The White Album
The White Album is an essay collection that asks for your close attention, but Joan Didion’s sentences are worth it. Parts of it went over my head, I think, but it will make a good reread.
Author: Joan Didion
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (original edition, 1979)
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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
An extraordinary report on the aftermath of the 1960s in America by the New York Times–bestselling author of South and West and Slouching Towards Bethlehem.
In this landmark essay collection, Joan Didion brilliantly interweaves her own “bad dreams” with those of a nation confronting the dark underside of 1960s counterculture.
From a jailhouse visit to Black Panther Party cofounder Huey Newton to witnessing First Lady of California Nancy Reagan pretend to pick flowers for the benefit of news cameras, Didion captures the paranoia and absurdity of the era with her signature blend of irony and insight. She takes readers to the “giddily splendid” Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the cool mountains of Bogotá, and the Jordanian Desert, where Bishop James Pike went to walk in Jesus’s footsteps—and died not far from his rented Ford Cortina. She anatomizes the culture of shopping malls—“toy garden cities in which no one lives but everyone consumes”—and exposes the contradictions and compromises of the women’s movement. In the iconic title essay, she documents her uneasy state of mind during the years leading up to and following the Manson murders—a terrifying crime that, in her memory, surprised no one.
Written in “a voice like no other in contemporary journalism,” The White Album is a masterpiece of literary reportage and a fearless work of autobiography by the National Book Award–winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking (The New York Times Book Review). Its power to electrify and inform remains undiminished nearly forty years after it was first published.
TL;DR Review
The White Album is an essay collection that asks for your close attention, but Joan Didion’s sentences are worth it. Parts of it went over my head, I think, but it will make a good reread.
For you if: You’re interested in the 1960s and/or want a starting place for Didion’s work.
Full Review
Joan Didion is one of those writers I have always meant to read, but just hadn’t gotten to yet. So after she recently died, and then I saw that the Center for Fiction was hosting a reading group on her works, I immediately signed up. So this was my first Joan Didion, but I’ll be reading three more over the next three months (and I’m looking forward to it).
The White Album is a collection of essays written in the 1970s, mostly ruminating on aspects of life in California the 1960s. The title essay opens with that famous quote — “We tell ourselves stories in order to live” — which is actually taken out of context when it’s printed on t-shirts and things. Because she goes on to say that we’re constantly attempting to fit narrative and reason into events (“the sermon in the suicide,” for example) that she’s increasingly convinced are random and pointless. She’s lost her faith in stories.
Which is ironic for someone whose skill with words is so mind-blowingly incredible. Tbh, I could read Didion’s sentences all day no matter what. I mean, look at this random sentence I plucked:
“All day at this empty house three maintenance men try to keep the bulletproof windows clean and the cobwebs swept and the wild grass green and the rattlesnakes down by the river and away from the thirty-five exterior wood and glass doors. All night at this empty house the lights stay on behind the eight-foot chain-link fence and the guard dogs lie at bay and the telephone, when it rings, startles by the fact that it works.”
I’m also currently reading Still Mad: American Women Writers and the Feminist Imagination by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, which looks at women writers and their influence on feminism since the 50s. That deepened my reading experience of this collection a lot, having it top of mind how women writers at that time were reeling from the promise of cultural norms in the 50s and developing their own take on feminist theory in the 60s.
Anyway. This isn’t a beach read; it demands your attention and close reading. And like you might expect from a set of historical intellectual essays, some of this book went over my head. But I’m glad I read it, and I’m sure that a reread in the future will unwrap even more worthy layers.
Content and Trigger Warnings
Depression
Suicide attempt (minor)
Iron Widow (Iron Widow, #1)
Iron Widow is a fast-paced YA fantasy rooted in Chinese culture. It stands out among the crowd, with a vengeful protagonist, polyamory rep, and unconventional boldness.
Author: Xiran Jay Zhao
Publisher: Penguin Teen
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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 boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn't matter that the girls often die from the mental strain.
When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it's to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister's death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected—she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead.
To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way—and stop more girls from being sacrificed.
TL;DR Review
Iron Widow is a fast-paced YA fantasy rooted in Chinese culture. It stands out among the crowd, with a vengeful protagonist, polyamory rep, and unconventional boldness.
For you if: You want to read fantasy with more diverse representation and don’t mind rooting for morally grey characters.
Full Review
With a description of “Pacific Rim meets The Handmaid's Tale in a polyamorous reimagining of China’s only female emperor,” how could I NOT read Iron Widow? What a ride, y’all!
The story takes place in a reimagining of China under siege by Hundun, gigantic creatures whose defeated “husks” are turned into the giant battlesuits that pilots — and the concubine girls whose qi (life force) gets sacrificed to power them — use to fight back. It follows Zetian, who enlists as a concubine to avenge her sister. But instead of her qi being sacrificed, she zaps the qi of the pilot, becoming an “Iron Widow.” Zetian turns out to be more powerful — and angry — than anyone could have imagined.
There is SO MUCH to love about this book. It’s bold. It’s angry. It’s original, but with a story structure that fantasy (and sci-fi) readers will melt right into. It’s got an unapologetic polyamorous triad. The central mystery is compelling (so much theorizing!). It handles layers of trauma, addiction, toxic relationships, and society-imposed shame with grace and heart. And it promises a LOT more to come.
The only thing I didn’t love was how hot-headed Zetian often was, in a very YA sort of way. It’s not that she was angry or vengeful, which I can totally get behind. She just doesn’t have enough wisdom (so far in the series, at least) to keep her from acting rashly or impulsively a bit too often for my taste. I was ready for her to slow down for a second and open her eyes, start to piece together what I had seen and realized as the reader.
Still! That’s minor, and overall I loved this wild ride. So…when does book two come out???
Content and Trigger Warnings
Alcoholism
Torture
Toxic parental relationship
Misogyny
Violence
Attempted sexual assault
Suicidal thoughts (minor)
Rape (mentioned/off-screen)
All My Rage
All My Rage is a deeply emotional, beautiful novel that sets a whole new bar for contemporary YA. It’s sad all the way through, but resonant and meaningful.
Author: Sabaa Tahir
Publisher: Razorbill
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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
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Sabaa Tahir comes a brilliant, unforgettable, and heart-wrenching contemporary YA novel about family and forgiveness, love and loss, in a sweeping story that crosses generations and continents.
Lahore, Pakistan. Then.
Misbah is a dreamer and storyteller, newly married to Toufiq in an arranged match. After their young life is shaken by tragedy, they come to the United States and open the Cloud’s Rest Inn Motel, hoping for a new start.
Juniper, California. Now.
Salahudin and Noor are more than best friends; they are family. Growing up as outcasts in the small desert town of Juniper, California, they understand each other the way no one else does. Until The Fight, which destroys their bond with the swift fury of a star exploding.
Now, Sal scrambles to run the family motel as his mother Misbah’s health fails and his grieving father loses himself to alcoholism. Noor, meanwhile, walks a harrowing tightrope: working at her wrathful uncle’s liquor store while hiding the fact that she’s applying to college so she can escape him—and Juniper—forever.
