Authors of Color

Authors of nationalities other than Indigenous or African American (or white)

Seasons of Glass & Iron Review

Book: Seasons of Glass & Iron
Author: Amal El-Mohtar
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group
Year: 2026
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “Full of glimpses into gleaming worlds and fairy tales with teeth, Seasons of Glass And Iron : Stories is a collection of acclaimed and awarded work from New York Times bestselling author Amal El-Mohtar.”

Review : Seasons of Glass & Iron is a lyrical, deadly, and captivating peek through the looking glass into worlds unknown; full of whimsy and wonder, joy and horror, it is a dream and a nightmare tangled in the same web, woven and unwoven, creating a gleaming portrayal of humanity and, at times, something a bit other than humanity. El-Mohtar has deftly curated a collection of perfectly layered stories, giving the reader just enough to whet their appetite before moving swiftly on to the next. As someone who prefers long-form, I cannot speak highly enough of how intentional this collection is, how smooth the transitions, and how seamless the tie-ins. El-Mohtar shares in the introduction that this book may not have much of a “coherent aesthetic argument”, rather, it’s a love letter to women. Regardless of whether the introduction is read or not, you cannot simply pick this book up and not come to the conclusion that the author has a profound love for womankind in all her forms.

Seasons of Iron & Glass is queer, sapphic, and beautifully pro-Palestine. It wiggles a little deeper under the skin with each story, like an ear worm attaching itself in your brain, hooking it’s little fingers into your heart and tugging at just the right moments. It is a profound work of love and loss and becoming and undoing and redoing all over again. There are gorgeous poems written to those surviving the genocide in Gaza, retellings of Welsh fairy tales, stunning creations of fantasy, and incredible stories of unbelievable creativity and artistry. When I read the final words, I cried.

I fear my words do a disservice to how artfully and skillfully crafted this collection is. El-Mohtar states that these works were written between the years of 2008 and 2023 and there are stories that I can easily align myself with, the energy and understanding of them being laid out on LiveJournal or Tumblr feels so visceral I can almost taste it. Yet, each story weaves a broader narrative that cannot be unseen – despite ranging broadly in time, in place, and in content. There are stories I desperately wish were part of a broader narrative, stories I crave to know more of, and still each story is carefully wrapped up in the end, perfectly beginning and ending in ways that, while imperfect, as short stories are, is truly perfect. At the end of the day, try as I may, I can hardly come up with the words to do this book justice, all I can simply say is read this book.

Advice : If you have any interest in Welsh folklore, in short stories, in fantasy, in reading tales of women, then this book is for you. If you want to read folklore that takes the narrative out of the hands of awful gods and puts it back firmly in the hands of the so often downtrodden and abused women in them, this book is for you. I genuinely believe everyone should read it. It’s perfection. Mark your calendars for March 2026, place an order ahead of time, you don’t want to miss this one.

In Deadly Company Review

Book: In Deadly Company
Author: L.S. Stratton
Publisher: Union Square & Co.
Year: 2025
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “As the assistant to the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, Nicole Underwood has plenty of tasks on her to-do list – one of which is the blowout celebration for her nightmare, on-percenter boss, Xander Chambers. But when the party ends in chaos and murder and Nicole is one of the survivors, suspicion – from the investigators to the media – lands on her. Was she the reason for all the bloodshed?
A year after those deadly events, Nicole tries to set the public record straight by agreeing to consult on a feature film based on her story. However, while on set in Los Angeles, she’s sidelined by inappropriate casting and persistent, bizarre script changes – and haunted by persistent visions of her now-deceased boss. It seems clearing her name ins’t so simple when the question of guilt or innocence is…complicated.”

Review : In Deadly Company is an enjoyable, inventive, and easy to read thriller with a truly unique plot that doesn’t fall into the trap of the unreliable female protagonist trope so many thrillers seem to adore. It’s well written, quick moving, and leaves you guessing all the way until the end. While I did find the final reveal to be a bit obvious and contrived, it was still fun to get there in the end. I thoroughly enjoyed this read, found myself wanting to slow things down so it wouldn’t end quite so soon, and have been chewing it over since I finished it yesterday – all hallmarks of a good book.

