News & Thoughts

The Fairy Bargains of Prospect Hill by Rowenna Miller.3/5
You know, from the very first pages, what the bargains are going to do, and who’s going to have to pay for them. So you spend the first 60% of the book waiting for that to happen, but it’s a pleasant wait, because the descriptions are so good and lovely, and the characters are winsome. Then the thing you knew would happen happens, and you keep reading for the descriptions and, yes, to find out what happens. And all of your predictions are right, but it’s still ok, because the writing is so lovely. This is a bit hard for someone with anxiety, like me, to read, because I KNOW what’s coming and waiting for it makes me itchy, but, you know, in the end, the setting and people and non-people are all so appealing to read about that it almost doesn’t matter. Except for my pinky toe, which kept saying, skip ahead, already!

Voices of Freedom: Contemporary Writing From Ukraine by Kateryna Kazimirova & Daryna Anastasieva. 5/5
This is a violent, astonishing, innovative, and important collection of prose and poetry by Ukrainian writers, deftly translated. Every piece of writing is a different window into the country and its war with Russia, providing readers with short, strong voices telling the rest of the world what it’s like, having been invaded, raped, murdered, tortured, stolen, frightened, and starved. Where there is hope and resistance, it is equally tough and enduring. This would be a good National Read book, or an all-city read, or one of those. It’s going to stay with readers for a long time.

Abeni’s Song by P. Djèlí Clark. 5/5
Oh, I can’t wait to give this richly imagined, cleverly crafted book to the young readers I know. For middle grades, this is a story about family, both blood and found, responsibility, dedication, hard work, and how people who seem to have no power can find and take power even in the face of oppression. Ok, maybe that won’t sound so exciting to a middle-grader, so how about witches, sword-fighting scarecrows, seeing the future, animal spirits, incredible landscapes, and heroes who work together to defeat a terrible–and sad–enemy? I loved it.

The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer. 1/5
This book is trying to be charming, about people whose lives need change and are invited by their favorite childhood author to take part in a game that would give them the money they need to make those changes. But it’s not charming; it’s two-faced and cynical. On one hand, it condemns capitalism and its vicious denial of human needs, and at the same time, has a happy-ever-after ending brought on by, you guessed it, loads of money, given by a single, ultra-rich White man. Ultimately, The Wishing Game tells readers, you need to be very wealthy to be happy in America.

The Black Guy Dies First by Robin R. Means Coleman; Mark H. Harris. 1/5
This is a Buzzfeed article and listsicles in book form, and alas, it is pretty terrible. The stream-of-consciousness style, lists, trivia, and name-drops (without context) left me really disappointed in this book, whose topic is important and deserves better treatment.

The Ghost Theatre by Mat Osman. 5/5
A gorgeous and inventive re-imagining of Elizabethan England, with cameos (and more) from real figures including Black trumpeter John Blank and Elizabeth herself. The language flies and paints pictures and makes a ghost theater come to life, indeed, in the mind. The swirl of birds, a religion based on their movements, actors, Greek fire, plots within plots, daring escapes and terrible captures–all against the backdrop of a London that isn’t, or wasn’t , but easily seems like it could have been. A delicious read.

Chrome Valley: Poems by Mahogany L. Browne. 4/5
This is poetry that flies off the page and punches you, holds you against the wall while it tells you of tragedy, slams you down on the sofa and rails at systemic racism, leaves you sopping with sweat and tired but also angry and wanting to do something to change the world. Will you?

Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo. 3/5
Everyone in the family’s got a gift: knowing someone is going to die, having a “magic vagina”–just go with it–and so when one of them decides to hold a living wake, it’s an opportunity for everyone in the family to tell their story and define their relationship with her, and the family in general. It’s a rambunctious novel, full of surprises and some very silly things, but also sometimes fun and a tribute to Dominican women in the US–which some view as being in exile. I think it could have used some editing to tighten things up, and there are some very tedious sections that don’t add much, so 3/5.

Collected Works by Lydia Sandgren. 2/5
In this enormous novel, the central character, Cecilia, is off-stage almost the entire time, which is too bad, because her story–that of a woman who decides that she is not happy being a mother–is a very real and under-represented one. But the bulk of the story is about the friendships of Martin Berg, a would-be writer who can never get his act together enough to actually write anything to its completion. There’s a lot of Martin faffing about while his best friend becomes an alcoholic but prolific and lauded painter. People smoke a ton, and use oral tobacco, which is just gross. People move through Martin’s life, he gets a soft landing at a career through a friend, and generally annoyed this reader quite a lot. I could see why his wife left, and why his kids don’t want to spend much time with him. Overall, the novel’s got a nice unreliable-narrator vibe going on, but I can’t really recommend it.