When Sal’s attempts to save the motel spiral out of control, he and Noor must ask themselves what friendship is worth—and what it takes to defeat the monsters in their pasts and the ones in their midst.
From one of today’s most cherished and bestselling young adult authors comes a breathtaking novel of young love, old regrets, and forgiveness—one that’s both tragic and poignant in its tender ferocity.
TL;DR Review
All My Rage is a deeply emotional, beautiful novel that sets a whole new bar for contemporary YA. It’s sad all the way through, but resonant and meaningful.
For you if: You like books that break your heart (even if you don’t usually read YA).
Full Review
Here’s the thing: An Ember in the Ashes might be my all-time favorite fantasy series (yes, I know that’s a big statement). So I will read literally anything Sabaa Tahir puts in front of me, even if it’s outside my usual genres. And when she calls it a novel “torn from her heart”? Y’ALL. All My Rage is just as excellent as you’ve been told.
The book is about two Pakistani teenagers, Salahudin (Sal) and Noor, in a desert small town in California. They were childhood friends, practically siblings, until a recent major argument. It’s tough on both of them, as Sal’s mother is sick and his father battles alcoholism, and Noor’s uncle is bitter, mean, and controlling. But when Sal’s mother takes a turn for the worse, they come back together. The months that follow are marked by hard choices, painful betrayals, devastating revelations, and glimmers of hope.
If you’ve heard about this book before now, you’ve probably heard that it’s sad, and you might have assumed that means it has a sad ending or something sad happens. But it’s more than that; sadness and struggle are laced into every part of this story. Reading it made me feel like my chest was caving in. And yet with sentences that take your breath away and characters you’d take a bullet for and the way Tahir writes so deeply about the experience of being a Brown teenager in America, it’s so worth it.
If contemporary YA isn’t your genre, still don’t write this one off. It goes so far beyond whatever preconceived notions we have about genre. It’s really, really good.
Content and Trigger Warnings
Death of a parent
Grief
Alcoholism
Domestic and child abuse
Islamophobia and racism
Drug abuse
Sexual assault (minor/off screen)
House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City, #2)
Author: Sarah J. Maas
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
***Description is spoiler for House of Earth and Blood***
Bryce Quinlan and Hunt Athalar are trying to get back to normal―they may have saved Crescent City, but with so much upheaval in their lives lately, they mostly want a chance to relax. Slow down. Figure out what the future holds.
The Asteri have kept their word so far, leaving Bryce and Hunt alone. But with the rebels chipping away at the Asteri’s power, the threat the rulers pose is growing. As Bryce, Hunt, and their friends get pulled into the rebels’ plans, the choice becomes clear: stay silent while others are oppressed, or fight for what’s right. And they’ve never been very good at staying silent.
In this sexy, action-packed sequel to the #1 bestseller House of Earth and Blood, Sarah J. Maas weaves a captivating story of a world about to explode―and the people who will do anything to save it.
TL;DR Review
House of Sky and Breath is a worthy follow-up to House of Earth and Blood. If you liked that one, you’ll won’t be disappointed by this one! It’s fun and steamy and THAT ENDING.
For you if: You like escapism fantasy and VERY steamy open-door romance.
Full Review
I am going to do my best to write this without any spoilers, even if you haven’t read House of Earth and Blood yet. But if you HAVE read Earth and Blood and liked it, you won’t be disappointed by this sequel.
SJM’s Crescent City books deliver on a lot of what her fans love about her other books: extreme steam (in fact smut is a better word; you might even call it faerie porn, lol) between extremely sexy people, a magical world, a compelling plot with a compelling central question, and interesting and lovable characters to root for. Are they Great Literature? No lol. Are her books one hell of a ride, an escape, a mental vacation from the world? Hell yes. One that I am happy to be taken on.
There are a lot of things I would like to say about Sky and Breath that might hint at something I don’t want you to even suspect, because I read this book without a drop of inkling and want the same for you. In fact, I enjoyed the whole reading experience with this one (I was very hooked into the story’s central mystery and surprised by several reveals), but as others will tell you: THAT ENDING. The last four words blew my brain apart!! I was just so unprepared. My husband came home from a friend’s at midnight to find me draped backward across the chaise side of my couch, staring at the ceiling. Had he come home five minutes earlier, he would have found me pacing. It took me an hour to calm down enough to sleep, lol.
I wouldn’t recommend starting with the Crescent City books if you’re new to SJM. Read her backlist, at least ACOTAR, to get a sense of her style. And THEN read these. Because let me tell ya, I love some me some heartbreaking literary fiction any day of the week — but a book hasn’t made me feel like I was going to explode like this in a looooong time.
Content and Trigger Warnings
Sexual content
Violence and death
Grief
Torture
Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head
Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head is a masterful collection of poems by a master poet on womanhood, trauma, and the refugee experience. They’re heavy, but hard-hitting and moving.
Author: Warsan Shire
Publisher: Random House
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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
Poems of migration, womanhood, trauma, and resilience from the celebrated collaborator on Beyonce's Lemonade and Black Is King, award-winning Somali British poet Warsan Shire.
Mama, I made it
out of your home,
alive, raised by the
voices in my head.
With her first full-length poetry collection, Warsan Shire introduces us to a young girl, who, in the absence of a nurturing guide, makes her own stumbling way towards womanhood. Drawing from her own life and the lives of loved ones, as well as pop culture and news headlines, Shire finds vivid, unique details in the experiences of refugees and immigrants, mothers and daughters, Black women, and teenage girls. In Shire's hands, lives spring into fullness. This is noisy life: full of music and weeping and surahs and sirens and birds. This is fragrant life: full of blood and perfume and shisha smoke and jasmine and incense. This is polychrome life: full of henna and moonlight and lipstick and turmeric and kohl.
The long-awaited collection from one of our most exciting contemporary poets, this book is a blessing, an incantatory celebration of resilience and survival. Each reader will come away changed.
TL;DR Review
Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head is a masterful collection of poems by a master poet on womanhood, trauma, and the refugee experience. They’re heavy, but hard-hitting and moving.
For you if: You want to read poetry that adds to your view of the world and humanity.
Full Review
Thank you, Random House, for the advanced electronic copy of this book! It’s the first full-length poetry collection from Warsan Shire, the award-winning Somali British poet who worked with Beyonce on Lemonade and Black is King. So yes, it’s as good as you’re expecting.
The poems draw from her own experiences, loved ones’ experiences, headlines, etc. to shape a journey through womanhood, motherhood, daughterhood, being a refugee and immigrant, abuse, trauma, and defiant hope.
I feel like I need to reread this to get the full effect, but I was especially impressed with how Shire merges pop culture and poetry to make the collection feel not only modern but current and timely. She has something to say here, and you’re certainly going to hear it. And, of course, there are lines and couplets and stanzas that come out of nowhere punch you in the gut.
It’s a quick read, but worth it if you are a fan of poetry (and maybe even if you’re not).
Content and Trigger Warnings
Sexual assault / rape
Child abuse
Grief
Xenophobia
The Fortune Men
Author: Nadifa Mohamed
Publisher: Knopf (US Edition)
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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
BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST. Based on a true event.