The narration jumps a bit, and doesn’t hold fast to a set-in-stone pattern which I found to be unnecessary, but provided some texture and certainly helped give context to the way events played out. Between Nicole’s present day and her past, we watch the fateful events of her boss’s birthday party unravel, not only the alluded to murders (yes, plural), but the behind the scenes goings on in Nicole’s personal life that we are only granted glimpses of throughout the book. In the present, Nicole is watching and “consulting” on the movie retelling of the events of her boss, Xander Chambers’ birthday – she wields almost no say in how the story gets told, but she’s been hired by the production team and so she’s there, on set, watching the events play out once more despite very clearly having PTSD. In the past, we simultaneously watch the events play out in real time, catching little bits here and there that might reveal who ends up murdered and why, but never enough to fully catch on to the carnage that would eventually play out by the time the birthday weekend was over.

This review will be short and sweet, nearly anything else I have to say would include spoilers that might truly wreck the ending for you, so I’ll leave things where they are. I will say, however, that I wish the ending had taken a slightly different turn – without giving you the details, you’ll have to read those for yourself, the final twist at the end felt contrived and forced, giving the power of the novel a bit of a lackluster finish. It didn’t feel well thought out, but it did feel a bit messy. Things could have tied up in a nicer way, been a bit less all over the place, and not included one of the most obvious plot twists in history. Okay, that’s all. If I say more, I’ll spoil it for you!

Advice : This was such a fun read! If you’ve been disillusioned by thrillers written from a female perspective, I think you should really give this one a shot! Be warned, there are graphic descriptions of blood, gore, and death; the author describes PTSD flash backs; and there’s mention of the date rape drug as well as what happens when it’s used.

From a Studio in Oakland California Review

Book: From a Studio in Oakland California : 180 Notes on Existence
Author: Enia Oaks
Publisher: Self Published
Year: 2025
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “This collection of poems and essays is for those who sit at the crossroads of past and future, wondering which way to turn. Those who have bravely restarted and are building new homes from within themselves. Those who believe in the grand experience of life and living it fully, even when it asks everything of them. Those hurting, healing, or transforming. For the ones who are seeking meaning or a deep exploration of the layers of existence.”

Review : Enia Oak’s debut book, From a Studio in Oakland California : 108 Notes on Existence is not to be read quickly, blown through, or breezed by; it’s made to be savored, slowly devoured, and meditated upon. It does not surprise me one bit to find this book of 108 missives to be a meditation – it’s spiritual in nature. Written in short blurbs, poems, and ideas, FASIOC is filled with logical life advice, imparted wisdom, and personal exploration. It is quite literally packed to the cover with information on how and why and when to grow, on the choices we make as humans, the way we stretch out for someone else to witness our lives, and how we might best look inward to see and gently tend our inner child as fully formed adults.

While Oaks’ synopsis / letter to the reader calls this book a “collection of poems and essays”, I would more likely call this an open letter to someone who’s going through therapy and doing the work to heal. Based on Oaks’ description, I was initially confused by the layout and conversive tone her poems and essays take. They don’t necessarily read as poems, certainly not so when you take the totality of the book under review, but they do read as essays directed toward the reader. Like I said, it reads like an open letter, not like a collection of poems. It really comes down to the naming of the thing, for me – if they weren’t named as poems, I wouldn’t take issue or feel surprised as a reader, but because I was expecting poetry, I found myself a bit taken aback and disconnected as I got into the meat of the book. I do feel that Oaks might have benefitted from a more formal editor / publisher rather than going the self-published route, it’s truly worth mentioning that I have dog eared this book from start to finish. While there are aspects that I feel read in a discordant way, small mistakes, and grammatical errors I wish weren’t included, Oaks has a distinctive point of view that has a place in this world. This book feels important for so many people.

I found Oaks’ work to be most successful in her most experimental forms, where we might call the style a poem (but again, I struggle to view most of these works as poetry), or where the style seems completely unique to the inner workings of Oaks’ mind. Most of the book is written in a direct way to “you”, perhaps at times the reader, perhaps at times the writer, perhaps at times our collective inner child. It’s less a work of interpretation for the reader, and more directions on how to live your life as told by a therapist – of whom Oaks is not, which is worth saying. I found so many pieces of this book aligning with my own lived experience, and while this did not feel profound, it did feel familiar. There were many reasons Oaks’ collection garnered 3.5 stars, but I want to remind you, reader, that that’s more than 50% and I did genuinely enjoy reading this one.

Advice : This book is already available to buy! If you’ve spent time in therapy I suspect you will enjoy this book. If you like a collection of small works that are quick and easy to read at your own pace with no deadline or need to speed your way through, I think you’ll enjoy this.

