, thank you to Simon & Schuster for the review copy of this one via NetGalley! I read it in one day, partly as an ebook and partly as an audiobook (and a good chunk as I stood in line outside Strand Bookstore waiting to sell them some used books — best way to pass the time!). I was totally sucked in.
The story is about a girl named Miriam, whose father is a famous Baptist preacher known for an ability to heal the sick. She’s brought up pious and conservative, not even allowed the vanity of clear nail polish, where women know their place and family members who don’t convert are treated as if they don’t exist. One summer, at the start of that year’s “revival season” (tour of the South seeking converters), Miriam sees something she shouldn’t, and her understanding of her father and the world shifts. Then it seems as though Miriam herself may have the gift to heal, and the shift becomes a shattering.
There are tough parts of this book (plenty of content/trigger warnings), but throughout I was drawn deeply into Miriam’s world and thoughts. The characters in this book are so well written, and the tension and conflict are so acute, that I found my heart literally pounding at the end. I loved the seamless inclusion of magical realism (or, if you will, miracles), and I was cheering the whole time throughout Miriam’s complete transformation.
This is one of those novels that I think a lot of different readers will enjoy, as it toes the line between contemporary and literary really well. You should check it out!
Content Warnings
Self-harm
Domestic abuse and child abuse
Giving birth (described as it happens)
Stillborn (in the past/talked about)
Ableism (misplaced intentions to “fix” a disabled person)
A Children's Bible
A Children’s Bible was a strange read, but no doubt masterful. Short, unsettling, and apocalyptic, I can see why it was a National Book Award contender.
Author: Lydia Millet
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.
Cover Description
A Children’s Bible follows a group of twelve eerily mature children on a forced vacation with their families at a sprawling lakeside mansion. Contemptuous of their parents, the children decide to run away when a destructive storm descends on the summer estate, embarking on a dangerous foray into the apocalyptic chaos outside. Lydia Millet’s prophetic and heartbreaking story of generational divide offers a haunting vision of what awaits us on the far side of Revelation.
TL;DR Review
A Children’s Bible was a strange read, but no doubt masterful. Short, unsettling, and apocalyptic, I can see why it was a National Book Award contender.
For you if: You like literary and/or apocalyptic novels.
Full Review
I picked up A Children’s Bible because it was longlisted for the National Book Award. While I wouldn’t quite call it a fun read, I can absolutely appreciate its mastery and resonance, and I’m glad I read it.
The story is about a group of children whose wealthy families have gathered in a big country house for the summer. The kids are unsettlingly mature (which is more of a story device than realistic, but is actually really interesting in the way it positions their partying parents as less irresponsible — particularly given the book’s focus on climate change and impending disaster). Then a storm blows through, and what’s essentially the end of the world begins.
It’s a super-short novel at only about 200 pages, and it’s extremely unsettling, but written in a detached, x-ray like style that’s also really effective. All in all, a fascinating read from a literary perspective, and I can definitely see why some people thought it might win the Pulitzer.
Pick this one up if you like weird, literary books!
Content Warnings
Heavy alcohol and drug use
Torture, captivity, and violence
Animal death
The Vanishing Half
The Vanishing Half is a perfectly paced novel with big, full characters and a story that doesn’t let you go. Yes, I am late to the game. Yes, it’s worth your time.
Author: Brit Bennett
Publisher: Riverhead
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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.
Cover Description
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters' storylines intersect?
Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.
TL;DR Review
The Vanishing Half is a perfectly paced novel with big, full characters and a story that doesn’t let you go. Yes, I am late to the game. Yes, it’s worth your time.
For you if: You are looking for literary fiction that feels easier to read without sacrificing quality.
Full Review
“A town always looked different once you'd returned, like a house where all the furniture had shifted three inches. You wouldn't mistake it for a stranger's house but you'd keeping banging your shins on the table corners.”
My friends: When a book is filled with similes like that ^^, you just know you’re in for a treat. I am obviously extremely late to the game with this book (it sold one million copies in one year!!), but please allow me to add my voice to its praise anyway.