In Cardiff, Wales in 1952, Mahmood Mattan, a young Somali sailor, is accused of a crime he did not commit: the brutal killing of Violet Volacki, a shopkeeper from Tiger Bay. At first, Mahmood believes he can ignore the fingers pointing his way; he may be a gambler and a petty thief, but he is no murderer. He is a father of three, secure in his innocence and his belief in British justice.
But as the trial draws closer, his prospect for freedom dwindles. Now, Mahmood must stage a terrifying fight for his life, with all the chips stacked against him: a shoddy investigation, an inhumane legal system, and, most evidently, pervasive and deep-rooted racism at every step.
Under the shadow of the hangman's noose, Mahmood begins to realize that even the truth may not be enough to save him. A haunting tale of miscarried justice, this book offers a chilling look at the dark corners of our humanity.
TL;DR Review
The Fortune Men is a novel based on a true story that occasionally drags a bit, but ultimately does a lot of things well. Once you hit the second half, though, it really takes off.
For you if: You like literary historical fiction based on real events.
Full Review
The Fortune Men is my last read of the 2021 Booker Prize shortlist. I’m not sure I would have shortlisted it, myself, but I did ultimately walk away glad I read it.
This novel is based on the true story of Mahmood Mattan, who was wrongly accused of brutally murdering a Jewish woman shopkeeper, and the last person to be executed in Cardiff, Wales. Nadifa Mohamed brings to life his gritty character, the way racism and xenophobia touched every part of his existence, his interracial marriage, his dreams as a father, and his heartbreaking (misplaced) faith in the British justice system.
Things I really liked about this book: The dual POVs, which introduced us to the murdered woman and her family, and their own experiences with persecution. The handling of Mahmood’s troubled marriage and how the author gave it such nuance and heart. And pretty much the whole second half, which became more focused and faster paced.
As for the first half of the book, there was just something a bit detached, and slower-paced stretches that I wanted to love but never clicked for me. Pretty much everyone at book club felt similarly, but we all agreed that the ending was so engaging that by the time we finished, we’d forgiven our struggle with the first half.
So while this wasn’t my favorite ever, I would definitely be open to reading more of Nadifa Mohamed in the future.
Content and Trigger Warnings
Murder / blood
Racism
Classism
Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019
Four Hundred Souls is a triumph of community history. Its unique format and exceptional contributors make it one of the most noteworthy works of nonfiction I’ve read.
Author: Edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain
Publisher: One World
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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
An epoch-defining history of African America, the first to appear in a generation, Four Hundred Souls is a chronological account of four hundred years of Black America as told by ninety of America's leading Black writers.
Curated by Ibram X. Kendi, author of the number one bestseller How To Be an Antiracist, and fellow historian Keisha N. Blain, Four Hundred Souls begins with the arrival of twenty enslaved Ndongo people on the shores of the British colony in mainland America in 1619, the year before the arrival of the Mayflower.
In eighty chronological chapters, the book charts the tragic and triumphant four-hundred-year history of Black American experience in a choral work of exceptional power and beauty.
Contributors include some of the best-known scholars, writers, historians, journalists, lawyers, poets and activists of contemporary America who together bring to vivid life countless new facets to the drama of slavery and resistance, segregation and survival, migration and self-discovery, cultural oppression and world-changing artistic, literary and musical creativity. In these pages are dozens of extraordinary lives and personalities, rescued from the archives and restored to their rightful place in America's narrative, as well as the ghosts of millions more.
Four Hundred Souls is an essential work of story-telling and reclamation that redefines America and changes our notion of how history is written.
TL;DR Review
Four Hundred Souls is a triumph of community history. Its unique format and exceptional contributors make it one of the most noteworthy works of nonfiction I’ve read.
For you if: You want to learn more about African-American history.
Full Review
Lately, I’ve been enjoying the practice of spreading a nonfiction book out over the course of each month (usually a chapter or so a day). I chose Four Hundred Souls for February to honor Black History Month. I’m so glad I did — this book is really something special.
As the book’s subtitle says, Four Hundred Souls is a community history of African America between 1619 and 2019 (400 years). It’s organized into chronological chapters — essays, stories, poems — by different writers, each touching on a topic relevant to a stretch of that time period. The audiobook also features a full cast of narrators, including some of the authors reading their own work.
The creativity, community, and talent that went into writing and editing this book is unparalleled. I learned a lot and enjoyed it a lot, too. Every essay strikes a different chord, but a deep one. The poetry is, of course, excellent and moving.
I highly recommend that you read this. And I think the approach of breaking it up, reading it slowly, and allowing each chapter to sink its teeth into you is definitely the way to go.
Content and Trigger Warnings
Enslavement, racism, and all the horrors that have come with them throughout history.
Legendborn (The Legendborn Cycle, #1)
Legendborn was everything I could ask for in a YA low fantasy novel — a top-notch magic system, lots of layers, a strong central mystery, and swoony characters. I loved it.
Author: Tracy Deonn
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry 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
After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC–Chapel Hill seems like the perfect escape—until Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus.
A flying demon feeding on human energies.
A secret society of so called “Legendborn” students that hunt the creatures down.
And a mysterious teenage mage who calls himself a “Merlin” and who attempts—and fails—to wipe Bree’s memory of everything she saw.
The mage’s failure unlocks Bree’s own unique magic and a buried memory with a hidden connection: the night her mother died, another Merlin was at the hospital. Now that Bree knows there’s more to her mother’s death than what’s on the police report, she’ll do whatever it takes to find out the truth, even if that means infiltrating the Legendborn as one of their initiates.
She recruits Nick, a self-exiled Legendborn with his own grudge against the group, and their reluctant partnership pulls them deeper into the society’s secrets—and closer to each other. But when the Legendborn reveal themselves as the descendants of King Arthur’s knights and explain that a magical war is coming, Bree has to decide how far she’ll go for the truth and whether she should use her magic to take the society down—or join the fight.
TL;DR Review
Legendborn was everything I could ask for in a YA low fantasy novel — a top-notch magic system, lots of layers, a strong central mystery, and swoony characters. I loved it.
For you if: You want to get absorbed into a gripping new adventure.
Full Review
“From buried lives to beaten ones. From blood stolen to blood hidden. I map this terrain's sins, the invisible, and the many, and hold them close. Because even if the pain of those sins takes my breath away, the pain feels like belonging. And ignoring it, after all I've just witnessed, would be loss.”
Legendborn is one of those books where so many people loved when it first came out, I just KNEW I was going to regret having waited so long to finally pick it up. And yet I did wait. And here we are. Because yes, this book is as good as it’s hyped up to be.
It’s about a 16-year-old girl named Bree who enrolls at UNC Chapel Hill for their Early College program shortly after her mother died in a car accident. But from her first night on campus, she finds herself increasingly tangled in a secret society dating back to the time of King Arthur, although of course nothing is quite as it seems. At the same time, she begins to learn more about her mother, and her own family legacy, and how colonialism, violence, and ancestry connect them in surprising ways. And, of course there’s a boy. Maybe two boys.
This book is just so, so well written. The magic system is voluptuously imagined, and the worldbuilding is perfectly paced. The central mystery is compelling and layered and gets more and more intriguing the more you read. Bree’s grief over her mother’s death is nuanced and massive and heartbreaking. And the main characters! The relationships between them! Just so good.