How We Heal Review

Book: How We Heal
Author: La June Montgomery Tabron
Publisher: Disruption Books
Year: 2025
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “From a vivid portrait of her childhood in 1960s Detroit to her leadership of one of the world’s largest philanthropic institutions, La June shares her full-circle, American story – a coming-of-age journey where she gains a firsthand understanding of how systemic racism prevents our children and communities from thriving and learns about the transformative role healing can play in helping all of us transcend the legacy of racial inequity.
As she rises to her position as the first female and first African American leader of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, La June experiences the power of sharing and listening with empathy. And with the help of mentors and colleagues, she refines the message that will guide the foundation’s mission for years to come : Healing can begin only with truth telling.
Empowered by the mission set forth by its founder to support children and families, the foundation explores a racial healing framework that transforms communities and individuals around the world – from small rural towns and big cities across the United States, including La June’s own beloved Detroit, to Mexico, Haiti, and beyond.
How We Heal serves as a testament to the power of transformation and a blueprint for how each of us, no matter who we are or how we lead, can use racial healing to move from trust to empathy, from understanding to repair – one conversations and one connection at a time.”

Review : Whew. That’s a heck of a synopsis, isn’t it? And though How We Heal is a mere 212 pages long (in ARC form), much like the back-cover synopsis, it packs a lot into those 200-odd pages. While La June spends time detailing what her childhood was like growing up in Eastside Detroit both prior to and after the Detroit Rebellion in 1966, it’s worth noting that the majority of the book describes in detail the work she has and continues to do at the W.K. Kellogg foundation, first as COO and currently as CEO, among other titles. How We Heal is less about La June herself and more about the work that’s been facilitated through the Foundation and through the people who have been impacted by the Foundation’s charitable worn. While the start of the book engages the reader as, perhaps not strictly memoir, but more so memoir adjacent, it’s worth knowing before you dive in that it is decidedly not a memoir.

La June, a direct descendant of Isaiah Thornton Montgomery, the founder of the Reconstruction era town of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, describes the pitfalls and structures of power imbalance that have served to create racial imbalances and divides throughout the United States. And while she would have every right to broach this topic with hate-laced accusations and pointed fingers, La June instead describes what she calls the empathy deficit to explain much of what has stunted racial equity and growth, if not rolled back progress entirely. Rather than assuming that the growth of opportunities and formulation of protections around basic human rights might take all of the above away from those who are not Black or Hispanic or Asian or Indigenous, empathy reminds us that we are all worthy and capable of having access to spaces of growth, stable and safe housing, and quality job opportunities with good wages. When racial equity exists, when we find ourselves within diverse communities, studies show time and time again that we all thrive. It isn’t an us vs them narrative presented within How We Heal, it is very much so the opposite, with La June asking us to imagine a world in which our country outgrows its flawed beginnings and continuous, subsequent failings. As La June says “…through inclusivity, we could make the table bigger.” (How We Heal)

Detailing her decades of work at the Kellogg Foundation, La June describes how the Foundation transformed from a world in which race was an unmentionable topic to a world in which the Kellogg foundation runs multiple racial healing circles throughout the world in order to bridge divides between any number of groups of people. Describing the necessary work at play within the Foundation’s days in the early 2000s as it began to transition into a space that directly addressed racial divides and inequity, a member of the board of trustees, Joe Stewart said (paraphrased by Montgomery Tabron) “Either work to fulfill the dreams of everyone in this nation or tear down the Statue of Liberty.” Because we come from a country whose very foundation was built on the backs of enslaved people and Indigenous massacre, we cannot simply step into the realm of reconciliation without actively addressing the root problems, working toward transformation, and find ways to unite. Enter : TRHT, or Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation – a project created by those working within the Kellogg Foundation to bring spaces of true healing into diverse communities impacted by racism, a history of redlining, systemic poverty, gun violence, even apartheid. Racial healing circles are designed based on Indigenous practices worldwide and TRHT has been facilitating circles of healing, understanding, and equity for decades, attempting to reach as many people as possible. When it comes to a blueprint for healing, this is it. La June shares so many stories of positive impact within these racial healing circles, it feels almost hard to believe at times. Rather than creating spaces where fingers are pointed and injustices are gripped tightly to, racial healing circles exist to create spaces of radical transformation through understanding and forgiveness. When we are able to fully hear and see where those who have different lived experiences than us are coming from, we can begin to repair something that began as fundamentally broken.