Quick synopsis, for those of you unfamiliar: The book centers on a pair of twins, Stella and Desiree. They’re Black but have very light skin, and one day in the 1950s Stella leaves Desiree and her entire life behind to marry a charming, rich white man and grab her chance to live as a white woman. Years later, Desiree returns to their hometown with her daughter, Jude, fleeing an abusive husband and still reckoning with Stella’s desertion. We also get chapters told years later from Jude’s perspective, which (as you can guess) brings our characters back together in some way.
It’s hard to say what, exactly, makes this book so good. I think it’s just a beautifully balanced total package — characters, setting, prose, conflict, emotion. I rooted so hard for so many of these characters. The book is sweeping and literary but readable and engaging, full of sharp details and super-quotable passages. I also didn’t realize that this book had trans representation, and I thought it was really beautifully done. Also, the audiobook’s narration is excellent — it’s absolutely worth a listen.
I can’t wait to see what HBO does with this one. I have a feeling it’s going to be excellent.
Content Warnings
Domestic abuse
Hate crime/lynching (described in the past)
Sexual assault (brief, not descriptive)
Dementia
Racism and racial slurs
Detransition, Baby
Detransition, Baby is a real standout of a novel, smart and emotional and fresh, and its authenticity shines. I really, really liked it.
Author: Torrey Peters
Publisher: One World
Goodreads | The StoryGraph
Click above to buy this book from my Bookshop.org shop, which supports independent bookstores (not Amazon). You can also find it via your favorite indie bookstore here.
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.
Cover Description
A whipsmart debut about three women — transgender and cisgender — whose lives collide after an unexpected pregnancy forces them to confront their deepest desires around gender, motherhood, and sex.
Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn't hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men.
Ames isn't happy either. He thought detransitioning to live as a man would make life easier, but that decision cost him his relationship with Reese — and losing her meant losing his only family. Even though their romance is over, he longs to find a way back to her. When Ames's boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she's pregnant with his baby — and that she's not sure whether she wants to keep it — Ames wonders if this is the chance he's been waiting for. Could the three of them form some kind of unconventional family — and raise the baby together?
This provocative debut is about what happens at the emotional, messy, vulnerable corners of womanhood that platitudes and good intentions can't reach. Torrey Peters brilliantly and fearlessly navigates the most dangerous taboos around gender, sex, and relationships, gifting us a thrillingly original, witty, and deeply moving novel.
TL;DR Review
Detransition, Baby is a real standout of a novel, smart and emotional and fresh, and its authenticity shines. I really, really liked it.
For you if: You seek out literary fiction with queer representation and storylines.
Full Review
“We are much stronger and more powerful than we understand. We are fifteen thousand pounds of muscle and bone forged from rage and trauma.”
I’d had my eye on Detransition, Baby anyway, but when it became the first novel by a trans woman to be longlisted for the Women’s Prize, I knew I had to buy a copy and read it. I also ended up choosing it for my office book club. And yes, as expected, we all loved it.
Detransition, Baby is about three characters: a trans woman named Reese, who is a glorious mess; her ex-spouse, Ames, who recently detransitioned out of living as a trans woman; and Katrina, Ames’s Korean-American girlfriend, who is also his boss … and pregnant. Struggling with the idea of “father” as an identity, but unwilling to lose Katrina, Ames approaches Reese and asks her if she will form a queer family with them. The book switches back and forth between the past, when Ames lived as Amy, and the present, as the three of them figure out whether their futures can fit together.
Torrey Peters has talked a lot about writing this book for trans women, in the same way Toni Morrison wrote novels for Black people, and you can feel it from the very first page. Peters managed to truly resist any pressure to cater to the cishet gaze, and that really makes this book stand out. It’s just different, in a very good way. The characters are incredible and frustrating and you find yourself rooting for and cursing all of them equally.
This novel is also incredibly smart and well written. There are a lot of passages featuring internal monologues in which our characters work through aspects of their identity or goals, which can be hard to write in a way that doesn’t feel circular or meandering. There are also several debates between characters that are incredibly paced and plotted. Peters manages to bring her audience along, even with all the nuances and perspectives, in a way the feels organic and authentic, but also clear and compelling. It was all just so smart.
I can’t wait to read whatever Torrey Peters writes next. Truly.