And then on top of all that, Deonn tips this book from “really good” into “great” with the way she weaves in so much heart and wisdom and history and grief on the ongoing legacy of enslavement in the South, what it’s like to be a Black woman in a world built by and for enslavers, and how it feels to take up the mantle of strength and resistance that one’s ancestors were forced to build.
Brb, preordering book two (out in November).
Content and Trigger Warnings
Racism (microaggressions and full-on aggressions)
Rape and abuse of enslaved women
Death of a parent
Grief (explicit)
Transphobia (minor)
The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina
The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina is a really lovely standalone low fantasy novel in homage to Latinx family ties, traditions, and heritage. It pulled me in and held me the whole way.
Author: Zoraida Córdova
Publisher: Atria
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 Montoyas are used to a life without explanations. They know better than to ask why the pantry never seems to run low or empty, or why their matriarch won’t ever leave their home in Four Rivers—even for graduations, weddings, or baptisms. But when Orquídea Divina invites them to her funeral and to collect their inheritance, they hope to learn the secrets that she has held onto so tightly their whole lives. Instead, Orquídea is transformed, leaving them with more questions than answers.
Seven years later, her gifts have manifested in different ways for Marimar, Rey, and Tatinelly’s daughter, Rhiannon, granting them unexpected blessings. But soon, a hidden figure begins to tear through their family tree, picking them off one by one as it seeks to destroy Orquídea’s line. Determined to save what’s left of their family and uncover the truth behind their inheritance, the four descendants travel to Ecuador—to the place where Orquídea buried her secrets and broken promises and never looked back.
TL;DR Review
The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina is a really lovely standalone low fantasy novel in homage to Latinx family ties, traditions, and heritage. It pulled me in and held me the whole way.
For you if: You like low fantasy (magical elements in a real-world setting) and/or want to read more fantasy by Latinx authors.
Full Review
“When she'd met Orquídea Montoya, she saw a whisper of a girl who wanted to become a scream.”
What a fun, lovely, magical story that Zoraida Córdova has given us in The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina. It’s a standalone low fantasy novel (meaning the magical elements occur in a real-world setting) that almost feels like a modern-day fairytale, with great characters, a strong central mystery, and plenty of moments that tug on your heart.
Orquídea Montoya is the magical matriarch of a sprawling Ecuadorian-American family. One day, they all receive a letter inviting them home to claim their inheritance, as the time of her death has come. When they arrive, she’s begun a kind of transformation and leaves them with cryptic messages about staying safe. That sends a few of her grandchildren on a hunt for the truth — how Orquídea became Orquídea, what kind of deal she struck with whom, and who hunts them now.
This book is clearly a love letter to Ecuadorian family traditions, ties, and heritage; Córdova has written a story that sings with heart. I loved Marimar and Rey as characters, the magic sparkles, and I really enjoyed trying to solve the mystery as I read.
If you’re looking for a standalone novel that provides a quick, magical trip into an engaging story, pick this one up!
Content and Trigger Warnings
Death and grief
Racism / colorism
Pregnancy
Infidelity
Death of a child
I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home
I Came All This Way to Meet You is honest, funny, and of course well written. Jami Attenberg is so good at her craft, and the book feels like a gift she gave us generously.
Author: Jami Attenberg
Publisher: Ecco Press
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
From New York Times bestselling author Jami Attenberg comes a dazzling memoir about unlocking and embracing her creativity—and how it saved her life.
In this brilliant, fierce, and funny memoir of transformation, Jami Attenberg—described as a “master of modern fiction” (Entertainment Weekly) and the “poet laureate of difficult families” (Kirkus Reviews)—reveals the defining moments that pushed her to create a life, and voice, she could claim for herself. What does it take to devote oneself to art? What does it mean to own one’s ideas? What does the world look like for a woman moving solo through it?
As the daughter of a traveling salesman in the Midwest, Attenberg was drawn to a life on the road. Frustrated by quotidian jobs and hungry for inspiration and fresh experiences, her wanderlust led her across the country and eventually on travels around the globe. Through it all she grapples with questions of mortality, otherworldliness, and what we leave behind.
It is during these adventures that she begins to reflect on the experiences of her youth—the trauma, the challenges, the risks she has taken. Driving across America on self-funded book tours, sometimes crashing on couches when she was broke, she keeps writing: in researching articles for magazines, jotting down ideas for novels, and refining her craft, she grows as an artist and increasingly learns to trust her gut and, ultimately, herself.
Exploring themes of friendship, independence, class, and drive, I Came All This Way to Meet You is an inspiring story of finding one’s way home—emotionally, artistically, and physically—and an examination of art and individuality that will resonate with anyone determined to listen to their own creative calling.
TL;DR Review
I Came All This Way to Meet You is honest, funny, and of course well written. Jami Attenberg is so good at her craft, and the book feels like a gift she gave us generously.
For you if: You like memoirs about a regular life made resonant in the details.
Full Review
First, big thanks to Libro.fm and Harper Audio for the audio review copy of this book! I’d been looking forward to it for a while, because I’m a big fan of Jami Attenberg’s substack newsletter, “Craft Talk,” and her annual 1000 Words of Summer write-a-thon.
I Came All This Way to Meet You is one of my favorite kinds of memoirs: about an ordinary life, made meaningful in the details. There’s no denying that Attenberg is a great writer of words, and it shows here. The book is honest, funny, heartfelt, sincere, and very generous.
I will say that the narration style of the audiobook wasn’t my favorite. (She did not read it herself, FYI.) Some people may prefer it; I think it was meant to be a more expressive style. But for me, I think the intonation distracted a bit from what were, underneath, really resonant and hard-hitting sentences. I may decide to reread a print copy in the future. But the book itself is excellent enough that I really enjoyed it anyway.
Thank you, Jami, for sharing this gift with us.
Content and Trigger Warnings
Drug and alcohol use/abuse
Sexual assault
Suicide attempt (mentioned)
Light from Uncommon Stars
Light from Uncommon Stars was such a delight! Funny and hopeful but not without substance, this book is a new favorite I’ll be recommending far and wide.
Author: Ryka Aoki
Publisher: Tor 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
An adventure set in California's San Gabriel Valley, with cursed violins, Faustian bargains, and queer alien courtship over fresh-made donuts.
Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the devil: to escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six.
When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka's ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She's found her final candidate.
But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. Shizuka doesn't have time for crushes or coffee dates, what with her very soul on the line, but Lan's kind smile and eyes like stars might just redefine a soul's worth. And maybe something as small as a warm donut is powerful enough to break a curse as vast as the California coastline.
As the lives of these three women become entangled by chance and fate, a story of magic, identity, curses, and hope begins, and a family worth crossing the universe for is found.
TL;DR Review
Light from Uncommon Stars was such a delight! Funny and hopeful but not without substance, this book is a new favorite I’ll be recommending far and wide.
For you if: You like quirky, feel-good SFF, like Becky Chambers or Douglas Adams — especially with great queer representation.
Full Review
“Tomorrow is tomorrow. Over there is over there. And here and now is not a bad place and time to be, especially when so much of the unknown is beautiful.”