While How We Heal read at times like a proposal for a board meeting, it was deeply informative, well researched, and concise. It laid out a foundation for our path forward, it did more than present the scary facts and figures, it laid out the work the Kellogg Foundation has been doing for a century to combat those figures – going even further to explain how individuals and groups around the globe could be (and have been) taking steps of their own using the very blueprint the Kellogg Foundation uses to create radical healing where it’s so desperately needed. It’s encouraging to me to read a book like this, particularly as we see racial divides deepening, knowing that healing has a way forward. It can and does exist. There’s hope here. And that’s something you can’t buy – or maybe you can, in the form of this book. I found myself crying multiple times during my reading of this book – the stories of hope, forgiveness, healing, and transformation are incredibly moving. It’s well worth the read.

Advice : I think this is a worthwhile read for anyone who is genuinely interested in seeing healing take place on a global scale, anyone who lives in cities with racial disparities (that’s most of us!), or anyone who’s interested in a new take on an old problem. You’re going to want to read this one.

Devil is Fine Review

Book: Devil is Fine
Author: John Vercher
Publisher: Celadon Books
Year: 2024
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “From acclaimed novelist John Vercher, a poignant story of what it means to be a father, a son, a writer, and a biracial American fighting to reconcile the past.
Reeling from the sudden death of his teenage son, our narrator receives a letter from an attorney : he has just inherited a plot of land from his estranged grandfather. He travels to a beach town several hours south of his home with the intention of immediately selling the land. But upon inspection, what lies beneath the dirt is much more than he can process in the throes of grief. As a biracial Black man struggling with the many facets of his identity, he’s now the owner of a former plantation passed down by the men on his white mother’s side of the family.
Vercher deftly blurs the lines between real and imagined, past and present, tragedy and humor, and fathers and sons in this story of discovery – and a fight for reclamation – of a painful past. With the wit of Paul Beatty’s The Sellout and the nuance of Zadie Smith’s On Beauty, Devil is Fine is a darkly funny and brilliantly crafted dissection of the legacies we leave behind and those we inherit.”

Review : I had absolutely no idea what kind of wild ride I was getting myself into when I opened this book – full disclosure, the synopsis gives approximately 10% of the book away (okay, maybe I exaggerate…45%?). I started it a couple evenings ago and (spoilers), much like our protagonist, found myself losing time. I looked up two hours later, half the book read, and breathed out for the first time in who knows how long. Woah.

*Due to the little information provided by the synopsis, the majority of this review will contain spoilers, you have been warned.*

I absolutely demolished this book. I can’t even explain to you how quickly I devoured it. So much so that it wasn’t until this very moment I sat down to write this review that I realized we never get the narrator’s name. The novel begins with the narrator sitting in traffic on his way to his teenage son’s funeral, stopped somehow by construction, watching a construction worker do a dance while our narrator has a panic attack. A writer and tenure-track professor, our narrator is a biracial Black man working through what it means to exist in a post-2020 world where his audience and colleagues have largely appeared to have moved on from the protests and interests that were front and center just a few years ago. Finding the book he’s been working on tossed aside by one publishing house after the next, he finds his tenure tracked job suddenly on the rails. Unless he can get his new book picked up immediately, he risks losing his secure job. In the midst of the turmoil and trauma of not only losing his son but the prospect of losing his job, he receives a letter from his attorney : a large piece of property on the coast of Pennsylvania that was willed to his son has now passed to him. Our narrator decides to take a few extra days of bereavement leave to have a look, put the property on the market, and take a trip to a place he has hated since childhood – the beach.

It’s hard to fully explain the depth of surrealism that Vercher’s able to achieve in this work. Devil is Fine presents itself as a pretty realistic book grounded in a pretty realistic character, someone we might see teaching classes and publishing books, someone we might see on social media, someone we can relate to immediately as grounded in reality. It’s when our narrator makes his way to the sea, though, that the thread holding reality and dreams begin to unravel. On a cocktail of anti-anxiety medications, our narrator (who has been sober for 17 years) finds himself saying yes to a drink at the bar attached to his small rental at the beach. As it turns out, the property he’s inherited has not come with any kind of structure so he rents from a bartender / realtor / bike shop owner who serves as his off-the-wagon enabler, serving drink after drink after damned drink to a man who very clearly should not be served in the first place. There are so many moments of frustration and grief that swirl throughout this story, and this relationship between alcohol, medications, and those who egg him on while simultaneously providing a form of magical-comedic-grounding relief is one of them.

As our narrator dives deeper into the all too familiar taste of alcoholism, he begins to find himself plagued by sleep paralysis – or so it seems. Waking to find emails sent, book proposals drafted, and responses given in the middle of the night, what should ultimately be a fairly benign experience begins to take on supernatural undertones. When our narrator, in a fairly drunken haze, steps barefoot onto his beachfront property one night, he unexpectedly, and painfully steps on a dead jellyfish, stung even in it’s death. Now he’s not only battling alcohol and medication induced sleep demons, he’s also battling physical pain. The boundaries around the natural world begin to swim and blur and fracture, creating ghostly appearances, pulling mementos from his past into his present, and allowing him to have, what had until now been a one-sided conversation with his son, a two-sided conversation with the dead.

