Category: Book reviews

There Are Things I Know by Karen B. Golightly. 5/5
This is a great children’s book about an observant and clever little boy who is kidnapped and must rely on his wits to save himself. It’s about the power of watching and listening, and of knowledge and knowing how and when to trust someone. Author Golightly creates a unique and true voice in young Pepper, one that I think many kids and parents will find relatable and honest. And while the book serves to teach a lesson, it’s never pedantic or preachy–it’s an adventure story that will help children learn to protect themselves.

Looking for Lorraine by Imani Perry. 4/5
At the beginning of this book, the author discusses her connections with and similarities to Lorraine Hansberry, and intimates that this will be a personal kind of biography. And while it is beautifully written and well-conceived as a biography, I never felt the connections Perry suggests are present. Instead, it’s a good introduction to Hansberry and her closest friends and a few of her lovers, and it’s a pleasant read, meandering from moment to moment in Hansberry’s life. It emphasizes her social justice concerns and work, but it tells us that she was passionate rather than letting her own words do that work. It tells us that she was young and gifted and black, but quotes her own words only fleetingly. It’s an excellent book, but that introduction promised so much more.

The Alehouse at the End of the World by Stevan Allred. 2/5
I wanted to like this book. It’s elegantly written and has some very interesting ideas about the nature of self and life and death, and makes use of historically-relevant metaphorical figures. But it is dull, and it is repetitive, and all of the elegance and metaphor in the world can’t help it move along a little faster and in a way that makes any of the characters seem anything but cardboard.

The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi. 1/5
In this book, a group of incredibly wealthy and powerful young people–and some of their poorer friends, some of whom are actually the wealthy folks’ slaves, gather together–or are forced to–in order to pull off a heist that will return one of said wealthy young people to the ranks of even more wealthy and powerful people. Everyone is young and gorgeous and magically talented and wears fabulous clothes and entertains in grand and whimsical and decadent places and ways and what a bunch of incredibly horrible snobs, who believe that your bloodlines make you better than other people and who use people in horrible ways to attain recognition of said bloodlines and what an utter waste of paper and ink.

The Western Wind by Samantha Harvey. 5/5
In a small medieval village in England, a priest narrates his story backwards, allowing the reader to linger on simple words and constructions that slowly reveal the story as a whole. A man has died. But how, and why? And who surrounds the man, and the priest, in the village? Who is touched and touched by this tale? Harvey’s language is ravishing and spare and evocative and perfect for the ekphrasis of this novel. Balancing between narrative and description and prose poetry and incorporating the everyday misery and joy of life, this novel is one to savor and treasure and teach and share.

A People’s Future of the United States by Edited by Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams. 5/5
A great collection of short stories that speculate on the future of the United States…or whatever it becomes. The stories by Charlie Jane Anders, Tananarive Due, N. K. Jemisin, Seanan McGuire, Daniel José Older, and G. Willow Wilson show why these authors had and deserve large audiences and followings. All of the stories feature “badass” characters, as requested by the editors, and they all do deliver, from people who keep information free and available to those who physically protect others. This will make a great gift for readers who want tightly written dystopic fiction in which there are still threads of hope.

Welcome to Dystopia by Gordon Van Gelder. 3/5
Dark and witty and smart and depressing stories about a future in which technology controls just about everything, and anything can be done to you, or your friends, or the planet, by technology. The theme is, of course, dystopia, but while the stories are individually mostly good reads, the collection as a whole starts to feel rather Luddite in nature about a third of the way through. The writing throughout is solid, but the repetitiveness of similar ideas dulls.

The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh. 2/5
Three sisters have been raised by psychopathic parents in an isolated compound, being forced to engage in rituals that inflict physical and psychological harm on themselves and each other. When first their father disappears, followed soon after by arrival of three strangers and then the disappearance of their mother, the sisters are forced to face new possibilities and realities. Narrated by the sisters, this is an incredibly disturbing read that asks audiences to examine the nature of religion and other belief systems, the roles of education and ignorance in families, societies, and institutions, and the ways in which women victimize other women. Content warning for rape, incest, murder, and other violence.

City of Ash and Red by Hye-young Pyun. 1/5
I can’t tell if this was supposed to be dismal or absurdist or both. A nameless male protagonist whose work centers around killing pests is sent to work in a similarly unnamed city far from home, where society has crumbled and the city is filled with trash and pestilence. The protagonist should get no sympathy, however, as he’s an admitted rapist and abuser, and as his life and the meaning in it spiral away, well, I cared less and less. I think on the surface this is a metaphor for inhumanity, and on a deeper level suggests that everyone is capable of violence. Content warning for rape and other violence.

The Curse of Oak Island by Randall Sullivan. 4/5
A solid and engaging history of Oak Island and the many and varied attempts to locate its “treasure,” Sullivan creates a chronological narrative of the treasure hunt, digging into primary sources to learn more about the treasure hunters, their beliefs about what the treasure was, how they went about trying to get it, and why they failed. Neither too detailed nor too broad in scope, Sullivan’s book will find readers among armchair explorers, historians, and conspiracy-theorists alike.

A Danger to Herself and Others by Alyssa Sheinmel. 3/5
A bright but unreliable narrator tells the story of her summer program experience gone bad. Hannah finds herself in a psychiatric hospital after her roommate at a prestigious summer program falls from a window and remains in a coma. But it’s all a misunderstanding, Hannah tells the readers, and proceeds to try to convince herself of that as well. The unreliable narrator trope is handled well, and brittle, overachieving Hannah reminds me all too well of someone I know who has similar problems telling reality from perception.