Y’all. Y’ALL. If you liked A Psalm for the Wild-Built (or any Becky Chambers) or The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, you MUST read this book as soon as possible. I’m only four months behind its pub day, and I still can’t believe I didn’t read it sooner. Funny and feel-good with the weight and substance to make an impact, this is a book I’m going to be recommending far and wide.
The story has two main characters: Katrina, a teenage trans girl who’s run away from a terrible home situation with nothing but her hormones and her violin; and legendary violin teacher Shizuka Satomi, who long ago made a Faustian bargain with Hell to deliver seven musician souls in order to ensure the immortality of her own music. Also of consequence is Lan Tran, an alien woman who brought her family to Earth (and bought a local donut shop) to flee intergalactic war. (Does that not just sound AMAZING? It is.)
This book is exactly what we all need right now. It’s got intensely lovable characters, a plot that has a familiar shape without becoming predictable, beautiful queer rep, an ode to the world of classical music, and, of course donuts. (Warning: You will crave donuts. You may think you are strong and neglect to have donuts on hand when you read it. This is a mistake. You will find yourself in a snowstorm unable to even get overly expensive Krispy Kreme delivery and be sad.)
I will just note, as a content warning, that Katrina has some really, really hard things happen to her, and she battles intense transphobia and even sexual abuse. I thought it was well-done and served the story and the representation in important ways. But it could be hard to read for some.
Anyway, I loved this deeply. Give yourself the gift of this book, my friends!
Content and Trigger Warnings
Transphobia and homophobia
Violence against trans people
Deadnaming
Sexual assault and rape
Child abuse
Suicidal thoughts
Self harm
Racism
The Left Hand of Darkness
I’m really glad I read The Left Hand of Darkness. It wasn’t as accessible as I’d (naively) assumed it would be, but it was certainly thought-provoking and resonant.
Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Publisher: Ace Books (50th anniversary edition; originally published 1969)
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
On the planet Winter, there is no gender. The Gethenians can become male or female during each mating cycle, and this is something that humans find incomprehensible.
The Ekumen of Known Worlds has sent an ethnologist to study the Gethenians on their forbidding, ice-bound world. At first he finds his subjects difficult and off-putting, with their elaborate social systems and alien minds. But in the course of a long journey across the ice, he reaches an understanding with one of the Gethenians — it might even be a kind of love.
TL;DR Review
I’m really glad I read The Left Hand of Darkness. It wasn’t as accessible as I’d (naively) assumed it would be, but it was certainly thought-provoking and resonant.
For you if: You want to read foundational works of SFF (especially by women) and like books that are or read like “classics.”
Full Review
“Light is the left hand of darkness
and darkness the right hand of light.”
I’ve been meaning to dive deeper into Ursula Le Guin for years now, but I’d only ever read A Wizard of Earthsea (which I loved). And now I’ve finally, *finally* read The Left Hand of Darkness. Those two together are probably the two most famous of her 40ish books, and TLHOD, published in 1969, was one of the first books considered “feminist” sci-fi and is known as THE classic sci-fi novel that explored androgyny and nonbinary characters. It’s a standalone story, but also the fourth book set in her Hainish Cycle universe.
The story is about a man named Ai, who has come to the planet of Gethen as an envoy to try to get them to join a loose non-political association of worlds that facilitates shared knowledge and culture. On Gethen, people have no fixed gender or sex; they’re non-sexual for most of the month, and then enter “kemmer,” assuming either male or female body parts and pairing up until their period of kemmer ends. (Hence one of the book’s most famous lines, “The king was pregnant.”) The book explores themes of duality, gender roles and what the absence of them might look like, the necessity of differences, and the challenges of cultural misunderstandings.
While I liked this book and am really glad I read it, I think because I read Earthsea (which was written for a younger audience) first, I had expected it to be a bit more accessible. It very much reads like a classic, and so I found it helpful to read through a sparknotes-style summary and interpretation after each chapter, just to make sure I grasped the subtext and didn’t miss anything famously important.
That said, there’s no doubt that I’ll think about this book throughout the rest of my life. She raises so many good questions about the possibilities outside our own assumptions, especially as it relates to gender roles. I’m looking forward to reading the other Hainish Cycle novels and beyond.
Content and Trigger Warnings
Death and grief
Confinement
Misogyny
Incest (minor)
Suicide (minor)
This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate
This Changes Everything is a hard-hitting book on climate change issues, full of real-world stories and examples. I sometimes lost the narrative thread, but I’m really glad I read it.
Author: Naomi Klein
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
The most important book yet from the author of the international bestseller The Shock Doctrine, a brilliant explanation of why the climate crisis challenges us to abandon the core “free market” ideology of our time, restructure the global economy, and remake our political systems.
In short, either we embrace radical change ourselves or radical changes will be visited upon our physical world. The status quo is no longer an option.
In This Changes Everything Naomi Klein argues that climate change isn’t just another issue to be neatly filed between taxes and health care. It’s an alarm that calls us to fix an economic system that is already failing us in many ways. Klein meticulously builds the case for how massively reducing our greenhouse emissions is our best chance to simultaneously reduce gaping inequalities, re-imagine our broken democracies, and rebuild our gutted local economies. She exposes the ideological desperation of the climate-change deniers, the messianic delusions of the would-be geoengineers, and the tragic defeatism of too many mainstream green initiatives. And she demonstrates precisely why the market has not—and cannot—fix the climate crisis but will instead make things worse, with ever more extreme and ecologically damaging extraction methods, accompanied by rampant disaster capitalism.
Klein argues that the changes to our relationship with nature and one another that are required to respond to the climate crisis humanely should not be viewed as grim penance, but rather as a kind of gift—a catalyst to transform broken economic and cultural priorities and to heal long-festering historical wounds. And she documents the inspiring movements that have already begun this process: communities that are not just refusing to be sites of further fossil fuel extraction but are building the next, regeneration-based economies right now.
Can we pull off these changes in time? Nothing is certain. Nothing except that climate change changes everything. And for a very brief time, the nature of that change is still up to us.
TL;DR Review
This Changes Everything is a hard-hitting book on climate change issues, full of real-world stories and examples. I sometimes lost the narrative thread, but I’m really glad I read it.
For you if: You want to learn how our economy is impeding progress on climate change.
Full Review
“In other words, changing the earth’s climate in ways that will be chaotic and disastrous is easier to accept than the prospect of changing the fundamental, growth-based, profit-seeking logic of capitalism.”
I’ve been meaning to read This Changes Everything for a while now, given that it’s one of the most famous nonfiction books on climate change out there. The book itself is as hard-hitting as you’d guess from the title and cover, and even though it was written in 2014 so some of the stats are out of date, unfortunately it’s pretty much just as relevant today.
The book, as you might guess from its subtitle “capitalism versus the climate,” focuses on how our current economic system and those who cling to it impede progress on climate change, and it makes the case for the fact that if we’re going to avoid disaster, we need to make radical changes. Even our most progressive leaders are still searching for a way we can have our cake (the earth) and eat it (fossil fuel profits) too, but it’s just not going to work.
