Tag: literary fiction

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March 2026 Books

New Books Read

The cover of The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark shows a fire made of pages of text on a black background

The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark
CW: murder, sexual abuse of children
A thriller/mystery about a woman hired to ghostwrite her estranged father’s memoir about the unsolved murders of both of his siblings in their teens. I enjoyed this. It was a propulsive and easy read. The prose was nothing special, but it kept us moving.
3.5/5 film reels

The cover of The Vegetarian by Han Kang shows a woman's silhouette gazing into the sky on a red background

The Vegetarian by Han Kang***
**Book Hangover Alert
CW: institutionalization, eating disorder, domestic violence
I don’t know how to blurb this book. It was really good. Weird, but good. Here’s the blurb from Wikipedia: “The Vegetarian is a three-part novel set in modern-day Seoul and tells the story of Yeong-hye, a part-time graphic artist and home-maker, whose decision to stop eating meat after a bloody nightmare about human cruelty leads to devastating consequences in her personal and familial life.” I don’t really feel like that does it justice, but I guess it’s not wrong? I don’t know, it fails to capture the weird atmosphere and mood throughout. I also thought the POV choice was interesting as in each part of the novel we switch POVs but none of the main POVs are Yeong-hye herself. You could talk about a lot of different themes in this book, but I think the patriarchy and expectations of womanhood and wifehood, as well as disability in Korea are the ones that stood out most to me.
4.5/5 bloody dreams

The book Pests by Bethany Brookshire held up in front of a disgruntled gray tabby
Pip offended at the implication that she might be a pest

Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains by Bethany Brookshire***
Nonfiction. It’s what it sounds like. Brookshire examines the vertebrates that humans across the globe consider pests (including but not limited to rats, mice, pigeons, pythons, cats, horses, elephants, wolves, bears, and deer) and how and why these animals receive that designation. I thought this book was fascinating in the way Brookshire interrogated the way humans conceptualize animals and nature and where they belong and don’t belong (deer in the forest far from my house = good, deer in my hard eating my garden = bad). She brings up a lot of interesting things to think about when it comes to how we can manage invasive species, what we consider nature (where animals should be) and human spaces (where animals should not be), and how we can share this planet we all live on.
4/5 rats

The cover of Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood shows a ship sailing on a sea of barbed wire waves

Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood*
**Book Hangover Alert
CW: death of a child
A retelling of the Tempest in which a retired theater director uses a production of the Tempest put on in a prison as a way to get revenge on those that forced him into retirement. Atwood is just so clever. I loved the layering of the play within the novel which is itself the play and the themes of prisons, literal, societal, and mental. It was also funny! ( I mean so is the Tempest)
4.5/5 swimming caps

The cover of The Keeper of Lost Children by Sadeqa Johnson shows a child sitting facing away from the viewer in the window of a ruin, looking at a burning building in the background
37 Ink

Keeper of Lost Children by Sadeqa Johnson***
CW: racism, racial slurs, assault, child abuse
Look, I’ve read a lot of WWII historical fiction, okay? There’s a lot out there. But this book was unique in its subject and perspective, so we’ll allow it. In 1950s Germany, Ethel, the wife of an American officer, discovers an orphanage of half-Black children fathered by African American service members during the war with German women. Many German women felt they couldn’t keep the children, whether because of prejudice or economic concerns, so Ethel works to get the children adopted by American families. Woven into Ethel’s narrative is that of Ozzie, an African American service member stationed in Germany in the late 1940s and Sophia, an African American teenager in the 1960s who is one of the first to integrate her boarding school but who longs to learn the truth of her history. You can see how all of these threads will intertwine. I enjoyed this. I thought Johnson’s writing was well researched and evocative. It seemed to me that there were maybe more non-racist white characters than was believable (but I’m not the one who did the research and I wasn’t alive then). And one more thought is a spoiler:
Read More: SPOILERS AHEAD

I loved the happy ending, but it did feel a little unbelievable that Sophia just ‘always felt she didn’t fit in’ and then conveniently just happens to meet another kid who was one of these adopted babies from Germany and then manages to actually find her family and it turns out they really did want her after all. It’s the fantasy of all children who grow up in unhappy homes that they’re actually adopted and parents who want them are somewhere out there and they were just separated by an accident of faith. But how likely is that story really? I did also think it was a little weird that they never once mention Katia’s unique hair color in his storyline. I know she was trying to keep it a mystery that Sophia is that child, but it was pretty obvious…

4/5 nuns

The cover of Voices by David Elliot shows a young girl in armor before a gold halo made up of words

Voices by David Elliott*
CW: death
A novel-in-verse about the last hours of Joan of Arc’s life. Elliott weaves in real quotes from the Trial of Condemnation and the later Trial of Nullification. We also get poems from Joan as she waits on pyre and poems in a variety of voices from the people and objects around Joan including her parents, the saints and angels guiding her, her sword, her armor, her clothing, the candle that lights the pyre, the fire itself, and more. I really enjoyed this. I thought the structure was fascinating. Elliott uses specific poetic forms for different voices and I was a big fan of the concrete poems in the collection. My only quibble was that I hated the font chosen for Joan’s poems.
4/5 voices

On the cover of Semi-Well-Adjusted-Despite-Literally-Everything, the author Alyson Stoner smashes their face against glass as though peering at the viewer as an animal in a zoo
St. Martin’s Press

Semi-Well-Adjusted Despite Literally Everything by Alyson Stoner***
**Book Hangover Alert
CW: body dysphoria, religious trauma, domestic violence, eating disorders, suicidal thoughts, drug and alcohol abuse , sexual assault
If you think you don’t know who Alyson Stoner is, yes you do. Child actor known for Isabella on Phineas and Ferb, ‘the little white girl’ in the Missy Elliott video, Caitlyn in Camp Rock, and many more, Stoner opens up about the addictiveness of fame and the damaging way the industry works, especially in relation to minors. This memoir was not as painful to read as Elliot Page’s but I still think there are a lot of people who owe Stoner apologies. I thought the memoir was well written and the chapters were well structured. I was happy that in the end
Read More: SPOILERS AHEAD

Stoner is on their way to healing and a much more healthy relationship with work and their body and using their platform to advocate for minors in the industry.

4.5/5 call backs

The cover of Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees by Patrick Horvath shows a bird's eye view of a bear walking through a forest holding a shovel and dragging a bag that is trailing blood
IDW Publishing

Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees by Patrick Horvath
CW: murder, gore
Adorable serial killer? This book is pitched as Dexter meets Richard Scarry’s Busy, Busy Town and that is correct. Adorable bear Samantha is an upstanding citizen in her small town, but when she visits the city, anyone might find themself her victim. But when someone starts terrorizing Sam’s town, she must stop the serial killer before they ruin the town or unmask her. The art in this book is really incredible. It’s dark but it was fun.
3.5/5 newspaper articles

Books I did not finish

The cover of The Gods Below by Andrea Stewart shows too snakes snarling at each other

The Gods Below by Andrea Stewart
This pains me so much because I LOVED Stewart’s Drowned Empire series, but I’m still trying to achieve my goal of not finishing anything I’m not enjoying. Life is too short. I’m not super good at it but I’m trying. I read 200 page of this book and was STILL not into it, so I finally gave up. I think the problem was that with so many POVs, by page 200, it still felt like we were on page 50 in the development of the narrative. I think Stewart should have focused on just Hakara and Rasha (and this from someone obsessed with writing huge casts and multi-pov stories *sobs*). It just wasn’t working for me. I didn’t really connect with any of the characters and I didn’t feel like I totally understood the world and I wasn’t interested enough to want to. Very sad about it.
1/5 altered

*This book only includes straight white cis people. 

**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 lying 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 The Vegetarian for great Korean literature. Read Pests to learn more about humans’ relationship to nature and how we can all thrive. Read The Keeper of Lost Children for an untold story of African Americans during WWII. Read Semi-Well-Adjusted Despite Literally Everything to learn about how capitalism destroys everything.

Reads marked as part of the Books for a Social Conscience series will regularly address topics like race and racism, colonialism and post-colonialism, LGBTQIA+ 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.

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February 2026 Books

Books Reread

The cover of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley shows a monstrous figure on a cliff looming over a man who looks up, points, and screams

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley*
I wanted to read this again because I saw the Guillermo Del Toro movie and was like that’s not how I remember it. The Del Toro movie is good, excellent acting, stunning visuals, costumes, and sets. Nice that Elizabeth gets more of a personality. And I don’t think Del Toro is wrong necessarily for focusing on the father/son theme in his interpretation, but I also think it does flatten all the other themes that appear in the book. Especially since the theme of scientific advance without any ethical responsibility is so relevant right now?? Back to the book: I like the frame narrative used, I always think those are super interesting. Still think the themes of disability, monstrousness, and revenge are fascinating. I relate to Frankenstein needing to lie in bed about things, but my guy, you created these problems for yourself. In the words of Jeff Goldblum, “You were so focused on whether or not you could, you never stopped to think whether or not you should.”
4/5 murders

New Books Read

The cover of Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune shows a house out on a promontory of rock with a phoenix rising above it and a red bus driving away from the house

Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune***
Cerulean Chronicles book 2 of 2
CW: cultural genocide, abuse of children, fantasy racism, death of parents
In the second book of the Cerulean Chronicles, Arthur Parnassus shares his story of abuse at the hands of government for being a magical child in the hopes of creating change for magical people. But speaking his truth might bring danger to the magical children in his care, which he hopes to formally adopt. I enjoyed this. It is very sweet and lovingly told. I love the characters, especially the children and the way they are growing up. The novel advocates for reparations, political change, protection of the vulnerable, and self-confidence and acceptance. The audio is also excellent; Daniel Henning does a great job.

