They say you should never judge a book by its cover, but what if the cover is just as gorgeous as the content? The Leaving Room by Amber McBride (she/her) is a young adult novel in verse that is just as stunning as its cover art promises. The story follows Gospel, the Keeper of the LeavingRead More
Dancing with Death: Shadow Life by Hiromi Goto
Shadow Life follows Kumiko, a 76-year-old lady who has rejected the assisted living home her daughters wanted to send her to, venturing off to find her own apartment and make her own way. She doesn’t tell her daughters where she is (despite one’s persistent pestering) and is determined to make it clear than she is capableRead More
A Queer, Roller Derby Coming of Age: Leave It On The Track by Margot Fisher Review
Leave It On the Track by Margot Fisher is a fun YA roller derby novel about enduring loss, dealing with anxiety, and feeling free to act on your crush for the first time with roller derby flair. I picked it up on a whim after seeing it on a shelf, and this is exactly the sortRead More
Grief and Found Family in Alexis Henderson’s Young Adult Debut
Newly released this month, Alexis Henderson’s young adult debut, When I Was Death, brings the author’s signature fantastical horror to a meditation on grief and coming of age. In the year since protagonist Roslyn lost her sister, Adeline, she’s almost completely disconnected from her life. The mysterious circumstances surrounding Adeline’s loss have cast an even longerRead More
A Caravan of Teenage Grim Reapers: When I Was Death by Alexis Henderson Review
A year after her sister, Adeline, dies under mysterious circumstances, a ragtag group of teenage girls descend upon Roslyn Volk’s small Midwestern town and make her an offer that she can’t refuse in Alexis Henderson’s When I Was Death. The girls (Naomi, Skye, Riley, Iona, Chloe, and the enigmatic Shiloh, who catches Roslyn’s eye from theRead More
A Queer Boarding School Gothic: Spoiled Milk by Avery Curran Review
Everything about the summary to Spoiled Milk by Avery Curran (out March 10, thank you to Doubleday for the ARC) made me so unbearably excited to read it. “The untimely death of a student at a girls’ boarding school turns out to be the first in a haunting series of escalating supernatural events. A thrilling debut novel aboutRead More
A Bloody Gothic Love Story: My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna Van Veen
Roos has been kept small her whole life. First, when she was five years old, hiding under the floorboards to help her mother fake seances. Then, when she got older and began participating in these seances herself, she was kept underfed to appear younger and more delicate. But while her abusive mother kept her isolated,Read More
A YA Paranormal Romance with Wings: On the Wings of la Noche by Vanessa L. Torres Review
I love shapeshifter characters for the many dualities they can represent, and I also like reading about lonely, troubled girls, so my paranormal pick for this October was the young adult novel On the Wings of la Noche by Vanessa L. Torres. Estrella (Noche) Villanueva straddles two worlds. At school, she’s a science whiz who keeps toRead More
Cosmology and Reinvention: Little Deaths all in a Row by Elizabeth Earley Review
Elizabeth Earley’s essay collection Little Deaths all in a Row (out September 16th) is a deeply vulnerable, deeply personal cosmology constructed from recollections of working hospice care, practicing Reiki, formative childhood experiences, and a myriad of sexual and romantic experiences spanning her life so far. She meshes these memories into a collage of concepts from cognitive science, biology, physics to try and address questions about intimacy,Read More
A Literary Love Story of the Moment: Liquid by Mariam Rahmani Review
This novel has been a hard one to write a review for. Mostly because of the upheavals happening, and my subsequent desire to try and locate the text as best as I can in the current moment. Because, reader, it truly is a novel for the times, of the times. So here is the earliestRead More