This is chock full of real-world stories and examples, and I found that to be both good and bad. Good because it really did help me get a grasp of the issues and marvel at the denial humans are capable of (which I think, ultimately, is the point here, so that’s good and effective). My only complaint is that I felt like I lost the narrative thread of the book overall; if you asked me the theme of the chapter I was reading, I’d likely have forgotten it. Maybe a reread would help me out in this regard. Still, though, it was very very worth the read.
I’m really glad I read this, and I’m and looking forward to trying Naomi Klein’s other books as well. I do think I’m still looking for a good hand-holding intro to all the issues and players and actions of climate activism today, so I think I’m going to try her 2021 book for young readers, How to Change Everything.
Content and Trigger Warnings
Miscarriage and infertility
Clean Air
Clean AIr is a smart, surprising, character-driven thriller set in a world ravaged by climate change. I read 75% of it in one sitting and was so surprised by the twist/reveal.
Author: Sarah Blake
Publisher: Algonquin
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 climate apocalypse has come and gone, and in the end it wasn’t the temperature climbing or the waters rising. It was the trees. The world became overgrown, creating enough pollen to render the air unbreathable.
In the decade since the event known as the Turning, humanity has rebuilt, and Izabel has gotten used to the airtight domes that now contain her life. She raises her young daughter, Cami, and attempts to make peace with her mother’s death. She tries hard to be satisfied with this safe, prosperous new world, but instead she just feels stuck.
And then the peace of her town is shattered. Someone starts slashing through the domes at night, exposing people to the deadly pollen—a serial killer. Almost simultaneously, Cami begins sleep-talking, having whole conversations about the murders that she doesn’t remember after she wakes. Izabel becomes fixated on the killer, on both tracking him down and understanding him. What could compel someone to take so many lives after years dedicated to sheer survival, with humanity finally flourishing again?
Suspenseful and startling, but also written with a wry, observant humor, Clean Air is the second novel from poet Sarah Blake, author of the award-winning literary debut Naamah. It will appeal to readers of The Need, The Leftovers, and Fever Dream as it probes motherhood, grief, control, and choice.
TL;DR Review
Clean Air is a smart, surprising, character-driven thriller set in a world ravaged by climate change. I read 75% of it in one sitting and was so surprised by the twist/reveal.
For you if: You like to be hooked but genre thrillers aren’t your thing, and/or you like climate fiction.
Full Review
First, thank you to Algonquin Books for the advanced copy of this novel! It comes out February 8. I really loved Sarah Blake’s first novel, Naamah, and I’ve been waiting for her next one ever since. Clean Air is very different (totally different genre), but I loved this one too.
Clean Air is a character-driven thriller set about 30 years in the future. The world looks totally different thanks to what was called the Turning, when all the trees started spewing so much pollen that it made the air unbreathable. Now everyone lives in air-filtered bubbles, essentially. But then someone starts slashing the bubbles open at night! And our main character’s young daughter talks about the murders in her sleep — while they’re happening!! As you might expect with a premise like that, this is a really quick read — I finished 75% of it in a single sitting. Sometimes we literary fiction readers really just need a fast-paced story to hook us like that!
I’m not really a big fan of your typical genre thrillers, but I can totally get behind a “literary” thriller like this (character development and interiority 5ever). Especially with the climate angle. Izabel really is a great character, and her inner turmoil with motherhood and grief (about many different things) and her society’s unwillingness to see darkness under the surface was sharp and deeply felt.
My favorite part about it was the part I can’t tell you anything about without spoiling it — the twist/reveal. It went in a direction I just hadn’t expected, although looking back, all the clues were there. I think people will either love it or hate it, but I loved it. So I can’t wait for more people to read this one and talk about it!
Content and Trigger Warnings
Death/murder
Death of a parent/grief
No One Is Talking About This
No One Is Talking About This isn’t going to be for everyone, but it was for me. It’s abstract, but really captures the claustrophobic feeling of the current zeitgeist.
Author: Patricia Lockwood
Publisher: Riverhead
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
As this urgent, genre-defying book opens, a woman who has recently been elevated to prominence for her social media posts travels around the world to meet her adoring fans. She is overwhelmed by navigating the new language and etiquette of what she terms "the portal," where she grapples with an unshakable conviction that a vast chorus of voices is now dictating her thoughts. When existential threats—from climate change and economic precariousness to the rise of an unnamed dictator and an epidemic of loneliness—begin to loom, she posts her way deeper into the portal's void. An avalanche of images, details, and references accumulate to form a landscape that is post-sense, post-irony, post-everything. "Are we in hell?" the people of the portal ask themselves. "Are we all just going to keep doing this until we die?"
Suddenly, two texts from her mother pierce the fray: "Something has gone wrong," and "How soon can you get here?" As real life and its stakes collide with the increasingly absurd antics of the portal, the woman confronts a world that seems to contain both an abundance of proof that there is goodness, empathy, and justice in the universe, and a deluge of evidence to the contrary.
Fragmentary and omniscient, incisive and sincere, No One Is Talking About This is at once a love letter to the endless scroll and a profound, modern meditation on love, language, and human connection from a singular voice in American literature.
TL;DR Review
No One Is Talking About This isn’t going to be for everyone, but it was for me. It’s abstract, but really captures the claustrophobic feeling of the current zeitgeist.
For you if: You like to read poetry.
Full Review
“It was a mistake to believe that other people were not living as deeply as you were. Besides, you were not even living that deeply.”
There was, perhaps, no literary fiction more polarizing in 2021 than No One Is Talking About This. As it was shortlisted for both the Booker Prize and the Women’s Prize, I don’t think there’s any arguing that Lockwood has done something big here — but I totally understand why it didn’t work for some people. Personally, I liked it a lot.
It’s a short novel — I read it in one sitting — broken into two parts. The first is a series of vignettes about “the portal” (like the internet or maybe just Twitter, but like, turned up to 11), where the narrator is famous and to which she is addicted. In the second part, a family tragedy wrenches her away from the foggy, disoriented life she’d been leading.
Okay, so: I really think that to enjoy this book, you have to enjoy reading poetry. Lockwood is also a poet, and it shows. Reading poetry is often more about feeling than anything else; you have to sort of just relax and notice what kinds of emotions and images the poem stir up as you go, and THAT is the whole point of it. So too here, especially in part one. If that’s not your thing, you aren’t going to like this. But I did. And I’ll also say that I listened to the audiobook as I read along in print, and I think it made a HUGE difference. Highly recommend.
I was really impressed by how this book was absurd but also hit so, so close to home. It captures a claustrophobic feeling that you can’t name about the current zeitgeist. The trap of liberal perfectionism, the urge to look away but absolute inability to do so, the pain of having loved ones with a completely different moral compass, the competing desire to join in and also reject all of it, the paradox of your own personality. How it takes a tragedy to pull us off the hamster wheel but then everything shrinks and slows, and that might be when we start to live the most.
Content and Trigger Warnings
Death of a baby
Grief
Senlin Ascends (The Books of Babel, #1)
Senlin Ascends, about a schoolteacher on a quest to find his missing wife in the infamous Tower of Babel, is such a fun adventure. I’d been meaning to read it forever, and I’m glad I finally did!