It is during this unraveling of reality that our narrator comes to find that the sprawling beachfront property he’s inherited is actually a former plantation, owned and passed down by the members of the white side of his family. Through this dream-like experiences, our narrator begins to confront the very real demons of his past, the generational curses that follow family members, and perhaps even emerge from beyond the grave, and the father-son relationships that not only created his relationship with his son but mirror his relationship with his own father. It’s through this reality bending that our narrator begins to find the space to heal the wounds that have lead to the at times fractured relationship he and his son shared. We begin to see reality for what it is, not something that exists in one time and place, but something that bends and moves, shaping and folding itself over generations, creating and dissolving into each family member until they’re ready and capable of finding the healing necessary to move forward.

Advice : I cannot recommend this book highly enough. This is hands down one of my top books of the year. It’s expertly crafted, full of intricate detail, and that ending! My god! The ending! I won’t spoil it for you, but trust me when I say this is a must read.

The Manicurist’s Daughter

Book: The Manicurist’s Daughter
Author: Susan Lieu
Publisher: Celadon Books
Year: 2024
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “Susan Lieu has long been searching or answers. About her family’s past and about her own future. Refugees from the Vietnam War, Susan’s family escaped to California in the 1980s after five failed attempts. Upon arrival, Susan’s mother was their savvy, charismatic North Star, setting up two successful nail salons and orchestrating every success – until Susan was eleven. That year, her mother died from a botched tummy tuck. After the funeral, no one was ever allowed to talk about her or what had happened.
For the next twenty years, Susan navigated a series of cascading questions alone – why did the most perfect person in her life want to change her body? Why would no one tell her about her mother’s life in Vietnam? And how did this surgeon, who preyed on Vietnamese immigrants, go on operations after her mother’s death? Sifting through depositions, tracking down the surgeon’s family, and enlisting the help of spirit channelers, Susan uncovers the painful truth of her mother, herself, and the impossible ideal of beauty.
The Manicurist’s Daughter is much more than a memoir about grief, trauma, and body image. It is a story of fierce determination, strength in shared culture, and finding your place in the world.”

Review : I was really excited to dive into this advanced copy memoir after reading the letter to the reader Lieu included with the book – but I’m realizing now that much of what was covered in the letter isn’t touched on in the back cover synopsis, so I’m not sure you’re seeing the wild ride that her letter was, so I’ll share a bit of it here with you : “For the last two decades, no one in my family has ever spoken of her or how she died. I would ask questions, but they said I was being too emotional or stuck in the past. Desperate for answers, I joined a cult, tracked down the family of my mother’s surgeon, and sought justice through the help of spirit channelers.” This is all within the first few sentences in her letter to the reader! What a wild ride, I thought, I couldn’t wait to get into the meat of this memoir.

A comedian by trade, Lieu writes in a way that showcases her humor, leading us through her life as the youngest daughter of Vietnamese immigrant parents with off the cuff remarks that leave you laughing out loud, winding deftly through the trauma and emotional turmoil of losing a parent so young, guiding us through struggling to find answers while upholding a nearly impossible personal and familial standard; from feeling lost while navigating ivy league schooling to searching for answers from beyond the veil, Lieu takes us on, what ends up being, a winding and at times rather bumpy road. From the beginning, Lieu makes it clear that body image, food, and self worth are deeply connected within her family – something we can see clearly played out in the tummy tuck operation that ultimately takes her mother’s life at a mere 38 years old. Not only is Lieu constantly criticized for any weight she might put on, she’s also forced to consume every single piece of food that’s put before her, at least once to the point of vomiting. Lieu struggles so desperately for answers as to why her mother might have felt the need to have a cosmetic procedure for so much of her life, all the while laying it out methodically for the reader to understand, like a neon sign flashing in front of our eyes.

It’s for this exact reason that this book should be read with caution – tread lightly my friends, if you have struggled with disordered eating this book may present complications for you. The majority of the book revolves around food, so much so that part of the advanced reader copy package included a few postcards with pictures of traditional Vietnamese foods on them. While I think the point that Lieu is trying to make is an important one, there are a lot of complex emotions and ties to food in this book that may bring up some difficult emotions in the reader. Lieu refers so fondly to the dishes her family members made while she was growing up, speaking kindly of the foods her relatives make when she comes home to visit as an adult, while simultaneously speaking poorly of her body, her body image, and the way her body is objectified by those around her. It’s complex and confusing at times, but only in the sense that those who have not navigated this ground themselves may struggle to understand the difficulty one faces when they’re told over and over to shrink themselves. This book requires a content warning.