Now to address the controversy: Klune has been criticized for being inspired by the horrific genocide committed by the Canadian (and American) government against Native peoples, specifically the residential school system and cultural genocide. Many people feel that it is reprehensible to take that horrifying history and turn it into a cozy fantasy, especially as Klune is a cis, white man. Now, I have to say I don’t remember the first book super well. I don’t remember connecting the first book to this history, which I am fairly knowledgable about, though I am not part of the Native community. Some claimed that the theme of the work was assimilation, forcing the magical children to assimilate into non magical society the way residential schools forced assimilation on Native children. I don’t remember getting that from the novel, to me it seemed to be advocating for acceptance of magical people by non magical people, rather than segregation or assimilation. Some concerns were also raised about Linus being a white savior trope. Again, I don’t remember the first book well enough to fully comment on these things, though they weren’t things I picked up on during my first reading (which doesn’t mean they aren’t valid critiques! Just that I don’t feel I can comment on them).

This second book feels like it was maybe a reaction to those critiques raised after the first book. The parallel to residential schools is much stronger and there is a clear critique of governments and policies that harm minorities and government accountability. There is also a theme of Land Back in this book.

About the concern about the children never being reunited with their families, I got the idea from the book that these children didn’t have families to go back to for whatever reason, but I see why the exclusion of any possibility of their being reunited with their parents in the narrative might be painful for anyone affected by the residential school system, or the racist adoption policies that removed Native children from their parents and gave them to white parents. Even if that wasn’t a possibility for Arthur’s children, perhaps it should have been addressed more fully.

I don’t think there is necessarily anything inherently wrong with being inspired by true historical tragedies as long as in the resulting art these tragedies aren’t minimized, whitewashed, erased, excused, or sanitized. And I don’t think it was Klune’s intention to do any of these things. He wrote a book that celebrates love and weirdness and resistance and kindness and acceptance. But also author intentions don’t matter as much as reader interpretation, so if readers, especially ones from Native communities feel that Klune did minimize, whitewash, erase, excuse, or sanitize their history, then that’s valid.

You can like things and still be critical of them, so I’m going to give this a
4/5 bellhops

The cover of City of Ghosts by V.E. Schwab shows a foggy city and the silhouette of a girl and her cat moving through the mist

City of Ghosts by V.E. Schwab*
Cassidy Blake book 1 of 3
CW: drowning
So fun. I love a spooky little middle grade novel. Cassidy Blake’s parents are ghost hunters filming a TV show about haunted Edinburg, but every since a near death experience, Cassidy is the only one who can really see ghosts. With the help of her ghost best friend, Cassidy must face a dangerous spirit terrorizing the streets of Edinburg. Going to have to read the rest of the books now.
4/5 ghosts

The cover of We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds shows a light brown skinned girl with freckles and curls looking out at the future over a background of stars and a foreground of sunflowers

We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds***
**Book Hangover Alert
CW: racism, lynching, generational trauma, abuse
Gorgeous, queer, contemporary YA novel. When Avery’s grandmother’s health declines, her family moves from DC out to the sticks in the South to be with her, despite the fact that Avery doesn’t remember ever meeting her, and her mom and grandmother can’t seem to have a conversation without fighting. As Avery finds new friendships and attempts to navigate her family’s tense relationships, she discovers a history of trauma and racism buried in this southern town. I loved the exploration of friendships in this book as well as complicated histories of generational trauma and how that is bound up in histories of racism, and the question of who gets to be remembered.
4.5/5 monuments

His Majesty's Dragon my Naomi Novik shows a dragon flying above a ship that tosses on the sea

His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik*
Temeraire book 1 of 9
**Book Hangover Alert
I adored this. This was everything I wanted in a dragon book. During the Napoleonic Wars, a British Navy captain takes a dragon egg as prize from a French ship. When the egg hatches, he and the dragon become bonded and join the dragon rider branch of the military as the threat of Napoleon’s army grows stronger. I’m looking forward to seeing how the themes of duty to King and Country evolve as the series goes on. It did take a long time before there were any important female characters, but they were there eventually. Laurence and Temeraire are so cute; I love them so much. This book was what I wanted when I read Fourth Wing.
5/5 dragons

The cover of Moomin by Tove and Lars Jansson is yellow and shows the titular character Moomin, a round, lovable, hippo-like creature

Moomin Adventures by Lars and Tove Jansson
Moomin Adventures book 1 of 2
Delightful. Collected comics about the Moomin family. These are so fun and so cute. I also enjoyed the themes of anti-capitalism.
3.5/5 millions hidden under a pebble

The cover of Champion of Fate by Kendare Blake shows two hands holding the hilt of a sword with an eye reflected in the sword and shadowy figures on horseback twisting around the hands and blade

Champion of Fate by Kendare Blake
Heromaker book 1 of 2
CW: death, war
I enjoyed this, even though I am fundamentally against the idea that war is glorious in any way. Reed is an initiate of an order of immortal warrior women (and their immortal horses) who train heroes in service to the goddess of glory. I don’t think I liked this one quite as much as Blake’s other series, Three Dark Crowns, but I still had fun with this one. I also just think it’s so cute that she dedicated this book to her horse.
3.5/5 horses

The cover of Constituent Service by John Scalzi shows a human in a scuba suit holding a chicken, in front of a variety of extra terrestrials
Subterranean Press

Constituent Service by John Scalzi***
A Third District story
This is super fun little novella set in the world of the Third District. One of the few humans in a majority alien district of the city, Ashley starts a new job in constituent services at the district. Listening to various complaints from constituents, Ashley discovers a threat to an upcoming parade that will endanger all attendees. This was so fun and silly but also demonstrated a beautiful ideal where city services listens to the people that live there and actually cares about them. Sad that that’s my fantasy right now. A government that cares about its people, all of them, even the extra terrestrials.
3.5/5 potted plants

The cover of Katabasis by R.F. Kuang shows two figures running along an Escher staircase that continues to infinity.

Katabasis by R.F. Kuang
**Book Hangover Alert
CW: misogyny, abuse, manipulation, sexual assault, ableism
Kuang’s work is so refreshing in an age of anti-intellectualism. Her work is unapologetically intellectual. And even if you don’t understand all the references or the logic theory (and I didn’t) it’s still accessible. After her advisor is killed in an accident, Alice Law, analytic magic postgrad, and her fellow advisee Peter Murdoch journey to Hell to bring back his soul. I did really enjoy this. I appreciated the critique of academia, its misogyny and ableism and elitism and the way it pits people against each other. I enjoyed Kuang’s take on Hell in comparison to other works that have explored the concept.
4.5/5 bone creatures

The cover of The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi shows a stylized plait of red, orange, and pink meant to evoke hair

The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi***
**Book Hangover Alert
CW: homophobia, misogyny, domestic violence, lynching (mention)
While I was reading this, I was like this reminds me of Chronicle of a Death Foretold, and then I saw in the acknowledgements they acknowledge that work as an inspiration. It’s basically a queer Nigerian Chronicle of a Death Foretold where the story orbits the death of a young queer Nigerian. This was beautifully written and very sad. It grapples with the taboo subject of homosexuality and queerness in Nigeria and the idea that the protective fear we have for our loved ones (especially those that may be othered by society) is as dangerous as the fear of society itself.
5/5 necklaces

*This book only includes straight white cis people. It pains me to put His Majesty’s Dragon on here, but I fear it must be done.

**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 lying 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! I’m still listing Somewhere Beyond the Sea here. I think that even with a cozy fantasy lens, you can still learn a lot about the purposeful government policies that marginalize, other, and attempt to erase minorities. I also think if you’re in a book club (or you just like to engage critically with what you read–which everyone should), it’s worth discussing residential schools and the way the way they are referenced in this story does more harm or good. Read We Deserve Monuments to learn about generational racial trauma and young queer love. Read Constituent Service for a city employee sincerely doing her best to help citizens, even ones very different from herself. Read the Death of Vivek Oji for a story about queer Nigerians.

Reads marked as part of the Books for a Social Conscience series will regularly address topics like race and racism, colonialism and post-colonialism, LGBTQIA+ 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.

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October 2025 Books

Books Reread

The cover of Turn Right at Machu Picchu by Mark Adams shows the famous ruins in a drawing as they may have appeared with Incas living there

Turn Right at Machu Picchu by Mark Adams*
I’m planning another trip to the Inca Trail so I reread this book. Adams does a good job balancing his personal travelogue of his trek in the Sacred Valley, history of Hiram Bingham’s expeditions, and history of the Incas and the conflict with Pizarro. He also covers current controversies over the Incan artifacts in Yale’s care. Very readable.
3.5/5 llamas

The cover of Bloody Jack by LA Meyer shows the front of a ship with a figure of indeterminate gender on the bowsprit
I know this cover isn’t the same style as the rest of the series. It hurts me too, but this one is signed.