Author: Josiah Bancroft
Publisher: Orbit (originally self-published)
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 Tower of Babel is the greatest marvel in the world. Immense as a mountain, the ancient Tower holds unnumbered ringdoms, warring and peaceful, stacked one on the other like the layers of a cake. It is a world of geniuses and tyrants, of airships and steam engines, of unusual animals and mysterious machines.
Soon after arriving for his honeymoon at the Tower, the mild-mannered headmaster of a small village school, Thomas Senlin, gets separated from his wife, Marya, in the overwhelming swarm of tourists, residents, and miscreants.
Senlin is determined to find Marya, but to do so he'll have to navigate madhouses, ballrooms, and burlesque theaters. He must survive betrayal, assassins, and the long guns of a flying fortress. But if he hopes to find his wife, he will have to do more than just endure.
This quiet man of letters must become a man of action.
TL;DR Review
Senlin Ascends, about a schoolteacher on a quest to find his missing wife in the infamous Tower of Babel, is such a fun adventure. I’d been meaning to read it forever, and I’m glad I finally did!
For you if: You’re a sucker for a bookish main character with a lot of room for growth.
Full Review
Senlin Ascends, the first book in Josiah Bancroft’s recently completed Books of Babel quartet, has been waiting for me to pluck it off my shelf for at least two years. I’m glad I finally did! It’s a fun adventure with humor and imagination, but also substance.
The story is about a man named Thomas Senlin. He’s a schoolteacher in his small seaside village, recently married to a bright-spirited woman named Marya. They go to the famous Tower of Babel — a booming metropolis and reputed cultural center of the world that Senlin has long ached to see. But shortly after they get there, Marya disappears, and Senlin realizes the Tower isn’t all that he imagined it to be. His resolve to find her turns into a true quest as he makes his way up the tower’s “ringdoms.” (Yes, there’s an echo of Dante’s Inferno there.)
Certain parts of this book moved a little slowly, but there was, of course, lots of worldbuilding to be done. Anyway, it totally picked up at the end, and I love the hints at a nice little central mystery related to the tower itself, under the bigger mystery of Marya’s whereabouts. I also have such a soft spot in my heart for Senlin. He starts off naive and self-assured, but also clearly lovable. It was a delight to watch him start to change but also stay true to himself! And while there wasn’t much Marya in this book, the picture being painted of her makes me think I’m going to love her even MORE.
Fun fact: The first two books in this series were originally self-published, and they absolutely knocked people’s socks off. Orbit picked them up a few years later, reprinting the first two and finishing the last two. And it’s easy to see why. Book two, I’m coming for you soon!
Content and Trigger Warnings
Slavery/indenture
Body horror
Death and grief
Kidnapping/forced marriage
Drug use and alcohol
Gun violence
The School for Good Mothers
The School for Good Mothers is a wild ride of a novel. It’s not comfortable, but it’s extremely effective and absolutely does what it meant to do. I was so impressed.
Author: Jessamine Chan
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
In this taut and explosive debut novel, one lapse in judgement lands a young mother in a government reform program where custody of her child hangs in the balance.
Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents’ sacrifices. What’s worse is she can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with their angelic daughter Harriet does Frida finally feel she’s attained the perfection expected of her. Harriet may be all she has, but she’s just enough.
Until Frida has a horrible day.
The state has its eyes on mothers like Frida — ones who check their phones while their kids are on the playground; who let their children walk home alone; in other words, mothers who only have one lapse of judgement. Now, a host of government officials will determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion. Faced with the possibility of losing Harriet, Frida must prove that she can live up to the standards set for mothers — that she can learn to be good.
This propulsive, witty page-turner explores the perils of “perfect” upper-middle-class parenting, the violence enacted upon women by the state and each other, and the boundless love a mother has for her daughter.
TL;DR Review
The School for Good Mothers is a wild ride of a novel. It’s not comfortable, but it’s extremely effective and absolutely does what it meant to do. I was so impressed.
For you if: You’re okay with books that aren’t always FUN to read, when it’s worth it.
Full Review
“A mother can handle anything. A mother is always patient. A mother is always kind. A mother is always giving. A mother never falls apart. A mother is the buffer between her child and the cruel world.”
First, big thanks to Simon & Schuster for the electronic advanced copy of this book! What a way to start the year. This book is an absolutely wild ride.
The story is about a woman named Frida, a struggling single mom of a toddler who makes a terrible decision that costs her custody. In order to earn her daughter back, she must agree to an experimental new CPS program. It’s hard to say much more than that without giving things away, but suffice to say that the whole thing has a feeling of dystopia that’s just far enough inside the realm of possibility to be disturbing.
It’s been a long time since I read a book that stirred me up so much. I could have thrown it at the wall. There were several side characters that I desperately wanted to punch. Think like, Umbridge-level rage and frustration. That alone is an impressive feat. And yet the greatest triumph of the book, I think, is Frida as a character. She’s both sympathetic and unsympathetic. She forces us to confront our own ideas of what a mother should be, as we both recognize the absurdity of the standards she’s being held to and decide how we feel about the past decisions she’s made.
This book is a masterful look at the conflicting and absurd societal pressures and expectations of motherhood. If you can push your way through an uncomfortable book for the sake of the craft and impact of the story, pick it up.
Content and Trigger Warnings
Suicidal thoughts
Self-harm and suicide (off screen)
Child abuse/abandonment
Child custody battle
Infidelity
Fox & I
Fox & I is a unique, heartfelt little memoir. Although it didn’t quite hold my attention all the way through, the prose is excellent and I ‘m glad I read it.
Author: Catherine Raven
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
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 solitary woman’s inspiring, moving, surprising, and often funny memoir about the transformative power of her unusual friendship with a wild fox, a new window onto the natural world, and the introduction of a remarkable literary talent.
Catherine Raven left home at 15, fleeing an abusive father and an indifferent mother. Drawn to the natural world, for years she worked as a ranger in National Parks, at times living in her run-down car (which lacked a reverse gear), on abandoned construction sites, or camping on a piece of land in Montana she bought from a colleague. She managed to put herself through college and then graduate school, eventually earning a Ph.D. in biology.
Yet she never felt at home with people, and though she worked at various universities and taught field classes in the National Parks, she built a house on a remote plot of land in Montana and, except when teaching, spoke to no one. One day, she realized that the fox who had been appearing at her house was coming by every day at 4:15. He became a regular visitor, who eventually sat near her as she read to him from The Little Prince or Dr. Seuss. Her scientific training had taught her not to anthropomorphize animals, but as she grew to know him, his personality revealed itself—and he became her friend. But friends cannot always save each other from the uncontained forces of nature.
Though this is a story of survival, it is also a poignant and dramatic tale of living in the wilderness and coping with inevitable loss. This uplifting fable-like true story about the friendship of a woman and a wild fox not only reveals the power of friendship and our interconnectedness with the natural world but is an original, imaginative, and beautiful work that introduces a stunning new voice.
TL;DR Review
Fox & I is a unique, heartfelt little memoir. Although it didn’t quite hold my attention all the way through, the prose is excellent and I ‘m glad I read it.
For you if: You like memoir and nature nonfiction.