There are some pacing issues I struggled with in this memoir, places where Lieu spent so much time, chapters even, and places where she jumped around almost frantically. You probably know how much I hate being told what’s going on, and while Lieu doesn’t do this, there are connections she asks her reader to make that at times aren’t given enough context to make on our own. I’m a little perplexed as to why the pacing is so frenetic an uneven, with certain aspects of her personal story garnering so much attention while others warrant no more than a sentence or two. The time frame is a bit scattered, at times being not quite chronological, jumping from the past to the present of Lieu’s own life, and I feel she might have benefitted from gently tweaking the format.

These few issues aside, I found Lieu’s work to be an important embrace of family history, of breaking down the barriers that exist between family members, and of honest inspection of how generational curses impact our lives. In writing this memoir, Lieu is doing the work to heal not only her own self, but the individual members of her family, and past generations of her family as well. It’s an important read, but it does come with some necessary warning.

Advice : If you enjoy a memoir I really think this is going to be right up your alley. If you’ve struggled with disordered eating, I might avoid this one for your own sake.

The Dead Don’t Need Reminding Review

Book: The Dead Don’t Need Reminding
Author: Julian Randall
Publisher: Bold Type Books
Year: 2024
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “The Dead Don’t Need Reminding is a braided story of Julian Randall’s return from the cliff edge of a harrowing depression and his determination to retrace the hustle of a white-passing grandfather to the Mississippi town from which he was driven amid threats of tar and feather.
Alternatively wry, lyrical, and heartfelt, Randall’s voice bursts off the page with verve, humor, and poet’s eye for detail. In this book, Randall transforms pop culture moments into deeply personal explorations of grief, family, and the American way. He envisions his fight to stay alive through a striking medley of media ranging from Spiderman and Jordan Peele movies to BoJack Horseman and the music of Odd Future. Pulsing with life, sharp, and wickedly funny, The Dead Don’t Need Reminding is Randall’s journey to get his ghost story back.”

Review : The Dead Don’t Need Reminding is one of those books you read the way you eat a great meal, slowly, purposefully, savoring every single bite. Comprised of essays, TDDNR is a lyrical work of pop culture references, self inquiry, depression, chronic pain, and what it means to exist within a queer, Black body in America. Randall weaves a narrative that’s steeped with grief, tugging on a thread that unravels to reveal ancestral history, the kind that dips through an entire body, tethering each generation to the last, reminding us what it is to search for yourself amongst the dead. I devoured this book quickly, at first, then slowly, so slowly, asking the narrative to slow down, to keep from ending. You know how it is.

My copy of The Dead Don’t Need Reminding is now filled with dogeared pages, underlined, read again and again. It is one of those books you never stop reading. Filled with longing, Randall takes the reader on his journey through life-long destabilizing depression, suicidal ideations (and intentions), chronic pain that interjects throughout the narrative in the way only chronic pain can do, racism, and an endless running list of cultural references he uses to bind us to a better understanding of his own inner (and outer) world. Randall explains that he thinks in quotes, in lyrics, in movies and tv shows, using examples from BoJack Horseman, Spiderman, Kanye West (Ye), Drake, Odd Future, and more to open his heart and mind to the page, to the reader. Even without a complete knowledge of the totality of his references, the impact is striking. I enjoy reading about the things other people enjoy, particularly if it’s done in a way that doesn’t require me to have the references handy at all times, and this is that book. Randall takes quotes and clips and concerts and makes them sing on the page, brings them to life for a reader who maybe doesn’t have every single quote or clip or concert in their own mind. They do now. It works.

Speaking with so much ache, Randall winds us through a collection of essays into the heart of his grief, into the empty crater of depression, and into the humid search for an ancestral burial ground – a gravesite in Mississippi, proof of life.

I’ve struggled with how to write this review. How do you review a book you can’t quote, not yet? How can I review this book without showing it to you, without flipping to a dogeared page and reading an underlined verse? How do I explain the depth this book sunk me into? It is a stunning masterpiece, exploring boyhood tenderness that transmits itself into adulthood tenderness, fear, longing, and the desire to live – the choice to live – while haunting a family line in search of ghosts.

Advice : Run. Don’t walk. You’re going to want to read this one.