Content Warnings
Transphobia and homophobia
Outing someone at work
Domestic violence
Miscarriage (off-screen, discussed)
Suicide (off-screen, discussed)
Deciding whether to abort a pregnancy
Love and Other Thought Experiments
Love and Other Thought Experiments is hard to review. It’s incredibly written, but also one of the most bizarre and unexpected books I’ve ever read.
Author: Sophie Ward
Publisher: Vintage (forthcoming US edition)
Goodreads | The StoryGraph
Click above to buy this book from my Bookshop.org shop, which supports independent bookstores (not Amazon). You can also find it via your favorite indie bookstore here.
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.
Cover Description
Rachel and Eliza are hoping to have a baby. The couple spend many happy evenings together planning for the future.
One night Rachel wakes up screaming and tells Eliza that an ant has crawled into her eye and is stuck there. She knows it sounds mad - but she also knows it's true. As a scientist, Eliza won't take Rachel's fear seriously and they have a bitter fight. Suddenly their entire relationship is called into question.
Inspired by some of the best-known thought experiments in philosophy, particularly philosophy of mind, Love and Other Thought Experiments is a story of love lost and found across the universe.
TL;DR Review
Love and Other Thought Experiments is hard to review. It’s incredibly written, but also one of the most bizarre and unexpected books I’ve ever read.
For you if: You like weird, experimental books!
Full Review
“We are not a brain. We are the purest distillation of consciousness without any of the distractions.”
Wow, where do I even start with this one? Love and Other Thought Experiments isn’t published in the US yet (it’s coming in the fall), but it was longlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, which is how I came to pick it up.
You don’t get a lot of information from the cover description — just that it’s a book written in “thought experiments” that starts when a woman says an ant crawled into her eye but her girlfriend doesn’t believe her. Now, having read it, I’m sorry to say that I can’t tell you any more information than that lol. What I can tell you is that this book is a complete roller coaster, bizarre and unexpected and completely unpredictable.
I can’t help but give this book five stars on the review sites because it’s one of the most creative novels I’ve ever read, and the writing is truly excellent. But it’s hard to verbalize much more than that — I’m still kind of like whaaaaat. I did really love the way each chapter was tied to a famous philosophical thought experiment; they were interesting to connect back to the story and to reflect on for my own life. And the characters here are rich and beautifully written. But again, it was such a strange trip!
I realize this review is probably not very helpful lol. My advice is to read this if you tend to like books that are weird and experimental, and if you have someone else to buddy read it with so that you can talk about it after (which you will NEED to do).
Content Warnings
Cancer/terminal illness
Grief
An ant crawling into one’s eyeball (if you are squeamish, lol)
Beloved
Beloved is Toni Morrison’s “big one” — the one that won the Pulitzer and led her to win the Nobel Prize. I was obviously not disappointed. Incredible.
Author: Toni Morrison
Publisher: Vintage
Goodreads | The StoryGraph
Click above to buy this book from my Bookshop.org shop, which supports independent bookstores (not Amazon). You can also find it via your favorite indie bookstore here.
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.
Cover Description
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Toni Morrison’s Beloved is a spellbinding and dazzlingly innovative portrait of a woman haunted by the past.
Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has borne the unthinkable and not gone mad, yet she is still held captive by memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. Meanwhile Sethe’s house has long been troubled by the angry, destructive ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.
Sethe works at beating back the past, but it makes itself heard and felt incessantly in her memory and in the lives of those around her. When a mysterious teenage girl arrives, calling herself Beloved, Sethe’s terrible secret explodes into the present.
Combining the visionary power of legend with the unassailable truth of history, Morrison’s unforgettable novel is one of the great and enduring works of American literature.
Full Review
“Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”
I’ve been looking forward to reading Beloved since I started my project of reading all of Toni Morrison’s fiction (in order) earlier this year. It’s “the big one” — the one that won the Pulitzer and led her to win the Nobel Prize. I was obviously not disappointed. Incredible.
While the story is wholly original and not meant to be a retelling, Beloved was inspired by the story of an escaped enslaved woman named Margaret Garner, who killed her 2-year-old daughter to spare her from capture when slave hunters eventually found them. In Beloved, the house of the main character, Sethe, is haunted by the actual ghost of the daughter she killed. The book overall is about what it means to be free, how slavery impacts identity and memory, the impacts of community, and whether it is safe to love even if it means getting hurt.