Full Review
“I realised that a fox, like a rainbow and every other gift from Nature, had an intrinsic value that was quite independent of its longevity. After that, whenever I questioned devoting so much time to an animal whose lifespan barely exceeded the blink of an eye, I remembered rainbows.”
I hadn’t heard of Fox & I until I got it in a monthly book subscription box, but the synopsis immediately caught my eye: a memoir by a woman who lived in the middle of nowhere and befriended a fox by reading to it from The Little Prince. I love memoirs and had been reading more nature nonfiction lately, so I decided to give it a try.
Catherine Raven has never felt at ease around other people or at home in the regular rhythms of society, but she can certainly write great sentences. The book is quiet and feels different from most memoirs, and it’s a beautiful little story with equal parts sadness and joy. So basically, it had everything I love, and I wanted to love it overall. But for some reason, I struggled to stay engaged and I found my attention waning, even after I went back and started over. I’m not sure if that was the book or me and my mindset at the time, though, and I’m still glad I read it.
If you think this has all the right ingredients for you, I would definitely still say you should give it a try.
Content and Trigger Warnings
Animal death
Child abuse (alluded to in the past)
Salvage the Bones
I’m late to the Jesmyn Ward party, but holy moly am I HERE NOW. What a standout novel. Such incredible characters, pacing, language, the whole nine yards.
Author: Jesmyn Ward
Publisher: Bloomsbury
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 hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch's father is growing concerned. A hard drinker, largely absent, he doesn't show concern for much else. Esch and her three brothers are stocking food, but there isn't much to save. Lately, Esch can't keep down what food she gets; she's fourteen and pregnant. Her brother Skeetah is sneaking scraps for his prized pitbull's new litter, dying one by one in the dirt. While brothers Randall and Junior try to stake their claim in a family long on child's play and short on parenting. As the twelve days that comprise the novel's framework yield to the final day and Hurricane Katrina, the unforgettable family at the novel's heart--motherless children sacrificing for each other as they can, protecting and nurturing where love is scarce--pulls itself up to struggle for another day. A wrenching look at the lonesome, brutal, and restrictive realities of rural poverty, Salvage the Bone is muscled with poetry, revelatory, and real.
TL;DR Review
I’m late to the Jesmyn Ward party, but holy moly am I HERE NOW. What a standout novel. Such incredible characters, pacing, language, the whole nine yards.
For you if: You like brave, exquisitely written literary fiction.
Full Review
“If the scrapes were on the front of our knees, she would put our dirty feet in the middle of her chest to clean the wounds, and we could feel her heart beating, strong as the thud of the ground when we walked, through our soles.”
There are most certainly many people who have praised this book much more thoroughly than I can. But it’s just not every day that you read a novel like Salvage the Bones. It’s not every year that the world births a writing talent like Jesmyn Ward.
Salvage the Bones is about a teen girl named Esch, who lives near the coast of Mississippi with her father and three brothers. Her mother died from labor complications when her youngest brother was born. She’s also constantly surrounded brothers’ friends, one of whom is the father of the baby growing in her belly. At the same time, Hurricane Katrina is coming, and one brother’s prize pit bull just had very valuable puppies.
This novel packs such a punch, and in less than 300 pages, too. The prose is incredible, lines like, “But the wind grabs my voice up and snatches it out and over the pines, and drops it there to die.” She does so much in so little space. You could cut the tension on every page with a knife; it’s coiled tight like a spring. So much emotion, so much visceral sensory detail, so much unsaid.
Okay I’m using a lot of superlative language lol but just — ahhhh, just read it.
Warning: There is a very graphic and violent dog fighting scene in this book.
Content and Trigger Warnings
Animal cruelty and violence (dog fighting, graphic)
Pregnancy
Death of a parent
Alcoholism
Hurricane Katrina
Wallet Activism: How to Use Every Dollar You Spend, Earn, and Save as a Force for Change
Wallet Activism is a great book and I’m really glad I read it. It taught me new things, reminded me of others, and inspired me to make some changes.
Author: Tanja Hester
Publisher: BenBella 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.
Cover Description
How do we vote with our dollars, not just to make ourselves feel good, but to make a real difference?
Wallet Activism challenges you to rethink your financial power so can feel confident spending, earning, and saving money in ways that align with your values.
While we call the American system a democracy, capitalism is the far more powerful force in our lives. The greatest power we have—especially when political leaders won’t move quickly enough—is how we use our money: where we shop, what we buy, where we live, what institutions we entrust with our money, who we work for, and where we donate determines the trajectory of our society and our planet. While our votes and voices are essential, too, Wallet Activism helps you use your money for real impact.
It can feel overwhelming to determine “the right way” to spend: a choice that might seem beneficial to the environment may have unintended consequences that hurt people. And marketers are constantly lying to you, making it hard to know what choice is best. Wallet Activism empowers us to vote with our wallets by making sense of all the information coming at us, and teaching us to cultivate a more holistic mindset that considers the complex, interrelated ecosystems of people and the planet together, not as opposing forces.
From Tanja Hester, Our Next Life blogger and author of Work Optional, comes the mindset-shifting guide to help you put your money where your values are. Wallet Activism is not a list of dos and don’ts that will soon become outdated, nor does it call for anti-consumerist perfection.
Instead, it goes beyond simple purchasing decisions to explore:
The impacts a financial decision can have across society and the environment
How to create a personal spending philosophy based on your values
Practical questions to quickly assess the “goodness” of a product or an entity you may buy from
The ethics of earning money, choosing what foods to eat, employing others, investing responsibly, choosing where to live, and giving money away
For anyone interested in leaving the world better than you found it, Wallet Activism helps you build habits that will make your money matter.
TL;DR Review
Wallet Activism is a great book and I’m really glad I read it. It taught me new things, reminded me of others, and inspired me to make some changes.
For you if: You want to be more intentional with the things your money does and does not support.
Full Review
“The question of whether we wanted all this waste and pollution was never put up for a vote. No one has ever run for office on a platform of disposable clothing. Make no mistake: our votes matter. But changing the way things are won’t happen through our votes alone. How we spend our money matters, too.”
First of all, BIG thanks to BenBella Books, who sent me a complimentary review copy of this book after I expressed interest in reading it. I’m happy to report that I loved it just as much as I’d hoped I would!
Like its title suggests, Wallet Activism is a book about how to use your money to make a positive impact on the world. The first section is all about what it means to be a wallet activist and how to become a better judge at what kinds of decisions can make the most difference. Then the second section dives more specifically into advice for specific areas, like what food and material goods you buy, where you live, and where you bank and invest.
What makes this book especially great is how accessible all of the advice is. Tanja Hester did a fantastic job of emphasizing that something is always better than nothing, and that there’s no shame in not doing the absolute most (and that doing the absolute most probably isn’t as helpful as it seems anyway). She lists steps that can be taken at all different levels of income and wealth.
One thing that I didn’t expect was often this book focused on wallet CLIMATE activism, specifically. I think that pretty much all the advice can be applied to any area of activism, but she did pull a lot of climate-related examples. But as someone specifically looking to become a better environmental citizen, I was definitely not mad about it.
I walked away from this book armed with more knowledge and a ton of inspiration to make some changes. You should read it!