Under the Tamarind Tree by Nigar Alam. 4/5
This novel takes place in 2019 and during and after the Partition of India and Pakistan, following the life of Rozeena, a rare woman doctor who, facing catastrophe multiple times, moves from paralysis through indecision to courage in assisting others. While the framing story set in the present is perhaps a little too identical to the story that takes place during Partition, the primary plot, told in short flashbacks, is compelling.

Funeral Songs for Dying Girls by Cherie Dimaline. 2/5
If it weren’t for the atrocious fatphobia, this would be a good novel about grief and identity and desire and greed. But the fatphobia is rampant, and I can’t ignore it. Why aren’t writers and editors more sensitive to this? Your villainous characters don’t need to be fat, or disabled, or mentally ill, or anything else. This could have been a 5-star book for me, but no, not the way it is.

Tauhou by Kōtuku Titihuia Nuttall. 5/5
Tauhou is a rare jewel, a mix of poetry and prose that educates while being beautiful. By creating a world in which Māori and Coast Salish peoples are connected, Nuttall offers a place in which to consider climate change, colonialism, and post-colonialism through artifacts and landmarks, changed patterns in the weather, and resource distribution. It’s a phantasmagoria of a novel, moving in place and time, creating moments when the reader is briefly lost, then set down on solid ground again. Highly recommended reading for everyone, and especially writers seeking to create new worlds from our current one.

Best of Isele Anthology by Ukamaka Olisakwe (Editor), Tracy Haught (Editor). 4/5
This is a solid collection of stories from the African literary magazine Isele. While not all of the stories grabbed me, I was happy to see a number of pieces about Black joy and happiness and success–too often, a (white) audience only seeks trauma from Black authors. The mix of poetry and prose was well-balanced, and there’s a lot here that can and should be taught in high school and college classrooms.

The Postcard by Anne Berest. 5/5
It took me a long time to begin my review of this book, because it felt so very close to me. I grew up in an agnostic household, with one parent who had been raised Southern Baptist, and one who had come from a Jewish family that sent its children to the Unitarians, in part to help them avoid antisemitism. When I began school in North Carolina, my mother told me not to tell people that her family was Jewish, that I had a Jewish godmother who sent dreidels and gelt every year. So reading The Postcard, I felt for Berest’s mother and herself, Jews who weren’t raised Jewish but nevertheless felt a pull towards their Jewish ancestors and culture. The book is simply phenomenal: Berest is a sure and confident writer, of course, already much-lauded for her other work; here she is confessional and emotional and painstaking in getting the stories of her family’s work in the Resistance “right,” and the end result is completely compelling. Having read it once, and now knowing the heart-rending truth of the postcard–whose origins also mirror events in my family history–I will read it again, to savor the words even more, to weep for those lost, to make the trip again with Berest and her mother.

Mine Mine Mine by Uhuru Portia Phalafala. 5/5
A scorching, volcanic indictment of the treatment of workers and their families in South Africa’s gold mines and mining town. Every line, every section, took my breath away with imagery and force and power. Author Uhuru Portia Phalafala documents the slow and inexorable deaths of the miners, the rape and abuse of their “living widows,” the celebration of boy children, valued because one day they too can work in the mines. This is an essential book that charts the intersections of race and gender and wealth and poverty and abuse and early death.

Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. 5/5
A new book to add to my list of favorites! Moreno-Garcia riffs on M. R. James’s story “Casting the Runes” and combines love, tech, Nazis, silent film, and magic into an absolute treasure of a novel. The characters are vivid and real, and the info about silent film and early sound film is provided from an aficionado’s point of view and is accurate and well-woven into the narrative. I love the 1990s Mexico City setting (and the playlist in the acknowledgements). This is what I’ve come to think of as classic Moreno-Garcia: an intelligent book with excellent pacing and plotting and a hopeful ending.

The Trackers by Charles Frazier. 5/5
I liked this the best of all of Frazier’s novels. Set in the American West in the 1930s, the setting and characters and artwork –all of it–are beautifully created and described, When the local major landowner’s wife leaves unexpectedly, an East Coast artist in town to paint a mural, heads out to find her. Her reason for leaving, and the timing of it, is one rarely portrayed with such sympathy from men, and Frazier handles it all deftly and well. While this will be heralded as lit fiction, where a book more focused on the woman’s experience and thoughts would be shunted off into “women’s fiction,” it’s a solid novel about White men and their power, and how damaging and deadly that power can be.

