Books Reread
The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavic
**Book Hangover Alert
All for the Game 1 of 3
CW: ableism (including slurs), drug abuse, child abuse, rape, torture, self-harm, homophobia, death, alcoholism
I got these gorgeous Rainbow Crate editions of all these books which I hadn’t read since high school. But man, the chokehold these books had on me then. So I reread them, and let me just say, Sakavic can keep the pages turning. I was just as enthralled this time as I was the first time I read these books. Neil Josten needs to keep his head down and stay hidden from his father’s people, but when he gets the chance to play exy at Palmetto State University, he trades safety to play the game he loves.
5/5 exy sticks
The Raven King by Nora Sakavic
**Book Hangover Alert
All for the Game 2 of 3
CW: ableism (including slurs), drug abuse, child abuse, rape, torture, self-harm, homophobia, death, alcoholism
I won’t summarize either of the next two books to keep the reviews spoiler free. I’m a big fan of Sakavic’s characters. She writes messy, traumatized, extremely lovable people.
5/5 knives
The King’s Men by Nora Sakavic
**Book Hangover Alert
All for the Game 3 of 3
CW: ableism (including slurs), drug abuse, child abuse, rape, torture, self-harm, homophobia, death, alcoholism
The thrilling conclusion. I was really struggling to do all the things I needed to do because all I wanted to do was read these books.
5/5 black armbands
New Books Read
All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson***
CW: homophobia, bullying, sexual assault, slurs
I read this book in celebration of Banned Books Week. This book is part memoir and part manifesto and aimed at a young adult audience. Johnson shares their story of discovering and uniting all the pieces of their identity (nonbinary, gay, and African American). The book addresses queer youth who might be able to relate to parts of Johnson’s journey. I’m not the target audience for this book, but it’s very important representation for the community that is the target audience.
3/5 cowboy boots
Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley***
**Book Hangover Alert
CW: racism, cultural appropriation, rape, grooming
This book was so, so good. High school student Perry is looking forward to a summer of fishing and relaxing when she gets roped into an internship at the tribal museum. At first annoyed at having to spend all this time with dusty objects and the weird curator, Perry discovers the tangled legal web that surrounds Native American artifacts pledges to work to return her ancestors and cultural heritage to her tribe. As someone who works in museums and has worked at the National Museum of the American Indian, I loved reading this book.
5/5 warrior girls
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson
CW: murder, statutory rape, rape, drug use, drugging, drug abuse, animal death
I read this book partly as research for my own novel. High school student Pip has decided to solve a murder for her capstone project. A few years ago, a student at Pip’s school was allegedly murdered by her boyfriend who subsequently committed suicide. But something’s not adding up for Pip, so she’s returning to this closed case to see if she can crack the real murderer, without getting into danger herself (spoiler alert, she does get herself into danger). I really liked the structure of the novel, where we had third person narration following Pip, Pip’s first person journal entries, and interview transcripts and police reports. I like that there were some parts of the mystery I as a reader could solve myself just ahead of Pip, but I wasn’t able to solve the whole mystery. I didn’t like that 17-year-old Pip ends up with 20-year-old Ravi at the end of the novel. This wouldn’t have bothered me when I was in the target audience of YA, but it feels weird to me now.
3.5/5 persons of interest
Cantoras by Carolina de Robertis***
**Book Hangover Alert
CW: rape, misogyny, homophobia, conversion therapy, torture, gang rape, suicide, marital rape
This book was so, so good. The content warnings look scary and they should not be ignored, but none of that stuff is gratuitous. It’s in the book for a reason. Five lesbians in Uruguay find community, connection, and love during the dictatorship by buying a shack on the beach. The story charts the years before, during, and after the dictatorship as these women learn to love and resist and survive. I also think it’s important to read books like this as an American because it is because of my government that Uruguay and many other countries in South America even experienced these dictatorships.
5/5 sea lions
Metamorphoses by Ovid
CW: rape. So much rape.
I liked reading these stories, many of which I was already familiar with. I also liked examining this theme of bodies transformed which I think is super interesting. There is a lot of rape. I’m also not super crazy about the Rolfe Humphries translation, though admittedly I haven’t read any others.
3/5 trees that used to be women
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty
CW: grief, dead bodies, some gross description
This is a nonfiction memoir about Doughty’s time working in a crematorium in the Bay Area and how she came to go to mortuary school and developed her philosophy around the Good Death. I’ve read Doughty’s other books and watched her Ask a Mortician YouTube channel, and I think this is her best book. Her memoir is full of interesting anecdotes, amusing description, and philosophical questions as she takes the reader on a journey to face death and death culture in the US. She also reads the audiobook, and it’s excellent.
4/5 brand new crematory floors
The Meadow by Barbara Bosworth and Margot Kelley
I got this book after seeing Bosworth’s beautiful photos from her Meadow series at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The book combines Bosworth’s photographs with Kelley’s beautiful writing on the subject of a meadow the two women visited many times with a variety of different people with different expertise, who helped them see the meadow in a new way each time. I thought there would be some things I could potentially use in the class I teach about the relationship between image and text, and I was right.
3/5 meadows
Dr. Mütter’s Marvels by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz
Randomly decided to read this book since I’m currently living in Philadelphia. This is a biography of Dr. Mütter, a surgeon and physician in the early 1800s who founded the Mütter Museum here in Philly, one of the largest collections of medical specimens. It was interesting to read about the state of medicine in the early 19th century (spoiler alert: it was bad), especially around the first uses of anesthesia. The book also set Mütter up in opposition to another doctor of the time, Dr. Meigs. Aptowicz sketches the two men, showing the care and empathy Mütter had for his students and patients and the lack thereof that Meigs showed. Mütter was also a true man of science, ready to adopt new practices and change his views when presented with new information, while Meigs was not. It is also my own personal opinion supported pretty much only by vibes that Mütter was gay (Aptowicz does not make this claim, just so we’re clear).
3/5 marvels
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley***
**Book Hangover
CW: racism, slurs, microaggressions
In the near future, the British government has figured out how to time travel. Our unnamed narrator is a handler for a refugee from the 1840s. I really enjoyed this book. I loved Bradley’s spare, funny style. I thought she did a really good job with her historical characters. I also loved the examination of authoritarianism and radicalization; it was well done and very thought provoking.
5/5 time refugees
**Book Hangover Alert indicates the kind of book that will leave you full up on love. Satisfied, but wishing the book never had to end. You’ll be laying on the floor with no idea what to do with yourself (other friends have called this feeling Good Book Depression or say that certain books necessitate Floor Time). This is the kind of book that gets its teeth in you and won’t let go easily. After the last page you’ll be thinking about this book for a long time. You’ll bother all your friends trying to get them to read it so that you won’t be alone in your Hangover.
***This book is part of my Books for a Social Conscience series! Read All Boys Aren’t Blue to support banned books and intersectional stories. Read Warrior Girl Unearthed to learn more about Native communities and the problems they’re still facing in the world of museums to reclaim their ancestors and cultural artifacts. Read Cantoras to learn about queerness in Uruguay in the 1970s and 80s and understand the impacts of the USA’s meddling in the region. Read The Ministry of Time to learn about authoritarianism and radicalization and how structures of power and oppression replicate themselves even in our own minds.
Reads marked as part of the Books for a Social Conscience series will regularly address topics like race and racism, colonialism and post-colonialism, LGBTQ+ experience, feminism, BIPOC experience, social and political issues, history, identity, class, disability experience, immigration, gun violence, poverty, colorism, environmentalism, and more! The goal of these books is to diversify the stories we’re reading, grow our empathy for those who are different from us, and amplify voices who are often silenced.