Bloody Jack by L.A. Meyer *
**Book Hangover Alert
Bloody Jack book 1 of 12
CW: attempted rape, war, death, plague
This is one of my all time favorite books from one of my all time favorite series. Orphaned in London in 1799, little Mary Faber joins a street gang but when the leader of their gang is killed, Mary rechristens herself Jack and joins the crew of HMS Dolphin as a ship’s boy. The series follows Jacky’s historical hijinks and escapades including but not limited to naval engagements, piracy, finishing school, horse racing, spying in the Napoleonic wars, and so, so much more. Even though we’ve all heard it before, my family and I listened to it on a road trip. I cannot recommend the audiobook highly enough. Katherine Kellgren does a superb job with these books including all the voices, dialects, and songs therein.
5/5 kites

The cover of The Curse of the Blue Tattoo shows a girl dancing on a dock surrounded by sailors

Curse of the Blue Tattoo by L.A. Meyer*
**Book Hangover Alert
Bloody Jack book 2 of 12
CW: attempted rape
Book 2 follows Jacky at finishing school in Boston after she’s discovered to be a girl. And if it doesn’t sound like she could get in much trouble at school (compared to in disguise as a boy in the Royal Navy) well, you’d be wrong. This is maybe one of my least favorite books in the series but there aren’t any bad books in the series.
4/5 sheepdogs

New Books Read

The cover of Six Days in Bombay by Alka Joshi shows a light skinned Indian woman in a green sari

Six Days in Bombay by Alka Joshi***
This was one of my Book of the Month books. I enjoyed it. When an influential Indian artist dies mysteriously in a hospital in Bombay in 1937 where nurse Sona works, Sona must undertake a quest to clear her name from suspicion and return several paintings to the artist’s friends. It was interesting to read a historical fiction set in India shortly before partition with an Anglo-American protagonist.
3.5/5 paintings

The cover of Teo's Durumi by Elaine U Cho shows two figures holding hands before a Japanese style pogoda with a space ship flying overhead

Teo’s Durumi by Elaine U. Cho***
**Book Hangover Alert
The Alliance book 2 of 2
CW: gore, serial murder
I’m obsessed with this duology! I’m dying for someone to make it into an action series. It would be so good. Framed for the murder of his family, Teo must clear his name and bring the perpetrators to justice with the help of his ragtag crew of misfits. It has a very cinematic, space opera feel and I just adored it.
5/5 skin suits

The cover of Falmer by Mike Curato shows a drawing of a boy giving the Boy Scout salute surrounded by flames
Henry Holt and Company

Flamer by Mike Curato***
CW: homophobia, religious trauma, suicide attempt
I like to celebrate Banned Books Week all month long. This graphic novel follows Aiden, a closeted teen, at Boy Scout camp as he comes to terms with his sexuality and his own internalized homophobia. I really liked the art in this graphic novel. Several really gorgeous panels, and I really loved the color palette choices.
3.5/5 canoes

The cover of the Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson shows a closeup of colorful bird feathers
Viking Press

The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson***
**Book Hangover Alert
A nonfiction book about the craziest museum heist I’ve ever heard of. Johnson traces the crime: the theft of hundred’s of rare, historical, and endangered bird skins from an outpost of the Natural History Museum in London. Why would you steal bird skins from a museum, you ask? For the bizarre and niche hobby of salmon fly tying. Johnson excavates the community’s problematic obsession with using endangered bird feathers in the art form. This book was so wild. I can’t recommend it enough.
4.5/5 birds of paradise

The cover of Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo shows a neon-lit Chinatown street at light with a couple under a streetlight

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo***
**Book Hangover Alert
CW: homophobia, racism
The second book I read for Banned Books Month, and it was excellent. Set in the 1950s in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Last Night at the Telegraph Club follows Lily, a teenager trying to navigate her sexuality and culture as well as racism and the Red Scare. It’s such a loving book with interesting and nuanced characters. I really loved getting to read a historical fiction book in this time and place, as it’s not one I’ve read about before.
4.5/5 male impersonators

The cover of We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson shows an etching of two girls surrounded by ominous looking villagers
Viking Press

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson*
**Book Hangover Alert
Just a lil something spooky for Halloween. The Blackwood sisters live with their ailing uncle in their estate on the outskirts of town, shunned by the villagers for a tragedy that killed the rest of their family six years ago. But are the girls as innocent as they seem. Jackson is such a master of atmosphere; I really have no idea how she does it. I’m also a big fan of Mary Katherine, the unreliable narrator of the story.
3.5/5 black cats

The cover of A Thousand Times Before by Asha Thanki shows a tapestry of women's profile's

A Thousand Times Before by Asha Thanki***
CW: domestic violence, religious conflict, colonialism
I said above I’d never read a historical fiction set in the partition of India, but I read two this month. This book is a family saga that follows three generations of women in India during and after partition. A magical tapestry allows the women to pass down their stories and histories and gives the woman from the current generation the power to create change through art. I loved the concept of this book, but I felt the pacing was off. I wanted to be into it, but it dragged.
3/5 tapestries

The cover of Flat Earth by Anika Jade Levy shows a waning sliver of moon

Flat Earth by Anika Jade Levy*
**Book Hangover Alert
CW: suicide attempt
This one is an early release. I heard Levy speak at the Aspen Literary Festival and her humor convinced me to buy the book. I enjoyed this. It was weird, but good. I’m struggling to write a blurb for it that makes sense. I felt like this book captured what it feels like to be alive right now. To have lived through Covid, to be surviving under capitalism, to be watching America’s descent into fascism and still be trying to live your life. Set in New York City in the near future, “Flat Earth is a story of coming of age in America, a novel about commodification, conspiracy theories, mimetic desire, and the difficulties of female friendship that’s as sharp and sardonic as it is heartbreaking” (I took that from the Penguin Random House blurb). I’m not sure I would say I liked it, but I can’t stop thinking about it?
3.5/5 documentary films

The cover of The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison shows a young black girl hunched at a window

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison***
**Book Hangover Alert
CW: rape, misogyny, racism, death of animals, incest, child sexual abuse, n-word
The last book I read for Banned Books Month. You know, I had resisted reading this one a bit because I always feel like Morrison’s books are kind of a bummer. (Very important, obviously! But not happy books.) But I actually really liked this one–although, that’s not to say it wasn’t a bummer. The book orbits Pecola, an ‘ugly’ black child who longs to have blue eyes. I thought the choice of POV was super interesting as well as the engagement with the themes of whiteness and internalized racism and beauty standards and the way these systems self perpetuate. Morrison also writes some beautiful prose.
4/5 blue eyes

*This book only includes straight white cis people. Perhaps unfair to give this designation to Turn Right at Machu Picchu and The Feather Thief. The later Bloody Jack books are more diverse, but these first couple are pretty white and straight.

**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 lying 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 Six Days in Bombay to learn about India before partition and the experience of being Anglo-Indian at that time. Read Teo’s Durumi for an Asian-inspired sci-fi with queer characters. Read Flamer for a queer coming of age. Read The Feather Thief to consider the impact humans have on the earth. Read Last Night at the Telegraph Club for untold queer, Asian history. Read A Thousand Times Before for more about Indian partition and queer history. Read The Bluest Eye to learn about internalized racism and the insidious value placed on whiteness.

Reads marked as part of the Books for a Social Conscience series will regularly address topics like race and racism, colonialism and post-colonialism, LGBTQIA+ 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.

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August 2025 Books

Books Reread

George Allen & Unwin

The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien*
Such a comforting reread in these trying times. I think The Two Towers is still my favorite book of the series, but of course this one is good too. I love Merry and Pippin’s friendship in this one, which I think is shown in even sharper relief because they aren’t together for most of this book. Once again, the book is split into ‘what everyone else is doing’ first, and then ‘what Frodo and Sam are doing.’ I also forgot how much more stuff there is after they (spoiler) destroy the ring. I did also listen to the appendix this time as well, which I think I skipped the first time I read this book.
4/5 fell beasts

New Books Read

Atria Books

The Paleontologist by Luke Dumas
CW: abduction of a child, murder
This one was fun! A spooky thriller set in a run down museum, it’s a little Night at the Museum meets Jurassic Park plus a murder mystery. Paleontologist Simon Nealy returns to the Hawthorne Museum where his sister disappeared in their childhood determined to finally figure out what happened to her. But the museum is haunted by the ghosts of prehistoric beasts. Can Simon help all these restless souls find peace? Overall I really enjoyed this. Good tension building and fun concept, although I did predict the murderer almost immediately and I did feel like I had a few unanswered questions by the end.
3.5/5 dino ghosts

Joseph Henry Press

Out of Thin Air: Dinosaurs, Birds, and Earth’s Ancient Atmosphere by Peter D. Ward and David W. Elhert
I read this as research for a future project, though it was perhaps not very helpful for that. I still read the whole thing though because it was interesting. The authors’ main argument was that the level of oxygen in the atmosphere on prehistoric Earth was the main driver of speciation. They argued that in times of low oxygen, there was more species diversification, then in times of high oxygen levels, those species which had developed very efficient breathing were able to grow much larger and dominate. I thought their arguments sounded convincing, though I don’t know that I know enough about chemistry or geology to comment. This book also came out in 2006 and I don’t know if there are any updates to the research since then.  It did not answer the question of whether humans could have breathed the atmosphere in the Permian, which was not necessarily in their research purview, but it is an important question to me. 
3/5 species

Random House

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro*
I had kind of a hard time getting into this one. In a post-Arthurian Britain where no one can retain long-term memories, an older couple named Axl and Beatrice set off in search of their son. I read in Maggie Stiefvater’s review of this book that it reminded her of Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi though she found Piranesi “warmer and sadder.” I would agree with that assessment. I liked the exploration of memory and grief and conflict, but it didn’t fill me up or unmoor me the way Piranesi did.
3/5 she-dragons

W. W. Norton & Company – I really dropped the ball with this one. I could have photographed the copy I read in the museum in front of a bear diorama, but I didn’t

Eight Bears: Mythic Past and Imperiled Future by Gloria Dickie***
I always try to read something on-theme in the museum so this was my latest nonfiction pick. Dickie writes about each of the eight bear species we have on earth with clear-eyed compassion. Each chapter focuses on one bear species where she charts the ecological and social threats to each species. I learned a lot from this book, and I hope everyone reads it so we can work together to save these wonderful animals from extinction.
4.5/5 bears (duh)