The Haunting of Abney Heights by Cat Thomas. 2/5
This had a good premise, but it’s marred by unlikeable, poorly developed characters, the inclusion of unnecessary plotlines and points, and a lot of very vague and unclear writing as to character identity, emotions, and motivations. A couple of rounds of developmental editing and rewriting would have made this a lot stronger.

The Hidden Letters by Lorna Cook. 4/5
A nice cross-class romance with some well-done narrative tricks and reveals. I liked the grit of the main character, who changes from vapid society girl to someone very capable on her own during the course of the story. I also liked her transformation into a gardener, unafraid of hard physical work and of working for other people. This is the kind of story where the romance is brief and doomed, but mostly manages to avoid cliche.

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton. 4/5
Another fine entry in the growing body of climate fiction from/set in Australia and New Zealand. In this instance, a guerrilla gardening group’s leaders and an associated journalist get in way over their heads, stumbling into plots upon plots and crimes upon crimes. Like its cousins in this genre, the outlook is bleak, but in many ways realistic, given the psychological traumas that climate change causes worldwide. Not for the faint of heart.

Without Children by Peggy O’Donnell Heffington. 4/5
This is a well-researched and interesting read about the many reasons people–particularly ciswomen and some transmen–do not have children–economic, physical, because of climate change, more. As a woman who is childfree by choice, it was a relief and even pleasant to read about other such women without judgement or negativity on the part of the author. I appreciated the author’s personal honesty and tone throughout, and the book gave me a lot of think about in understanding the choices other people make and how they make/have made their decisions.

The Golden Doves by Martha Hall Kelly. 3/5
A decent thriller about women who worked in the French Resistance in WWII, were captured and sent to Ravensbruck, and are now back in the game, willingly and unwillingly. The various plots stretch the willing suspension of disbelief some, and the entire Fleur plotline could have been removed, moving its important details into the main narrative, but otherwise this will appeal to fans of historical fiction.

Wild Poppies by Haya Saleh, Marcia Lynx Qualey (translator). 1/5
What might have been a compelling work about family and war is marred by cliched language, a mix of verb tenses that introduces confusion into the narrative, and characters about whom we are told, rather than shown. The result is a boring and flaccid book that was a grind to read. It’s a shame, because the story of this family and the brothers who alternately serve as narrators could have been so much better.

The Women Who Built Hollywood by Susan Goldman Rubin. 1/5
This book is so full of misinformation and errors, especially about the early film industry, is an embarrassment. I cannot believe this is going to press with material that has been disproven, that is myth, and that is not factual. In addition, the author’s judgmental tone and condescending writing makes this a painful read, even if it is intended for young readers. I’m also appalled by the whitewashing of DW Griffith and his work, including trying to claim that The Birth of a Nation was groundbreaking albeit flawed by racism. As a film historian, I’m horrified by this book and hope the publishers will consider its massive problems before actually publishing it

Gravity and Center by Henri Cole. 5/5
This collection of Cole’s poetry is essential for poets and readers alike. Writing exclusively in 14-line forms, usually without rhyme (the so-called “American sonnet” form), Cole dives into his life and relationships, the mundane and the transcendental–sometimes in the same poem. I am both dazzled by these and brought down by their brutality. The intimacy is sometimes too much to bear, and I had to take breaks from reading this so as to grapple with individual poems. Cole’s use of language is revelatory and bold and enormously creative. Highly recommended.

Dog on Fire by Terese Svoboda. 3/5
Wow, this is a tour de force of stream-of-consciousness writing in multiple voices, all full of idiosyncrasies and ideas and personas. It’s a bit of a wild ride, honestly, and while I didn’t really enjoy reading it, it does offer a unique take on poverty and desperation and sexuality and life in small and sad places.

The Magician’s Daughter by H. G. Parry. 2/5
This had all of the things I thought would make it perfect: Hy-Brasil, a coming-of-age story, magic rabbits, a Puca, and so much more. But the characters never really seem compelling or very real–we’re supposed to take their charm on face value, and while the protagonist does change and mature, she never becomes very interesting. The story–of needing to find ways of letting magic into the world–isn’t a bad one, but it does feel a bit overdone at this point. There’s also a mannered style to the writing that makes me think the author wants the book to read like something from the 1930s, perhaps, with a little 1960s-70s sexual frankness thrown in, and it doesn’t work for me.