Shanghailanders Review

Book: Shanghailanders
Author: Juli Min
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Year: 2024
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “The year is 2040, and wealthy real estate investor Leo Yang – handsome, distinguished, a real Shanghai man – is on the train back to the city after seeing his family off at the airport. His sophisticated Japanese-French wife, Eko, and their two eldest children, Yumi and Yoko, are headed for Boston, though one daughter’s revelations will soon reroute them to Paris.
While the years rewind to 2014, Shanghailanders rotates perspectives, drawing readers into the shared and separate lives of the Yang family, parent by parent, daughter by daughter, and through the eyes of the people in their orbit. As their world shifts and brings change for each of the Yangs, universal constants remain : love is complex, and family will always be connected by blood, secrets, and longing.”

Review : Shanghailanders is a complex work of creative genius, told not just from shifting perspectives, but also from an unwinding timeline, the book spans from 2040 to 2014, with each subsequent chapter unwinding time just a tiny bit more. Min’s first novel, Shanghailanders is a breathtaking debut novel filled with family history, peeling back the curtain, giving us a glimpse into the Yang family’s dynamic; toxicity, growth, rejection, and all the layers the meld together to form a family. Beginning and Ending with Leo, the patriarch of the Yang family, Min has bookended her work with a man whose chapters hardly revolve around his inner world at all. I found it fascinating that throughout the entirety of the novel, Min chose to only reveal the Yang family through three male-centered chapters, two of which are Leo, the third being the family’s driver – all three of whom serve only to point us back toward the matrilineal family line.

Shanghailanders is a novel that addresses the fragility of time both in narrative and construct, giving us the smallest glimpses into the years that make up a family, revealing small clues and inward peaks that create the structure the Yangs have crafted their world(s) into. Speaking broadly of time, of bloodlines, and of familial connection, Min paints a much more detailed picture with the narrative, showing rather than telling us that Leo, and likely Yoko as well, has an anxiety disorder that causes apocalyptic dread, that drives his need to see his daughters sinking into independence and stability, that, at times, pushes his family to the brink, threatening to shatter their bubble; that Yuki, the youngest, at sixteen is facing the loss of innocence and the heartache of love lost; that while each family member feels tethered to the other, neither feels the thread of love as connection, that love is not a given. This is a novel filled with longing, with logic, with dread, and the potent, ever present realization that time is a fragile filament that tugs at us all. 

I think the most successful aspect of this book is the format, rewinding through the narrative from 2040 until, finally, 2014. Taking us briefly through the years of improved technology, covid, and finally into those pre-pandemic years where the children are barely formed, where love is new, and anxieties aren’t quite realized yet. Each chapter invites us into a new realm of the Yang family, masterfully written, weaving webs so delicate behind the scenes that we cannot see each thread until the final page has turned. Each chapter left me craving more, desperately wishing the timeline was reversed, that I could follow this family into further detail, into more solid ground, wishing and hoping I would be given glimpses into the characters and storylines I most enjoyed. Alas, with each passing chapter, each character faded, each storyline slipped away, and I was transported to younger versions, the groundwork of each prior chapter laid out ahead of me. The longing I felt. Perfection.

Advice : This is a truly remarkable work created with a unique vision. If you enjoy epics, this might just be for you. Spanning 26 years in the reverse, this scratches the epic itch while fulfilling a creative interest and need. I’d mark this one on the calendar.

Like Happiness Review

Book: Like Happiness
Author: Ursula Villarreal-Moura
Publisher: Celadon
Year: 2024
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “It’s 2015 and Tatum Vega feels that her life is finally falling into place. Living in sunny Chile with her partner, Vera, she spends her days surrounded by art at the museum where she works. More than anything else, she loves this new life for helping her forget the decade she spent in New York City orbiting the brilliant and famous author M. Domínguez.
When a reporter calls from the US asking for an interview, the careful separation Tatum has constructed between her past and present begins to crumble. Domínguez has been accused of assault, and the reporter is looking for corroboration.
As Tatum is forced to reexamine the all-consuming but undefinable relationship that dominated so much of her early adulthood, long-buried questions surface. What did happen between them? And why is she still struggling with the mark the relationship left on her life?
Told in a dual narrative alternating between her present day and a letter from Tatum to Domínguez, recounting and reclaiming the totality of their relationship, Like Happiness explores the nuances of a complicated and imbalanced relationship, catalyzing a reckoning with gender, celebrity, memory, Latinx identity, and power dynamics.”