The Lighthouse at the Edge of the World by J.R. Dawson***
CW: mass shooting, death, grief, suicidal ideation
**Book Hangover Alert
I loved this. Full disclosure, Jen was my mentor at Drexel’s MFA program, so I am a little biased. This book is a Sapphic Orpheus and Eurydice retelling set in Chicago. After losing her sister in a mass shooting, Charlie finds herself able to see ghosts–but not her sister. Searching for her sister’s spirit, she stumbles upon a lighthouse at the edge of the lake run by the Ferryman who ferries souls to the underworld every night. But Charlie finds more than she bargained for in the Station Master’s daughter Nera. It was so excellent. I loved the multi-POV narration. I loved the world. I loved the concept. I loved the remnants scattered throughout the narrative. I loved the prose.
5/5 remnants

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
Dungeon Crawler Carl book 1 of 8
These books are all the rage right now. And for good reason. They are really fun. When the Earth is turned into a huge mining site for extraction by the Borant Corporation, all surviving humans are thrown into the Dungeon, a real life video game beneath the Earth’s surface televised for the whole Universe. Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat Princess Donut must team up to survive the Dungeon. It’s a little Hunger Games meets Squid Games meets Ready Player One. Perfect for fans of DnD. It was really fun, and I highly recommend the audiobook because the narrator was excellent.
4.5/5 achievements

Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor***
The Nsibidi Scripts book 1 of 3
This was so fun! A Nigerian inspired fantasy, Sunny, an albino American-Nigerian living in Nigeria, discovers she’s a Leopard-person gifted with magic. She joins her peers to learn to control her magic and the young Leopard-people must discover the secrets of the Black Hat serial killer menacing children near their village. I loved the developing friendship between Sunny, Chichi, Sasha, and Orlu. I thought the world was really cool. I started a new tag on StoryGraph for books about Magic School that Aren’t Hogwarts. So if you’re looking to fill that void without supporting a terrible person, check this one out!
3.5/5 juju knives

*This book only includes straight white cis people. Once again the classics, which is unfair but still true.

**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 Eight Bears to learn more about these wonderful creatures, conservation, climate change and what humans can do to reverse the detrimental effects we’ve had on the environment. Read The Lighthouse at the Edge of the World for Sapphic fantasy and Jewish representation in fantasy. Read Akata Witch for Nigerian inspired fantasy.

Reads marked as part of the Books for a Social Conscience series will regularly address topics like race and racism, colonialism and post-colonialism, LGBTQIA+ 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.

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April 2025 Books

New Books Read

The Home for Wayward Girls by Marcia Bradley*
CW: child abuse, trauma
We had to read this for the MFA graduation residency. It was. Not great. Loretta grew up on a ranch where parents sent their troubled daughters. But the Home’s prerogative is not rehabilitation and Loretta suffers from her abusive parents just like the girls sent to the home. Characters were very flat. The protagonist came off as a Mary Jane. Once she escapes the Home, everyone is always telling her how special she is and it came off really unbelievable. I understand the impulse to make it clear to readers that even someone who has been through something terrible can have a happy ending, but the way it was done here seemed like it minimized her trauma and the trauma of others who have been through these kinds of institutions. Made it feel trite. Also the nonlinear structure killed the tension because we knew from the start that Loretta was going to escape the Home and be happy and successful. 
2.5/5 buttons

The Dragon’s Promise by Elizabeth Lim
I don’t think I enjoyed this quite as much as the first one, but it was still good. Shiori must fulfill the promise she made to her stepmother and return to dragon pearl to its rightful owner, along the way reckoning with dragons, demons, and magic hating citizens. I love the characters and the fantasy world. Shiori is such a good character (and so are Kiki and Seryu), and Lim does a good job of characterizing all her brothers even though there are 6 of them. 
4/5 dragon pearls

All the Living and the Dead by Hayley Campbell
A nonfiction book all about people whose professions revolve around death. Funeral directors, embalmers, executioners, large scale disaster managers, crime scene cleaners, cryonics caretakers, death midwives the people who take your body when you donate it to science. It was fascinating and Campbell writes with inquisitive compassion as she puzzles out her own obsession with death. Did make me wonder if I should include more of the gross, gritty details of bodies that I mostly left out of my novel.
4.5/5 donated bodies

Spitting Gold by Carmella Lowkis
**Book Hangover Alert
Loved this. A sapphic historical fiction about two sisters running a scam as mediums. I liked the use of multiple perspectives to show us the unreliableness of our narrators. I know why the timeline was organized like all of Sylvie’s chapters up to the reveal, then Charlotte’s chapters rewind to the beginning, take us through the events of Sylvie’s chapters, and then go to the end. That’s how she preserved the big reveal at the end of Sylvie’s section, but then when we switched to Charlotte and had to rewind I was like WAIT but what happens NEXT?? It was still really good though. 
4.5/5 toads

Hank’s Big Day: The Story of a Bug by Evan Kuhlman
We read this as our story time book at the museum this month. A very cute story of a roly-poly’s day out with his friend Amelia.
3/5 roly-polies

The Keeper of Lonely Spirits by E.M. Anderson***
**Book Hangover Alert
CW: grief; (The author does include content warnings at the beginning of the book)
I ADORED this. Like A Man Called Ove meets The House on the Cerulean Sea. Cursed with immortality and the ability to see ghosts, Peter finds ghosts and sends them on their way, wandering from place to place, unable to return home. But when a tricky ghost keeps him in town longer than expected, Peter finds himself growing closer to the residents than he has to anyone in centuries. I loved the characters and the found family and the plants and the ghosts. Cool magic system and ghost rules. Just loved the cozy vibes. 
5/5 minty ghosts

(the book photography gradually gets less and less inspired)

Ocean’s Godori by Elaine U. Cho***
**Book Hangover Alert
The Alliance book 1 of 2
This was so fun. A disgraced pilot trying to find her place in the universe must help her best friend, heir to a controversial tech empire, when he’s framed for the murder of his family. She and her misfit crew set off on this epic space opera. It did have the learning curve of other sci-fi where they throw you in and you have to figure out what words mean and there are a bunch of characters and you’re like what is going on for the first little bit. But not nearly as frustrating as like Dune! I loved all the characters and I’m super interested in the conspiracy (it’s the first in a series which I forgot as I neared the end with mounting anxiety that we wouldn’t wrap everything up. We didn’t). 
4.5/5 vultures

The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez***
**Book Hangover Alert
An author retires to a barrio in the Dominican Republic where she builds a cemetery to bury all the notes from stories she didn’t write. Those untold stories weave together with her own story and the story of the woman she hires to care for the cemetery. A quiet, lit-fic book that asked a lot of really interesting questions about storytelling and who gets to tell stories and what happens to stories that aren’t told and the line between truth and fiction. Nice use of omniscient POV and weaving together of so many different people and stories. I liked that she didn’t tone down the Spanish for an English speaking audience. I liked working for it a bit. 
4/5 sculptures

Bear by Julia Phillips*
I read this because bears are my favorite animal, but it wasn’t really about bears. It was about more sad adults. It wasn’t bad, I just didn’t like it. Sam is waiting for the day she and her sister can leave their home and dead end jobs on San Juan Island. But when a bear appears on the island, Sam’s sister realizes she may not want to leave. The prose was good, the characters were complex, the plot had an air of inevitability about it. But the moral of the story was “you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes.” And (spoiler) the bear dies. Very sad. 
3/5 bears

The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson*
**Book Hangover Alert
Mistborn book 1 of 7
This was really good. In an ash-filled wasteland ruled by the immortal and divine Lord Ruler, rebellions never work. But a rag tag crew is forming to challenge the Lord Ruler and the nobility and it might just be one street urchin with a power she hardly understands that will be the key to overthrowing the Empire once and for all. It might be a bit on the long side with a bit of a slow start but the last quarter of the book was action packed. This is only my second Sanderson book but I can already tell he always comes up with really interesting, innovative magic systems. He also did a good job explaining the magic system in bits and pieces so I wasn’t overwhelmed with information and I felt like I was figuring it out as the characters used and learned about it. Could have probably had at least one more important female character. This is a high fantasy book that had the right amount of romance for me. 
4.5/5 metals

Yimby: Yes! In My Back Yard! by Sheryl Recinos***
Full disclosure, someone in my MFA program wrote this book, so I’m a bit biased. A response to the “Not in my backyard” anti-homelessness and immigration slogan, this children’s book welcomes all people and advocates for housing for all. It has gorgeous illustrations and an important message.
4/5 advocates

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
**Book Hangover Alert
Thursday Murder Club Mysteries book 1 of 5
I loved this. At a retirement home outside of London, some of the residents solve old cold cases for fun, but when the builder for an expansion of the property is murdered, they suddenly have a real case to solve. This was just so darling. So fun, so British. I liked the multi-POV and the way Joyce’s journals were incorporated. Super excited about the film they’re making too.
4.5/5 mysterious photographs

Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green***
**Book Hangover Alert
Everyone should be required to read this book. Green writes so beautifully and informatively about the history, present, and potential futures of tuberculosis. I felt the same kind of frustrated longing reading this book as I did Braiding Sweetgrass–that we as humans could choose a better, kinder path, and we keep choosing not to. Capitalism sucks.
5/5 treatments

Funeral Songs for Dying Girls by Cherie Dimaline***
CW: sexual assault, drug use
Winnie and her father live in and care for the cemetery, but low revenue might force them to leave. When ghost tours reignite interest in the cemetery, Winnie thinks this might be the way to save the cemetery, but when a real ghost shows up, she has to decide whether to save her home or her new friend. I liked the depictions of OCD and the LGBTQIA+ and Native representation. It did feel like there wasn’t very much urgency in the main plot, and we were more worried about getting the ghost’s backstory, but I still enjoyed it.
3.5/5 ghosts

Books I did not finish

This year the only goal I set for myself was not to finish any books I wasn’t enjoying. I’ve already failed this goal several times this year, but I’m trying to do better. There are so many books I want to read. I don’t want to waste time reading books I don’t like.