Let the Wind Speak by Carol Shloss. 1/5
I was looking for ward to reading this, but unfortunately the author has no methodology to speak of, and the book is rather a mess. There’s a lot of speculation, a lot of problems with the authorial distance to the subject (or lack thereof), and a structure that simply doesn’t work, jumping around in time but also in ideas, which makes it hard to grasp developments or a linear narrative.

Hamlet, Prince of Robots by M. Darusha Wehm. 1/5
A novelization of the play with the very thin veneer of many characters being AIs. Nothing interesting, thought-provoking, or new here.

Driving the Green Book by Alvin Hall. 2/5
This book’s value is not in what the author has to say–which is generally banal and offers little other than a sense that readers should find his experiences life-changing–but in the many interviews and other first-hand testimony about the Green Book and how Blacks traveled by car in the US, particularly in segregated places during Jim Crow. This information, which the author does not usually interrogate or explain beyond his own experiences and limited knowledge, is of great value. But there are other studies of the Green Book that provide much better contextualization and more extensive research for readers interested in it.

The World and All That It Holds by Aleksandar Hemon. 5/5
This is a novel of astonishing scope and incredible intimacy, following Rafael Pinto, a young man who, witnessing the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, is unwillingly jerked into military service, where he is surrounded by death and horror and love, which almost makes the rest bearable. The reader follows Pinto from trench to prisoner camp to safe-house, all as Pinto follows and is carried by his lover Osman. Pinto and Osman and their friends and allies and daughter are very real and compelling. Rich. in its coverage of religion, class, empire, revolt, and the history of the Balkans, this is a book for lovers of history and love and the human spirit.

Unshuttered by Patricia Smith. 5/5
Just before I read this remarkable book, I visited the New Orleans Museum of Art’s “Called to the Camera: Black American Studio Photographers” exhibit. There I saw hundreds of photographs made by Black studio photographers from all over the United States from the beginning of the genre to the present. Like Patricia Smith, I wondered about the lives and personalities and desires and sorrows of those who posed to have their images captured. Smith brings very real and very valid anger to her writing here, in which she speaks for or to those in the images she has found, imagining them as former enslaved persons, servants, aspiring artists, blue-collar workers, parents, children, the educated, the neglected. Her writing is direct and driving, imaginative and detail-focused. Highly recommended.

Apex Magazine 2021 by Jason Sizemore and Lesley Conner. 3/5
A nice mix of short stories, still the best genre for sci-fi. I could do without the editor’s self-congratulatory notes, but the author notes were great. Readers’ views will vary, but I liked about 65% of the stories here, some of which have been anthologized elsewhere.

The Haunting of Laurel Cove by Lucy Naylor Kubash. 1/5
This is a G-rated version of a very boring Hallmark holiday movie, in which a “broken” young woman moves home and falls for a handsome guy out of her past, all while untangling family secrets. There aren’t really any secrets, and there’s no chemistry between the characters, who are one-dimensional and dull as dirt. The whole thing is pablum.

Spring’s Arcana by Lilith Saintcrow. 1/5
There’s some really good descriptive writing in this novel, but the rest is such an incredible rip-off of Neil Gaiman that I’m surprised the publisher is allowing this to go out into the world. Better have a good defense lawyer handy. In addition, the plots make no sense, people do things that make no sense, and the whole thing is a mess.

The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt. 1/5
A boring guy has a boring life, manipulated by everyone he knows and never quite sharp enough to put things together. Why did people like this?

Frontier by Grace Curtis. 5/5
This book is the pinnacle of hopepunk, a genre I adore. It’s got lovers torn apart, trying to make it back to each other, survivors of a damaged planet working on helping it heal, and folks using tech to make the world better for everyone. Of course, it’s go great villains, too–people who are scared of and hate tech and medicine and science of all kinds, hypocrites who want to keep tech for themselves, power-hungry abusers of power, and religious zealots who have no idea where their scriptures can from or what they actually mean. It’s fast-paced, full of excellent world-building and characters, and has a wonderful, uplifting ending.

Pardalita by Joana Estrela, translated by Lyn Miller-Lachmann. 1/5
I didn’t find this compelling, despite the importance of the themes in it–recognizing one’s queerness and embracing it. The protagonist is a bit flat and the writing–which I assume is meant to be like that of a young person–is pretty awful. The everyday details the protagonist records, which could have been fascinating and played a role in character-building, weren’t used to strong effect. Since there isn’t a big narrative arc, the character arc needed to be much stronger. The illustrations didn’t add much to the story for me.