Morrison draws you in and forces you to not to look away like pretty much nobody else who has ever lived. This book is raw and scathing and pulses like the open wound it means to expose.
I’ve said this with pretty much every Morrison novel I’ve read so far, but I can’t imagine reading this one without listening along to the audiobook at the same time. Morrison herself reads it, and her narration style is just as unique and breathtaking as her writing. It adds a whole layer of experience and meaning. Please listen to it.
Content Warnings
Slavery and violence/abuse of enslaved people
Rape and sexual assault
Pregnancy and childbirth
The Atmospherians
The Atmospherians is a smart, satirical novel about toxic masculinity, body image, and influencer culture. I thought it was fun, dramatic, and impactful.
Author: Alex McElroy
Publisher: Atria Books
Goodreads | The StoryGraph
Click above to buy this book from my Bookshop.org shop, which supports independent bookstores (not Amazon). You can also find it via your favorite indie bookstore here.
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.
Cover Description
A “dazzling” (Bryan Washington, author of Memorial and Lot ) and brilliantly satirical debut novel for fans of Women Talking and Red Clocks about two best friends — a disgraced influencer and a struggling actor — who form The Atmosphere, a cult designed to reform problematic men.
Sasha Marcus was once the epitome of contemporary success: an internet sensation, social media darling, and a creator of a high profile wellness brand for women. But a confrontation with an abusive troll has taken a horrifying turn, and now she’s at rock bottom: canceled and doxxed online, fired from her waitress job and fortressed in her apartment while men’s rights protestors rage outside. All that once glittered now condemns.
Sasha confides in her oldest childhood friend, Dyson — a failed actor with a history of body issues—who hatches a plan for Sasha to restore her reputation by becoming the face of his new business venture, The Atmosphere: a rehabilitation community for men. Based in an abandoned summer camp and billed as a workshop for job training, it is actually a rigorous program designed to rid men of their toxic masculinity and heal them physically, emotionally, and socially. Sasha has little choice but to accept. But what horrors await her as the resident female leader of a crew of washed up, desperate men? And what exactly does Dyson want?
Explosive and wickedly funny, this “Fight Club for the millennial generation” (Mat Johnson, author of Pym) peers straight into the dark heart of wellness and woke-ness, self-mythology and self-awareness, by asking what happens when we become addicted to the performance of ourselves.
TL;DR Review
The Atmospherians is a smart, satirical novel about toxic masculinity, body image, and influencer culture. I thought it was fun, dramatic, and impactful.
For you if: You like satire (…and are OK reading about eating disorders).
Full Review
Before I started The Atmospherians, all I knew about it was that it’s satire, and that the main character is a “disgraced influencer.” Being a person with a small ~internet presence~, I wondered what I’d gotten myself into (and it didn’t help that she lives in Hoboken, a little too close to me here in downtown Jersey City). In the end, though, this book is a super entertaining read, both comical and uncomfortable, impactful and disquieting.
The main character is named Sasha, and she preached a wellness routine she dubbed “Abandon,” which called for women to literally abandon all wellness products and practices (lol). But a careless comment caused her to plummet, fast, which might even be an understatement. Her former best friend, an actor, shows up and tells her they are going to found a cult dedicated to reforming toxic men, The Atmosphere.
A couple of big trigger warnings here, just FYI: eating disorders and disordered eating (there is graphic, near-reverent description of binging and purging), and suicide.
I thought this was a fun read that hit a little too close to reality (which the best satire does). It’s about not only toxic masculinity but also definitely body image and internet culture, especially influencers. It’s about the parts we play for ourselves and others. Now, I don’t tend to love the experience of reading *dramatic* books (which I know puts me in the minority), so there were times I struggled with it. But that’s definitely a me thing, because Alex McElroy wrote a book that’s smart and effective, and I think it absolutely does all that it intends to do.
Content Warnings
Disordered eating and eating disorders (graphic, glorified depiction of binging and purging)
Suicide
Body hatred and fatphobia
Animal cruelty/death
Swimming Back to Trout River
Swimming Back to Trout River is an absolutely beautiful novel with quiet, stunning prose and characters. who hop off the page. I’m shocked that it’s a debut.