Prague Fatale by Philip Kerr*
Bernie Gunther series
This was boring. I didn’t feel invested enough in the mystery to keep reading. It was a bit of a tits and ass book, but I could have gotten over that if I was invested in the mystery.

The Basic Kafka by Franz Kafka*
I’ve read The Metamorphosis and I really like that story, but I wasn’t really into any of the other stories in this collection. “The Judgement” was pretty good, but I just wasn’t into these enough to keep reading. Plus I think I’ve already seen the best lines from Kafka’s journals and letters on Tumblr.

*This book only includes straight white cis people. I’ve heard Brandon Sanderson has started to write more diverse casts in his more recent books.

**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 The Keeper of Lonely Spirits for some mature LGBTQIA+ romance. Read Ocean’s Godori for a Korean inspired space opera with LGBTQIA+ rep. Read The Cemetery of Untold Stories for Dominican rep and history. Read Yimby: YesI In My Back Yard! for compassion and social justice. Read Everything is Tuberculosis if you care about the future of humanity. Read Funeral Songs for Dying Girls for mental health, LGBTQIA+, and Native rep.

Reads marked as part of the Books for a Social Conscience series will regularly address topics like race and racism, colonialism and post-colonialism, LGBTQIA+ 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.

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December 2024 Books and End of Year Roundup

StoryGraph book total: 123

Number of pages read this year: 43,795
My goal this year was 45,000 words on StoryGraph, and while I didn’t quite make that goal, I feel it’s important to point out that I read a LOT of things that weren’t on StoryGraph this year including but not limited to scholarly articles, student essays, Paper Dragon and Under the Sun submissions, writings by my workshop team members, MY OWN NOVEL (so many times. I’ve read it so many times) so if you count all that, I’ve definitely surpassed that goal.

Number of new books read this year: 101

Number of books reread this year: 22

Number of books by women, trans, and nonbinary people read this year (only counting new books read): 66

Number of books by BIPOC this year (only including new books read): 31

Number of books by disabled authors this year (only including new books read)*: 8

*This can only include authors I know are disabled. More on the list could be and I might not know.

Breakdown by genre (only counting new books read)
-Fiction: 72 (Fantasy: 28; Science Fiction: 10; Graphic Novel: 9; Historical Fiction: 6; YA: 4 Classics: 3; Literary Fiction: 3; Romance: 3; Middle Grade: 3; Mystery: 1; Thriller: 1; Short Stories: 1)
-Nonfiction: 25 (History: 7; Memoir: 5; Science: 3; Disability Studies: 3; Art: 2; Politics: 2; Biography: 1; Literary Criticism: 1; Nature: 1)
-Poetry: 4

First book of the year: The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi

Last book of the year: Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins

Most read author of the year: A tie between Neil Gaiman and Rick Riordan (I read 8 of each)

Best books of the year (in no particular order; not including rereads):
Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune
Tethered to Other Stars by Elisa Stone Leahy
Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs
City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty
Cantoras by Carolina de Robertis
Middlegame by Seanan McGuire
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki
Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky
A Power Unbound by Freya Marske
Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley
Lady Tan’s Circle of Women by Lisa See
Pet by Awaeke Emezi
Devil is fine (below)
Aces Wild by Amanda DeWitt (below)

Worst books of the year:
City of Thieves by David Benioff

Books I didn’t finish:
Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements edited by Walidah Imarisha and Adrienne Maree Brown (below)
The Chaos of Empire: The British Raj and the Conquest of India by J. Wilson-Wilson
Twilight Territory by Andrew X. Pham
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Islam, Arabs, and the Intelligent World of the Jinn by Amira El-Zein

December Books Reread

Version 1.0.0

True Biz by Sara Nović***
Book Hangover Alert**
CW: discrimination, ableism, audism
Still fantastic. I went to an author event where Nović spoke about this book, and it was so good. I felt like I had to read it again. I still really enjoyed it. You can refer to my previous review, so I don’t repeat myself, but here are some things I didn’t note last time: I liked the formatting choices for the dialogue. I just took a class on dialogue, so I was hyperaware of the dialogue as I was reading. Especially since so much of the dialogue in this book is sign language, I thought Nović’s choices were really effective.
5/5 cochlear implants

December New Books Read

Devil Is Fine by John Vercher***
Book Hangover Alert**
CW: grief, racism
Following the death of his teenaged son, the unnamed narrator inherits a piece of land from his estranged white grandfather, intended for his son. When the land turns out to be an old plantation, full of buried secrets, and the narrator stops being able to distinguish reality, he must confront his grief and his inherited trauma. This was so good. I don’t even really have anything else to say. It was just really good. I liked the way the book is constructed as the narrator speaking to his dead son. I like how meta it is. I liked the magical realism. The narrator is flawed and a bit annoying, but still very compelling. As someone who works in museums, I loved the engagement with the ethical question of the role of museums when dealing with human remains, especially those of slaves.
5/5 jellyfish

Remember You Will Die by Eden Robins***
Book Hangover Alert**
CW: death, homophobia
This book was really cool. We love an experimental form. Told entirely in obituaries, Remember You Will Die weaves forward and backward through time to tell the story of an advanced AI and her daughter, missing and presumed dead. The way the obituaries connect and tell the story not just through what they say, but also what they don’t say, was really cool.
4/5 obituaries

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens*
It’s winter, so Dickens season. This book has been on my to read shelf an embarrassingly long time. Probably at least a decade. Set during and before the French Revolution in London and Paris (the proverbial Two Cities), the story follows Dr. Manette and his daughter and critiques both the bloody methods of the revolutionaries and the excess and greed of the upper classes that led to the revolution. I enjoyed it. This book has more plot than many of Dickens’s other books, but less vibes. I kinda like the vibes more, I think. None of the characters in this book are very memorable the way the characters in David Copperfield or Oliver are. Not to say it isn’t good, because it is. I just thought I would like it more than I did.
3/5 guillotines

Indiana University Press

Feminist, Queer, Crip by Alison Kafer***
CW: ableism, forced sterilization, institutionalization
I read this in preparation for my class on accessible futures. It’s really good. Kafer examines the idea of the future and where disability fits into imagined futures. She deconstructs the idea that there is no place for disability in the future.
4/5 ableist billboards

Holiday House

Aces Wild by Amanda DeWitt***
Book Hangover Alert**
I loved this. When Jack’s mother, a Vegas casino tycoon, goes to jail for her shady business practices, Jack is sure rival casino owner is behind it–I mean, she’s not any shadier than any of the other casino tycoons in Vegas. So Jack calls in reinforcements–his best friends, a group of teenaged asexuals he met online–to pull off a heist that will save his home, his mom, and put the right person behind bars. This was so fun, and we love to see that ace representation!
5/5 blackjack hands

A Jingle Bell Mingle by Sierra Simone and Julie Murphy
Christmas Notch book 3 of 3
CW: grief
Randomly read this without reading the first two books because I didn’t realize it was a series. It’s okay though, each book focuses on a different couple so you don’t necessarily have to read them in order. Though I certainly would have had a better introduction to the characters if I had done that. In the first chapter I was like wow that was a lot of people and names, and I feel like I was supposed to know who they were. In Christmas Notch retired pop star and famous sad boy Isaac Kelly and part time porn star and part time screenwriter Sunny Palmer are both on a deadline. He needs to write one last album for his record label and she needs to write the screenplay to a new Christmas blockbuster. The only problem is he hasn’t been able to write music since his wife and muse died and she’s hit a dead end tracking down the story of a Christmas miracle that happened in Christmas Notch. So they decide to team up: Isaac will help Sunny research this miracle, if Sunny helps Isaac find a new muse. Except maybe he’s already found one: her. Overall I enjoyed this, though it was too spicy for my tastes. And the town’s Christmas mystery wasn’t really too much of a mystery. But Murphy and Simone do a great job writing fun, compelling characters even if they do suffer from the perennial problem of romance novel characters: being stupid, insecure, and unable to see the love interest is into them.
3/5 photo booths

Grand Central Publishing

Born Both: An Intersex Life by Hida Viloria***
A nonfiction memoir charting the life of activist Hida Viloria and her work to end Intersex Genital Mutilation and gain equal rights and recognition for those born intersex. I definitely learned a lot from this memoir. If your only exposure to intersex experiences is Jeffrey Eugenides’s Middlesex, you should read this. Eugenides isn’t an authority.
3.5/5 motorcycles

The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter*
This was a very fun holiday read. Two antagonistic mystery writers are invited to the Scottish mansion of prolific mystery writer Eleanor Ashley for Christmas with her family. When Eleanor disappears from a locked room without a trace, Maggie and Ethan must learn to work together to unravel the mystery of her disappearance. I liked it more than The Jingle Bell Mingle, mostly I think because it was a mystery, not just a romance, and it wasn’t as spicy. Very fun. Good banter, good construction. Nice character arc for Maggie.
4/5 mistletoe plants

The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong
A cozy fantasy. Teller of small fortunes Tao travels from place to place, telling only small fortunes, trying to avoid the notice of the kingdom’s magefinders, who recruit magic wielders to serve the crown. Tao joins up with a rag tag band of misfits looking for the vanished daughter of a mercenary for hire. This book was kind of nice. It was cozy fantasy, but unlike Legends and Lattes, there didn’t really seem to be much of a goal for the main character. The ending was excellent though. Very heartwarming, very lovely. Not sure the book earned it though.
3/5 fortune cookies

Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins*
This book has been on my to read shelf since maybe 2009 or 2010 (sometime before Mockingjay came out but after I’d read Hunger Games). Very embarrassing. When Gregor and his two year old little sister fall through a grate in their New York City apartment’s basement, they fall in to the dangerous world of the Underland, where giant bats, cockroaches, spiders, and rats live in fragile peace with the humans of the Underland. Gregor must join a quest to save the Underland and maybe even save his father, who had disappeared several years before. Collins really knows how to write a narrative that you are comfortable finishing in one sitting. You just want to keep turning the pages. Her work is so easy to read, it doesn’t even feel like you’re reading. Anyway I really enjoyed this. I mostly grabbed it to finally get it off my to read shelf. I wasn’t expecting to like it that much now that I’m not in the target audience, but now I’m thinking I might just read the rest of the series.
4/5 crawlers

Books I didn’t finish in December

AK Press

Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements edited by Walidah Imarisha and Adrienne Maree Brown
I wanted to like this. I picked it up because I was looking for a short story to teach in my class and this collection looked like exactly what I was looking for: science fiction stories of hope written by intersectional writers of color. But I didn’t really like any of the stories. And I did want to keep reading, because maybe there were some good ones and I just didn’t get to them?? Anyway, the editors said they asked people across social movements to contribute, which is a cool idea, but they also added that many of these people had never written fiction before, and I was like oof, I can tell. The best stories were Terry Bisson’s and Levar Burton’s, but both of those were excerpts from novels, not stories commissioned for this anthology, so I would recommend just reading them on their own in their entirety.
1/5 futures

*This book only includes straight, white, cis people. A Tale of Two Cities is an old book written by a white man so we’re not surprised. The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year is just a book that has no diversity. Gregor the Overlander has no romance, so maybe not all the characters are straight. They are all white though.