The Sinister Booksellers of Bath by Garth Nix. 2/5
I don’t like this series much, despite my deep and enduring love for much of Nix’s other work. The Bookseller series (well, there are 2 now) has a generally rushed tone, often frantic, with mania just one step away. Occasionally there are glimpses of Nix’s better writing capabilities, where he slows down a bit and gives readers small sips of more measured descriptions and dialogue. But for the most part, both books feel as if they’ve been written as quickly as possible. The characters and the developing lore reflect this: Susan remains flat and dull, and her mother remains a cardboard figure entirely, and Merlin is a completely self-obsessed jerk. Vivien is a bit better developed, but still not very well fleshed-out; other characters seem to be there simply to fill in spaces. There’s a lot of representation of minority identities, though, but most of them are small roles and their differences are denoted though awkward constructions. There’s a lot of description and detail about cars; can we inject the characters and places with the same enthusiasm as the cars get? The plot is okay–the maps are clever and having Susan make one is great–but the antagonists are not exactly original. In fact, one is similar to the Stilken Lirael fights in *Lirael,* with the hooked arms and shape-changing abilities. There are fantastic ideas in the Booksellers books, but Nix isn’t taking the time to let them breathe, and the hurrying pace throughout is detrimental.

Knot of Shadows by Lois McMaster Bujold. 5/5
This newest installment in the Penric and Desdemona series of novellas is a treat. I always like returning to Bujold’s World of the Five Gods, where Learned Penric and his demon Des are asked to take on all sorts of issues. This time, the story is a sad one, involving denials of justice, death magic, and the death of a child. The tone is meditative and somber, and yet the mystery elements are a pleasure to read. Newcomers can probably read this without prior knowledge of the characters, but ideally readers will have read some of the previous books in the series.

Threadneedle by Cari Thomas. 3/5
This novel is a pretty-good entry into the magic students (here, Sixth Formers) genre, with the requisite humiliations, tests, finding of magic, abuse of magic, difficult friendships, jealousies, sex, and parents. At the same time, it’s an interesting kind of thought experiment about belief and practice and religion and fundamentalism. A weak subplot involving politics and witches is mostly a distraction or an annoyance–I kept asking, why bring it into the story if you’re not going to use it til the end, and there, still weakly? Poor Anna has grown up with her abusive Aunt, a magic-user who thinks magic is bad but should be used to keep other people’s magic under control. Anna soon becomes close with her cousin Effie, a stereotype of the Rebellious Teen Girl, but with magic added, and other aunt, whose use of her powers is manipulative and cynical, but believes in celebrating the things magic can do and bring to its users. Anna struggles with these very different attitudes and is desperately trying to find her own way, albeit through fits and starts and renunciations and reversing her renunciations. There are many, many twists in the story, most of them predictable but a few that are unexpected and a pleasure to uncover as a reader. The climax of the story comes a little late and is messily written in relation to the rest of the book, and as soon as it’s over, we’re left with that political sub-plot setting up a sequel. Despite the conclusion being less than satisfying, Threadneedle is a fair read and I’m sure will attract YA readers.

A Hunger of Thorns by Lili Wilkinson. 4/5
Full of magic, angst, lore, environmental damage, lust, love, imagination, and daring, this was an intense but also fun and fast-paced read. Drawing on the bleak landscapes of abandoned industrial sites as well as magical traditions and plant lore, author Wilkinson creates a deep and complex world of witches and love–albeit one that feels overstuffed at times. The monsters and dangers are as real as radium poisoning, and the characters are created with skill and thought. The book is written, I think, for a YA audience, but older readers will appreciate it as well. The only thing that rubs me wrong is the author’s thank you to a library for letting her “escape her toddler”–I’m uncomfortable when parents complain about their kids in such a public forum. What will her kid say when she reads that one day?

Ways We Hide by Kristina McMorris. 5/5
A solid historical thriller with the added bonus of all things Houdini, escapology, gadgetry, and the small but crucial details of espionage–and magic shows. The characters are interesting and have depth, and the story is well woven into its settings. I appreciate the complication of Fenna’s and Arie’s trauma as children and its continuing role in their lives as adults, Ways We Hide is a nice change from less well developed and more predictable historical fiction set in this period.