Author: Linda Rui Feng
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Goodreads | The StoryGraph
Click above to buy this book from my Bookshop.org shop, which supports independent bookstores (not Amazon). You can also find it via your favorite indie bookstore here.
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.
Cover Description
A lyrical novel set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution that follows a father’s quest to reunite his family before his precocious daughter’s momentous birthday, which Garth Greenwell calls “one of the most beautiful debuts I’ve read in years.”
How many times in life can we start over without losing ourselves?
In the summer of 1986, in a small Chinese village, ten-year-old Junie receives a momentous letter from her parents, who had left for America years ago: her father promises to return home and collect her by her twelfth birthday. But Junie’s growing determination to stay put in the idyllic countryside with her beloved grandparents threatens to derail her family’s shared future.
What Junie doesn’t know is that her parents, Momo and Cassia, are newly estranged from one another in their adopted country, each holding close private tragedies and histories from the tumultuous years of their youth during China’s Cultural Revolution. While Momo grapples anew with his deferred musical ambitions and dreams for Junie’s future in America, Cassia finally begins to wrestle with a shocking act of brutality from years ago. In order for Momo to fulfill his promise, he must make one last desperate attempt to reunite all three members of the family before Junie’s birthday — even if it means bringing painful family secrets to light.
Swimming Back to Trout River weaves together the stories of Junie, Momo, Cassia, and Dawn — a talented violinist from Momo’s past — while depicting their heartbreak and resilience, tenderly revealing the hope, compromises, and abiding ingenuity that make up the lives of immigrants.
TL;DR Review
Swimming Back to Trout River is an absolutely beautiful novel with quiet, stunning prose and characters. who hop off the page. I’m shocked that it’s a debut.
For you if: You like emotional stories that travel across borders and characters.
Full Review
First: Thank you to Simon & Schuster for the gifted copy of this book. It’s really beautiful, both outside (textured cover! deckled edges!) and inside.
Garth Greenwell called this novel “one of the most beautiful debuts I’ve read in years,” and I completely agree. I read it over the course of just two days, but it felt like time stretched gloriously and endlessly as I did so — I was completely engrossed, savoring every word. Linda Rui Feng’s prose is gorgeous. Did I even breathe as I read her words? I’m not sure.
The story features four characters — Junie, a 10-year-old girl who was born without feet and lives with her grandparents in China; her parents, Momo and Cassia, who are estranged from one another in the United States; and Dawn, a violinist and composer who knew Momo when they were students. It spans decades, coming to life during Momo and Dawn’s university days during China’s Cultural Revolution, and continuing through the 1980s, when Momo promises Junie that they’ll spend her special 12th birthday together as a family in America.
These characters are complex, layered, and so compelling. I loved each of them and rooted hard for them to get what they wanted, even when that stood in opposition to what other characters wanted. I just felt so deeply for all of them. And the ending — oh, my heart.
I also really, really loved how Linda Rui Feng brought music into all the corners of the book, from major plot points to tiny little metaphors to the way the writing sings. Truly, if you love music (especially classical), you’ll love this book.
Anyway, this will be on my list of favorites for the year. Read it!
Content Warnings
Suicidal thoughts/intentions
Stillborn baby
State violence
Sorrowland
Sorrowland is a brutal, impressive novel that’s hard to look away from. Slow-paced but engrossing, this is cultural and historical commentary through science fiction at its finest.
Author: Rivers Solomon
Publisher: MCD
Goodreads | The StoryGraph
Click above to buy this book from my Bookshop.org shop, which supports independent bookstores (not Amazon). You can also find it via your favorite indie bookstore here.
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.
Cover Description
Vern — seven months pregnant and desperate to escape the strict religious compound where she was raised — flees for the shelter of the woods. There, she gives birth to twins, and plans to raise them far from the influence of the outside world.
But even in the forest, Vern is a hunted woman. Forced to fight back against the community that refuses to let her go, she unleashes incredible brutality far beyond what a person should be capable of, her body wracked by inexplicable and uncanny changes.
To understand her metamorphosis and to protect her small family, Vern has to face the past, and more troublingly, the future — outside the woods. Finding the truth will mean uncovering the secrets of the compound she fled but also the violent history in America that produced it.