**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 True Biz to learn more about the Deaf community. Read Devil is Fine for a look at the legacy and trauma of racism and slavery. Read Remember You Will Die for LGBTQIA+ representation in sci-fi. Read Feminist, Queer, Crip for an intersectional look at the future through a disability studies lens. Read Aces Wild for ace representation. Read Born Both to learn more about one of the pioneers of intersex activism and the discrimination that community still faces.

Reads marked as part of the Books for a Social Conscience series will regularly address topics like race and racism, colonialism and post-colonialism, LGBTQIA+ 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.

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October 2024 Books

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

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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

Delacorte Press

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

Knopf Doubleday Publishing

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

Indiana University Press

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

National Geographic Books

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

Radius Books

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

Penguin

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

Simon and Schuster

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.

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May 2023 Books

New Books Read

Simon & Schuster

The Last Hero by Linden A. Lewis***
Book Hangover Alert**
The First Sister Trilogy book 3 of 3
CW: fantasy racism, oppression, scientific research and testing without consent, prostitution
The stunning conclusion to the First Sister Trilogy, this book is a whirlwind of war, politics, and resistance. I won’t say too much because I don’t want to spoil anything for those who haven’t read the first two books. I enjoyed the final book, though I do feel like the pacing was relentless in that every chapter we switched character POVs and every chapter the POV character was in mortal danger. It was exhausting as a reader. The book is already pretty long, but I felt I need some places to rest when the characters could breathe. But I found the series conclusion satisfying.
4/5 synthetics

River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer***
CW: slavery, n-word, racism
I wanted to like this book more than I did. In Barbados just after the end of slavery, a mother searches for her children who were sold away from her plantation. She discovers freedom in the long shadow of slavery. While I was interested in learning more about the history of slavery in the Caribbean and about the legacy of slavery, particularly how it continued with the ‘apprenticeships’ after the legal end of slavery, I didn’t feel like I connected with any of the characters. I also felt that the protagonist’s journey was almost too easy. She actually does find out what happened to all of her children which seems sort of unlikely. I also found the way the dialogue was written to be rather jarring. I’m sure it was probably historically more accurate than writing the dialogue like we speak today, but it pulled me out of the story.
3/5 rivers

Hellbent by Leigh Bardugo
Book Hangover Alert**
Alex Stern book 2 of at least 2
I was utterly useless for three days while I sat and read this book, doing everything one handed and complaining about going to work. Alex Stern, agent of Lethe, the oversight agency of the secret societies at Yale, continues her quest to rescue her mentor Darlington, ready to go through hell and back to bring him home. It was excellent. Perhaps even better than the first one. There are a few pretty traumatic events in the first book, and this one was in my opinion less traumatic. We also got to spend more time with characters we already love, so that’s why I think I enjoyed it even more than Ninth House.
5/5 rituals to open a portal to hell

Temeraire LLC

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik
Scholomance book 1 of 3
This book was very enjoyable. In an odd way, it reminded me of Gideon the Ninth in that it was a fantasy with a complicated magic system and world building with a protagonist with a very distinctive voice. Unlike Gideon the Ninth though, I liked it. I liked El’s distinct voice and how she grew over the novel. It was a little hard to understand the magic system and world at first but it was very unique and worth the effort to understand it.
3.5/5 mals

Disney Hyperion

The Sun and the Star by Rick Riordan and Mark Oshiro***
Companion to the Percy Jackson series
CW: trauma
We’ve all been waiting for Uncle Rick to give us a book about Nico and Will and it’s finally here! Nico, son of Hades, and Will, son of Apollo, must undertake a quest to Tartarus to rescue a friend. Along the way, they’ll learn just how much they mean to one another. This book was good. It was enjoyable and I’m grateful to Riordan and Oshiro for writing it because it think there are some teenaged queers that need to see themselves represented in fantasy. I didn’t love it as much as I’d hoped; I didn’t love it as much as the first two series of Percy Jackson books. There was a lot of working through trauma and developing healthy relationships, which are of course good things, but sometimes you just want demigods making jokes and killing monsters.
3.5/5 nightmares

Macmillan

The Crane Husband by Kelly Barnhill
CW: domestic violence
I love Barnhill’s work. In the near future, a teenaged girl’s mother falls in love with a man who is sometimes a crane, and sometimes a man. The crane soon becomes an abusive and menacing presence, demanding the mother, a talented weaver, create a masterpiece for him. The protagonist is then left to care for the house and her younger brother alone without the income from her mother’s work, and unable to convince her mother of the evil of the crane. The novella is a dark fantasy reimagining of the crane wife folktale from Japanese mythology, and it does a wonderful job of examining domestic violence, generational trauma, and the patriarchy.
4.5/5 cranes

Hachette Book Group

The Bone Shard War by Andrea Stewart***
**Book Hangover Alert
The Drowning Empire book 3 of 3
Another conclusion to a trilogy this month. Two years after the conclusion of book two, Emperor Lin is struggling to hold her empire together as the governors grumble, resistance factions spring up, and the secrets of the Alanga threaten to tumble her rule. Sometimes I feel like writers give their characters too much adversity. I realize the story would be boring without it, but at this point I just want Lin and Jovis to be happy. The conclusion to the series was bittersweet and satisfying, which is really the most I can ask of any book.
4/5 ossalen

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz***
CW: homophobia, hate crimes
This book gets a lot of hype on BookTok, and I’ll be honest, I thought it was going to be more gay. In this coming of age novel, Mexican-American Ari and his best friend Dante learn how to be themselves in a world that’s not always kind. The book is compulsively readable but I didn’t love it and I didn’t hate it. Ari has a lot of self loathing to work out, which is a relatable experience for many queer teens, but is not always enjoyable to read. I have one other qualm but it’s a spoiler so read on at your own risk. Read More: SPOILERS AHEAD

Throughout the book, Ari is obsessed with knowing more about his brother who has been in jail since he was young and no one in his family will talk about him. Ari eventually finds out that his brother committed a homophobic hate crime, murdering a trans person. And that doesn’t really seem to bother Ari that much? Which I thought was odd? Ari is irate when he learns Dante is beaten to within an inch of his life for being gay, but he seems to feel no anger that his brother committed that crime. And I understand that Ari is worried about becoming like his brother because he also has anger issues and likes to fight. But he chooses to put up photos of his brother and wants to write to him in prison and while I’m all for forgiveness and healing, I didn’t understand why he wasn’t more upset that his brother MURDERED someone, specifically a trans woman.

3/5 birds with broken wings

Me trying to be as cool as Claude Cahun with her self portrait photography

Exist Otherwise: The Life and Works of Claude Cahun by Jennifer L. Shaw***
CW: antisemitism, homophobia
This lovely coffee table book details the life of Claude Cahun, an artist and writer active in the Surrealist movement of the 1920s. Cahun and her partner Marcel Moore also resisted fascism, running a sophisticated anti-Nazi propaganda movement on the occupied island of Jersey during WWII. The book is fascinating and full of photographs of Cahun and Moore’s work. Moore was an artist in her own right and she and Cahun collaborated on much of their artistic work.
3.5/5 surreal collages

Flatiron Books

Atalanta by Jennifer Saint
CW: victim blaming, rape
Jennifer Saint is one of my favorite writers of mythological reimaginings. Atalanta follows the titular character from her abandonment on a mountain as a baby, her childhood being raised by bears and nymphs of Artemis, and her involvement in the Argonaut’s quest for the golden fleece. The champion of Artemis and the only woman on the quest, through Atalanta’s eyes we get to experience the myth of the golden fleece anew through a feminist lens. I adored it.
5/5 bears

Lake Union Publishing

Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark T. Sullivan***
CW: genocide, slavery, antisemitism, war
Based on a true story, this novel follows the experiences of Pino Lella during WWII as he helped refugees flee across the Alps from Italy to Switzerland and then became a spy for the resistance in the Nazi high command by driving for General Hans Leyers. The book was definitely very engaging and interesting. I didn’t know much about the war in Italy. That being said, there have been some rumblings on the internet about how much truth there is in this ‘true story.’ The author’s note states the following:

“Due to the document burning, the collective amnesia, and the death of so many characters by the time I learned of the story, I have been forced in places to construct scenes and dialogue based solely on Pino’s memory decades later, the scant physical evidence that remains, and my imagination fueled by my research and informed suspicions. I have also comingled or compressed events and characters for the sake of narrative coherence and have fully dramatized incidents that were described to me in much more truncated forms.