TL;DR Review
Sorrowland is a brutal, impressive novel that’s hard to look away from. Slow-paced but engrossing, this is cultural and historical commentary through science fiction at its finest.
For you if: You’re interested in reading excellently written, Black, queer, gothic fiction.
Full Review
“They’d done the calculations as small children. Going against tended to end more rightly, more justly, than going with. People were wrong. Rules, most of the time, favored not what was right, but what was convenient or preferable to those in charge.”
When I saw that Rivers Solomon, author of The Deep, had a new book coming out, I didn’t ask questions — I just picked it up. And it’s probably best that I didn’t read too much about it beforehand, because a lot of people have put it in the “horror” category, and horror and I don’t mix. Fortunately, though, this is a bit of a genre defier, and I personally wouldn’t call it horror — more like gothic science fiction; somewhat grotesque but not so much that it can’t be stomached. Anyway, I’m really glad that I read it, because wow is it impressive.
It’s hard to summarize Sorrowland without giving too much away, but in short, it’s about a young woman named Vern who flees a cultish compound. In the first chapter, she gives birth to twins in the woods. The book follows her journey over the next few years as she raises her children, does her best to stay free, begins to transform in strange ways, and learns more about the place she came from.
The pace of the novel is sort of slow, but it still really draws you in — you can’t look away. And there’s so much going on here, all of which is radically and excellently done. Primarily, it underscores the historical mistreatment, experimentation, and use of Black bodies by the US government, but there’s also a lot in here about queerness, and both gender and biological sex; about radical self acceptance; about the complicated nature of how community and abuse intersect; about motherhood; about shared history.
This one solidified Rivers Solomon as an auto-read author for me. They are just so good.
Content Warnings
Body horror
Child abuse
Violence
Homophobia/transphobia
Confinement
Brood
I really enjoyed Brood. It’s human and quietly empathetic, with emotional layers and astute attention to detail. I am going to have to read it again someday.
Author: Jackie Polzin
Publisher: Doubleday
Goodreads | The StoryGraph
Click above to buy this book from my Bookshop.org shop, which supports independent bookstores (not Amazon). You can also find it via your favorite indie bookstore here.
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.
Cover Description
A new literary voice — wryly funny, honest and observational,--depicts one woman's attempt to keep her four chickens alive while reflecting on a recent loss.
Over the course of a single year, our nameless narrator heroically tries to keep her small brood of four chickens alive despite the seemingly endless challenges that caring for another creature entails. From the forty-below nights of a brutal Minnesota winter to a sweltering summer which brings a surprise tornado, she battles predators, bad luck, and the uncertainty of a future that may not look anything like the one she always imagined. This book is a meditation on life and longing.
TL;DR Review
I really enjoyed Brood. It’s human and quietly empathetic, with emotional layers and astute attention to detail. I am going to have to read it again someday.
For you if: You like short stories, or novels that do interesting things from a craft perspective.
Full Review
“Life is the ongoing effort to live. Some people make it look easy. Chickens do not.”
Thank you to Doubleday for sending a review copy of this book my way. I really enjoyed it, and I have been thinking about it even more than I’d expected to ever since I finished.
Brood is told in short narrative vignettes by a narrator who forges an unexpected connection to the chickens she and her husband have come to own. She is grappling with loss and change, and amidst extreme winter and predators and even a tornado, she finds herself more and more passionate about helping them fight against the everyday struggle to survive. I don’t want to say much more than that, because I didn’t know much going in and liked it that way, but I found this book to be surprisingly emotional, empathetic, and astute. (Also I know so much about chickens now lol.)
This is not a book you read for plot, but if you like characters, and short stories and other forms that do interesting things for a craft perspective, I think you will like this one. It’s quiet and short, but it’s got so many delicious layers. And prose is excellent, with observations that hit you right in the gut and heart.
There were parts that I felt like slipped through my fingers, which always happens for me with novels told in vignettes like this. I think it was because I haven’t gone through the experiences the narrator was healing from (check the content warnings), but it didn’t keep me from enjoying the novel overall (far from it). That said, I think this could be really impactful for someone who has gone through those things, if it wasn’t too much to read about. I fully expect to read this again someday and get even more out of it than I did the first time.