As a result, then, the story you are about to read is not a work of narrative nonfiction, but a novel of biographical and historical fiction that hews closely to what happened to Pino Lella between June 1943 and May 1945.”

-Mark T. Sullivan

So perhaps it’s more constructive to think about this book like a movie based on a true story–as we know movies always “Hollywoodize” the true story. Several different people on the internet have made different claims about the veracity of several pieces of the narrative. So I guess I would say to read the book, enjoy it, learn more about the broad strokes of WWII in Italy, but treat the book more as a historical fiction.
3.5/5 cathedrals of God

Weyward by Emilia Hart
CW: domestic violence, abuse, trauma, rape
I enjoyed this book. It was my March BOTM pick. The novel follows three women from different generations of the Weyward family as they discover their affinity with nature, survive abusive men, and come into their own power. I found all three narratives compelling and I liked the way they were all woven together. I did find the writing style a little choppy and featuring too many em dashes (which contributed to the choppiness) at least in the first half of the book. It didn’t bother me as much in the second half, either because I got used to it or the writing flowed better later on.
3.5/5 crows

HarperCollins

The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang***
The Poppy War book 1 of 3
CW: genocide, extreme body horror and mutilation, rape, war, addiction, colorism, racism, human experimentation, self harm, slavery
I loved Babel by Kuang so I was really excited to read this book. The start to an epic fantasy trilogy, the story follows Rin, an orphan from a remote part of the Nikara Empire who tests into the elite military academy Sinegard where she attempts to prove she belongs there. Along the way she discovers her own shamanic powers and begins to unravel the mysteries of her past. The book is inspired by Chinese military history from the mid-20th century but set in a world closer to the Song Dynasty of the 13th century, with fantastical elements. It’s an incredible work of fantasy to be sure. I didn’t love it, and it isn’t because it wasn’t good. It was good. All the characters, but especially Rin, were so complex and interesting and flawed. It was so fresh and new and I’ve never read anything like it. But it was a little too dark for my taste. It was a little too gory. The atrocities were more gruesome and horrifying than I wanted to read about. I’m not very knowledgable about Chinese and Japanese history, so it’s possible that some of the atrocities described by Kuang are inspired by actual events, in which case I think it’s important to learn about those things, however, I didn’t necessarily pick up this book because I wanted to read 101 ways humans can desecrate other humans. That being said, I’ll probably still read the rest of them.
4/5 poppy seeds

HarperCollins

Yellowface by R. F. Kuang***
Book Hangover Alert**
CW: racism, microaggressions, anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts
I can’t stop thinking about this book. And I’m not sure I’ve thought about it long enough to form a coherent review of it. Yellowface follows June Hayward, a white author who steals an unfinished novel draft from her Asian-American author friend after her untimely death. June finishes the novel and passes it off as her own and we watch as everything spirals out of control. This book reminded me of Self Care in it’s page-turning, watching-a-train-wreck quality. And June reminded me of the protagonists in Self Care, who were the same kind of white woman (we all know the one). Kuang’s biting satire of the publishing industry brings up a lot of important issues like who should be able to tell what kind of story, what is cultural appropriation, how the publishing industry treats writers of color, how privilege operates in the industry, how white women weaponize their own victimhood. It was so good. I might have more to say later, but I’m still in the lie-on-the-floor stage of the Book Hangover.
5/5 stolen manuscripts

**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 The Last Hero for disability, LGBTQIA+ rep in sci-fi. Read River Sing Me Home to learn about the legacy of slavery in Barbados. Read The Sun and the Star for LGBTQIA+ rep in fantasy. Read The Bone Shard War for an Asian inspired fantasy with LGBTQIA+ rep. Read Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe for a Mexican-America, gay coming of age story. Read Exist Otherwise: The Life and Words of Claude Cahun to learn about a forgotten female, lesbian artist and her heroic resistance against the Nazis. Read Beneath a Scarlet Sky to learn more about WWII and the atrocities committed in Italy. Read The Poppy War for a fantasy inspired by Chinese and Japanese history. Read Yellowface to learn more about racism and microaggressions in the publishing industry.

Reads marked as part of the Books for a Social Conscience series will regularly address topics like race and racism, colonialism and post-colonialism, LGBTQIA+ 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.

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September 2021 Books

Books Reread

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros***
CW: rape, sexual harassment
I read parts of this book in high school and read the whole thing in college. Now I’m volunteering with a 9th grade English class and they’re reading this book so I read it again. Cisneros is just such a beautiful writer. Her prose is simple and clean, but so poetic and evocative. It’s easy to read but there’s so much going on under the surface. It’s still magical even after reading it several times.
4/5 houses

The Doll’s House by Neil Gaiman
Sandman Vol 2
CW: violence, gore, serial murder
I don’t know whether to put this in new books read or in books reread. I listened to the Audible radio play of Sandman which goes through the first 3 volumes I believe. I had read the first volume of the comics when I listened to it but no more. So when I read this volume, the story was familiar, but the illustrations were new to me–and since Sandman is a comic, the illustrations are pretty important.
3.5/5 “cereal” killers

Orchard Books

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi
If you read my post on my favorite stand alone novels, this book was in there. I first read this book when I was younger and really enjoyed it. Reading it again I didn’t remember very well what had happened but I still really enjoyed it. I loved that Charlotte develops so much over the course of the book and that she’s such a strong female character. One thing that bothered me that I don’t remember noticing when I was younger was how cowardly the crew was. They never spoke up against the captain or for their peers. It also strikes me as an allegory for how the upper classes keep control of the working classes. There are a lot more of the working classes than there are of those in power, but by keeping the working classes divided and suspicious of each other, those in power keep them from organizing against the power structures. Anyway, if they had worked together from the beginning, they could have solved their problems faster.
4/5 round robins

New Books Read

Half Sick of Shadows by Laura Sebastian
This was my book of the month for June (I’ve gotten a bit behind reading my BOTM picks), and I enjoyed it. I maybe shouldn’t have read it almost back to back with The Mists of Avalon as that led to a lot of comparison between the two. I don’t really know what (if anything) is “canon” as far as the story of King Arthur goes but it interests me that the kinship ties in each version I’ve encountered are different. Like in The Mists of Avalon, I liked the feminist spin on the King Arthur tale, centering the story on Elaine this time instead of Arthur or Morgana/Morgaine. I also appreciated how Sebastian characterized Guinevere, who we so rarely get to see as anything but a pious and subservient queen turned seductress. Even in The Mists of Avalon, though she’s a rounded character, she isn’t much of a feminist. I also really enjoyed the way Sebastian wove the story forward and backward in time using Elaine’s visions of various futures. She created a really delicious tension between Elaine and the fate she was trying to control. And finally, I love the way all three women, Elaine, Guinevere, and Morgana, were able to forge their own path despite the seemingly inevitable futures laid out for them.
3.5/5 fateful visions

Oneworld Publications

The Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley***
**Book Hangover Alert
CW: gun violence, rape, drug trafficking, drug and alcohol abuse, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, racism
This book was so good; it was really hard to put down. I loved it, but it was pretty intense, so don’t go for it if you’re looking for something light. I loved the way Boulley represented her Native culture and practices. I also loved the sense of community with the Elders; there are a couple of scenes of the protagonist and the Elders that I just keep thinking about and they make me feel all warm inside every time I do. I learned a lot about being enrolled as a tribal member, prejudices within tribes, casinos, and the meth epidemic. One more thing I want to mention: I always hate when books have titles like “The [insert profession of a man]’s Wife/Daughter/Sister” because the woman is totally defined by her relationship to this man, however this book makes a point of discussing this and linking it to a Native story that the protagonist rejects because the woman doesn’t get her own name. So I love that self-awareness.
4.5/5 suspicious hockey pucks

Penguin Books

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
All Souls Trilogy book 1 of 3
I was disappointed by this book. I was really interested in the history and the alchemy and the magic and the mystery of the manuscript, but then Harkness had to go and ruin it with this overblown romance with a vampire. Personally I think vampires are a bit overrated. Sure he’s super handsome and strong, but he’s also super problematic. Why can’t anyone write a progressive vampire for once? Matthew’s misogyny, his controlling tendencies, his annoying overprotectiveness, and his anger issues are excused because he’s been alive for 1500 years (things were different back then, men treated women differently in those days) and because he’s a vampire (he can’t resist his predatory instincts–*big eye roll*). C’mon, the dude’s been alive for 1500 years, he couldn’t have gone to therapy in all that time to work through this stuff? Anyway, the romance really did not do it for me (also, who thinks being touched and kissed by cold hands and lips is a turn on?). I did read the whole thing because I was hoping to find out more about the mysterious manuscript and the secret of Diana’s parents’ murder. Then I realized it’s the first book in a trilogy so while we found out some answers, we didn’t find out all of them. I won’t be reading the rest of the books.
3/5 objects from the past

W. W. Norton and Company

Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings by Joy Harjo***
Joy Harjo is the current Poet Laureate of the United States, serving in her second term. Some of her books including this one are available to Audible members for free so I definitely recommend listening to them. She also reads her own poetry in this one which is always nice to hear a poet reading their own work. I do wish I could both read and listen to the poems because that’s how I best understand poetry but I did really enjoy listening to Harjo’s work. I liked the way she sort of sang some of the poems, reminiscent of some tribal music.
3.5/5 holy beings

**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 The House on Mango Street to learn more about Chicana experience. Read The Firekeeper’s Daughter to learn more about Native communities and values, and the affects drug trafficking and MMIW have had on those communities. Read Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings to celebrate the poetry of the US’s first Native Poet Laureate.
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.

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May 2021 Books

It’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, but it’s kind of a coincidence that I read several books from that community. We celebrate anyway!