Content Warnings
Miscarriage
Infertility
Grief
Death of an animal
The Naomi Letters
The Naomi Letters is a fantastic collection with so, so many layers, and I loved reading it.
Author: Rachel Mennies
Publisher: BOA Editions
Goodreads | The StoryGraph
Click above to buy this book from my Bookshop.org shop, which supports independent bookstores (not Amazon). You can also find it via your favorite indie bookstore here.
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.
Cover Description
The Naomi Letters is a collection of epistles, mostly love letters, written from one woman to another over the span of a year (& some); it’s a book about insomnia and suicide, about love and distance, about women poets and the role of poetry in articulating and shaping desire.
TL;DR Review
The Naomi Letters is a fantastic collection with so, so many layers, and I loved reading it.
For you if: You like epistolary works and/or poetry collections with a narrative thread.
Full Review
Thank you to BOA Editions and Rachel Mennies for sending a copy of this collection my way — I loved it. I picked it up and after only a few pages found myself completely immersed; I read the whole thing over the course of just a few hours. And what a journey.
The Naomi Letters is a collection of poems-as-letters written by the narrator to the woman she loves, Naomi. They’re separated by distance, and over the course of a year’s time, we watch the narrator ride down deep into depression (TW: suicidal thoughts), and then come back up and out a bit. Throughout, Naomi is her muse, her despair, her hope, her mirror.
There are so many layers at play here, and so many themes carefully explored. Sexuality, of course. Discomfort in and with one’s body, from both conventional beauty standards and also not knowing or admitting your own desire. Judaism. Depression and anxiety. Hope and healing.
It does get quite heavy, but there’s light at the end of its tunnel, too. It feels emotional and real and human. And along the way, the words are artwork. What more do we want than that?
Content Warnings
Suicidal thoughts and attempt
Severe depression
Body hatred
Tar Baby
Tar Baby wasn’t my favorite of Toni’s novels, but there’s still just no denying that she is one of the greatest writers in all of history.
Author: Toni Morrison
Publisher: Vintage Anchor
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Click above to buy this book from my Bookshop.org shop, which supports independent bookstores (not Amazon). You can also find it via your favorite indie bookstore here.
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.
Cover Description
Ravishingly beautiful and emotionally incendiary, Tar Baby is Toni Morrison’s reinvention of the love story. Jadine Childs is a black fashion model with a white patron, a white boyfriend, and a coat made out of ninety perfect sealskins. Son is a black fugitive who embodies everything she loathes and desires. As Morrison follows their affair, which plays out from the Caribbean to Manhattan and the deep South, she charts all the nuances of obligation and betrayal between blacks and whites, masters and servants, and men and women.
TL;DR Review
Tar Baby wasn’t my favorite of Toni’s novels, but there’s still just no denying that she is one of the greatest writers in all of history.
For you if: You like Toni Morrison’s early work and want to read another — one that will feel familiar but also do new and different things.
Full Review
“It was a silly age, twenty-five; too old for teenaged dreaming, too young for settling down. Every corner was a possibility and a dead end.”
I’m making my way through all of Toni Morrison’s novels this year; Tar Baby was her fourth, and so I read it in April. Once again, this one feels familiar alongside her other work, undeniably Toni, and yet once again it also feels different and distinct. It wasn’t my favorite one, but there’s no denying that she’s one of the greatest writers in history.
Most of Tar Baby takes place on an island in the Caribbean, where a wealthy white man, his trophy wife, their Black butler and cook, and their butler’s niece Jadine are living. When a man named Son finds his way into the household, the tension that spills forth brings ugly secrets out of the woodwork and breaks their quiet life to smithereens. Meanwhile, Son and Jadine see the start of an explosive roller coaster of a love affair that carries them all the way to NYC and Florida and back.
I think that I was mostly just not in the right mindset for the first half of this book, which was paced so, so slowly. And yet even in my impatience, I couldn’t help but marvel at the way she switches between beautiful description full of metaphor and quick, cutting, ping-pong-like dialogue. And then…the second half!! Holy moly, lol. I don’t know why I expected anything less than volcanic eruption from Toni. And then the ending, another stunner. Of course, as well, so many themes and layers all throughout.
I’m looking forward to Beloved in May!
Content Warnings
Child abuse
Racial slurs