New Books Read

HarperCollins India

Gold Diggers by Sanjena Sathian***
CW: suicide, substance abuse
I’ve had this book on hold at the library for weeks and I’m so glad I wasn’t disappointed. The book is a treat for those who are fascinated by stories of alchemy. What I particularly loved was that it was rooted in Indian mythology of alchemy and not in the Western canon. I also loved how the novel challenged perceptions about the history of Indian immigrants to the US (namely that it’s a recent phenomenon). I did think Neil, the protagonist, was a bit annoying, mostly just in how selfish he was, but I realize characters need to have flaws and he mostly overcomes it by the end. I’m still thinking about this scene near the end of the book that I won’t spoil, but it’s so euphoric and beautiful and the images were so strong.
3.5/5 gold bangles

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez***
CW: suicide attempt (not successful), suicidal ideation, death of a family member, anorexia, child abuse, sexual assault
I knew this book was going to be sad and it was. The premise is sad: Julia’s sister is killed in a car accident and she is left without her sister and with the weight of her parents’ expectations that she be a ‘perfect Mexican daughter’ like her sister. This is a coming-of-age story of a teenaged writer trying to find her voice and her place among her family and in the US as a child of undocumented immigrants. It reminded me a bit of The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo (see February 2021 book blog), though I don’t think I liked it quite as much. As a character Julia is pretty angsty and abrasive, though she definitely has reason to be. Overall though, it was a hopeful and lovely book that I think a lot of teenagers probably need.
3.5/5 quinceañera dresses

Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala ***
First book in a planned series
CW: indications of evidence planting and police intimidation, drug use, fatphobia, racism, domestic violence (this is the warning Manansala puts in the author’s note at the beginning of the book, specifically for Filipino readers)
This was my Book of the Month for April and it was so fun. It’s a cozy mystery and its good pacing keeps the pages turning and your mouth watering. The protagonist, Lila helps run her aunt’s Filipino restaurant, but then when Lila’s ex-boyfriend ends up dead from poisoning at her restaurant, she has to figure out who is framing her. I’m usually not much of a mystery reader, and the last mystery I read (see The Accidental Alchemist in the November 2020 blog) was not good. I liked that everything I complained about in that book was handled much better in this book: I cared about the characters and their backstories, I cared about solving the mystery, and the answer to the mystery was satisfying. I also liked that I wasn’t immediately able to guess the killer, but was able to put together the clues and arrive at the answer just a hair ahead of Lila. I also appreciated the nuance of the characters from Asian diasporas. I think it’s easy as a white person to lump together immigrants from all parts of Asia, so I liked the way Manansala explored the differences and similarities in experience of her Filipino, Korean, Indian, and Japanese characters. Left me hungry for more (more novels, and also more Filipino food).
4/5 plates of adobo

In the Kingdom of Men by Kim Barnes
Based on the title of this book, I did not have particularly high hopes that I would like it. I was pleasantly surprised! I want to say this book reminded me of the Awakening by Kate Chopin, but in the best possible way, as I didn’t actually like the Awakening that much. It follows a young couple in the 1960s that moves to Saudi Arabia to work at the Aramco oil drilling site. I really liked Barnes’s writing style and how she explored femininity and feminism through the lenses of two different patriarchal societies. I loved how the protagonist Gin evolves through the story to become a strong, independent, and self-actualized woman. I also liked that the ending wasn’t super predictable. I won’t spoil it, but it wasn’t the way I would have expected the story to end.
3.5/5 Arabian horses

The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan***
CW: institutionalization and torture of disabled (and perceived disabled) people, child abuse, war and death
Weaving forward and backward through time, and through past lives, Tan creates a nuanced and rich novel. I loved the way the past lives of the characters paralleled their current lives. I didn’t think Olivia, the protagonist, was particularly likable at the beginning but she is an extremely human and believable character, which I commend Tan for, and she is more likable by the end. I loved the stories Kwan told and the descriptions of China. I also really appreciated Tan’s portrayal of sisterhood and family. Kwan and Olivia’s relationship was really nuanced and I loved the way it developed over the course of the novel.
3.5/5 snowy owls

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy***
CW: sexual assault, domestic violence, alcoholism, police brutality, incest
Roy’s writing is gorgeous. The tempo, the cadence, the sound, the way she uses metaphor and repetition. I also loved the way she built tension and a deep sense of dread throughout the novel by revealing the picture bit by bit and not in chronological order. But I will say, I didn’t love the plot or the characters. I feel like a lot of adult and literary fiction is just about miserable people doing miserable things and that was definitely the case here. My sister told me I wasn’t really going to like this one and she was right, but I’ll still say that the writing style is what kept me reading to the end.
3/5 spoiled puffs

Books read for the Community Cats Podcast Blog

Animalkind by Ingrid Newkirk and Gene Stone
CW: graphic descriptions of violence against animals
Part 1 of Animalkind reads a bit like a very long list of fun facts about animals. If you’re already an animal lover and enjoy watching nature documentaries, or you’ve studied psychology, then much of the information won’t be particularly new or surprising. In part 2 of the book, the authors make the case for not using animals in medical testing, for clothing, for food, or as entertainment (as in circuses), emphasizing the cruelties of these industries. They include a rather exhaustive list of alternatives to using animals in these industries. Though I don’t doubt the cruelties chronicled in the book, I did feel that the way they chose to share these abuses sensationalized the violence, much like our 24 hour news cycle, which just desensitizes us to violence. The arguments for not using animals also seemed not to really consider the full complexity of many issues. In the discussion of clothing, synthetic fabrics are heralded as an alternative to animal-based products, but we shouldn’t pretend that these are without their problems. Both the production and even just the washing of polyester and acrylic fabrics create microplastics that usually end up in the ocean, ultimately still hurting animals, just fish instead of sheep. It has also been well documented that laborers in the textile industry are often exploited. In the discussion of food there was no acknowledgement that veganism is often inaccessible for people who live in food deserts or low-income areas. It also tends to be gentrified and elitist. Though the authors suggested many brands of vegan chocolate, no mention was made of the fact that most cocoa is harvested by exploited workers who are often children. 

While I absolutely agree with everything the authors are arguing, I found the book not nearly as compelling as Our Symphony With Animals, in which Dr. Ahktar (see September 2020 book blog) uses personal stories illustrating the human-animal bond to make a similar argument. I do like that Animalkind gives the reader a guide for what they can do personally to help animals in these industries (i.e. weaponizing your power as a consumer and a voter, advocacy, and more).
2.5/5 whale songs

Related: Read Staging Tourism by Jane C. Desmond for a nuanced discussion of why humans have always been fascinated by animal bodies and the exploitation that is animal tourism.

But First, Rumi by Chitra Ramaswami
CW: descriptions of cruelty toward animals
On the Community Cats Podcast, host Stacy always asks podcast guests how they first became passionate about cats. But First, Rumi is Ramaswami’s story. A quick read, the memoir documents how she met Rumi, a street cat who lived near her family’s home in Oman. Ramaswami began feeding the stray and he gradually wormed his way into her heart, as many of us will understand. Their story explores the deep human-animal bond and how saving an animal can be like saving yourself. Though she admits she was not much of a cat-person prior to meeting Rumi, Ramaswami fell in love with the Omani Mau and then became aware of the many problems facing animal welfare in Oman. She attempts to reconcile the kindness of the people with the cruelty she observes when it comes to the street cats. At the end of the book she also suggests ways to help the community cats in Oman and what can be done to promote kindness and compassion toward all animals.
3/5 Omani Maus

The Little Book of Boards by Erik Hanberg
Though I’m not on the board of any kind of nonprofit, I felt Hanberg’s book was a great primer for anyone who might want to be. He starts off with what a board does and what your duties are as a board member, which sounds simple but is very useful for those who have never served on or worked with the board of a nonprofit. The second part of the book is devoted to the duties of board leaders (committee chairs, board officers, and the board president). The book finishes off with an extensive appendix of resources including how to update bylaws, how to create an effective committee structure, how to recruit board members, and more. Hanberg’s book is slim and full of practical advice. I would say it’s definitely a good book to pick up if you’re thinking about joining the board of a small nonprofit. Hanberg also has other books for small nonprofits on social media (The Little Book of Likes) and fundraising (The Little Book of Gold).
3/5 nonprofits

Human-Animal Interaction: A Social Work Guide by Janet Hoy-Gerlach and Scott Wehman***
This is a good read for social workers, shelter workers, and veterinarians. The authors discuss how human-animal interaction can be integrated into social work practices to better meet the client where they are. They point to domestic violence situations where survivors might be unwilling to go to a shelter because of a pet, clients with suicidal thoughts who haven’t committed suicide because of the pet they care for, those who have lost a pet and are suffering from disenfranchised grief, and older clients who worry what will happen to their pet if they go to the hospital or die. Though pet owners know how important animal companions are in their lives, this is something that has not been fully explored within the realm of social work as far as the benefits as well as stressors that can come from pets, and the social supports that should be in place to help people and their pets thrive. The book is a great place for social workers who want to incorporate animal-based therapy and support for clients, as well as for shelter workers and veterinarians who want to take a more holistic approach to the care of both pets and clients.
3/5 animal companions

***This book is part of my Books for a Social Conscience series! Read Gold Diggers to learn more about the Indian American experience as well as Indian immigration history and Indian mythology. Read I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter to learn about the experience of undocumented immigrants and the difficulties of mental illness. Read Arsenic and Adobo for some diversity in the mystery genre, as well learning about the diversity of the Asian diaspora. Read The Hundred Secret Senses to learn more about colonialism in China as well as the Chinese-American immigrant experience. Read The God of Small Things to read a classic of Indian literature and to learn more about the caste system and the affects of colonialism in India. Read Human-Animal Interaction to grow your empathy for humans and animals and to learn how we can best support that symbiotic relationship with social change.
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.

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