Review : Like Happiness, as Villarreal-Moura writes in the acknowledgements, “is a book about loving books”. Incredibly literary, not only did it tick all the boxes in my soul that feel like satisfying brain-floss, it also rang some bells of familiarity that cannot be overlooked. This is a powerfully moving debut novel detailing the uneven footing of the power dynamic between a popular contemporary male writer and a younger female fan (notably, eight years younger). Feeling out of place with few friends at her Massachusetts college during her undergrad program, texas native Tatum makes a bold move one evening, penning a letter to the author of her new favorite book, Happiness. The author, M, is gaining popularity with his breakout novel of short stories detailing the lives of Latinx individuals in the United States. Feeling seen and understood in a way she has not felt in literary circles yet, particularly on a nearly all white college campus where she’s an art history, english lit double major, finding herself immersed in required reading of white Euro centric authors, Tatum feels at home with M’s book. She writes to M and within a few weeks, he writes back, thus beginning a multi-year long relationship between Mateo (M) and Tatum.

Like Happiness is a dual perspective book, though it doesn’t bounce around nearly as much as you may be accustomed to in a book with multiple narrators or points of view. Told largely through the lens of 2015 Tatum, far removed from her relationship with Mateo, writing a detailed account of her often one-sided relationship with Mateo, and a slightly earlier 2015 version of Tatum, receiving a phone call from a reporter in the States, calling because her relationship is celebrated fact and Mateo has been publicly criticized and outed as an abuser. It has been years since Tatum has spoken to Mateo and while she never experienced the abuses so many women are stepping forward to name, she is sure he isn’t an innocent party, both with the other women and with her. Choosing to tell her story to the reporter, she simultaneously decides to tell her story to Mateo and afford herself the closure she was never granted in the past.

Villarreal-Moura spins a tale of power imbalances, grooming behavior, and codependency that at times feels so real it’s hard to remember this is fiction and not a memoir. Over the span of nearly 300 pages, she outlines patterns of abuse so subtle they could almost go overlooked, laying them out chronologically, revealing a masterpiece of manipulation when the final product is fully revealed. **Spoilers Ahead**
Laying the groundwork for Mateo’s ultimate betrayal quite early on, Villarreal-Moura is an expert at building a scene. Not only is Mateo a college professor and author, he is a force of magnetism and power in Tatum’s life. He pulls her into his orbit and expects her to stay just where she is, mesmerized and fawning over his very being. He relies on her for attention, commitment, and praise while expecting her to simply go along with whatever he wants to do – and she does. He so encompasses her world that when he’s in it all others cease to exist. Mateo subtly punishes Tatum when she gets a serious boyfriend, though she and Mateo have never approached much more than a platonic relationship, he cuts her down and pokes fun of her intelligence when she doesn’t give him exactly what he wants, and pays off $20,000 of her school loans, leaving her helpless to the encompassing power he now wields over her. 

I don’t want to give away the ending, but know these subtle manipulations are nothing compared to the ultimate betrayal Tatum experiences at the hands of Mateo in the end. Putting a final nail in the coffin of their friendship, she is finally able to extricate herself from the leeching parasite of M, allowing her to write her final letter, this book, to him; knowing it will be the closure she needs in order to fully live her life without his shadow in it. As I read, I couldn’t help but be reminded of an article a read a few years ago about an author whose work I’d read and loved, Nick Flynn. And as I thought about that article, I couldn’t help but be reminded of another, similar, articled I’d read around the same time about another author whose work I’d read and loved, Junot Diaz. Both were published authors, one a professor and the other a keynote speaker, both took advantage of women who were younger than them, women who were still in college. Flynn, in particular, has since been accused by multiple women of abuse and misconduct. There is nothing new about this story, though that doesn’t in any detract from Like Happiness; if anything, I found it gave this book extra connective tissue. There’s a precedent here : men in positions of power who wield that power over unsuspecting women who are at a disadvantage due either to their age or their position (a student vs a professor). It’s common. And therefor, it needs to be told. Villarreal-Moura did a profoundly wonderful job telling it.

Advice : If you love reading books about people who love reading books, Like Happiness is truly wonderful. Villarreal-Moura has introduced me to so many things, though none quite as exciting as my new favorite snack of frozen grapes. If you love reading fiction that’s so perfect and timely that it could easily be memoir, this is it. I highly recommend it.

The Salt Grows Heavy Review

Book: The Salt Grows Heavy
Author: Cassandra Khaw
Publisher: Nightfire – Tor Publishing Group
Year: 2023
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Synopsis: “Certain stories are recounted so many times that they becomes parched of meaning. Others, however, are kept from wine-warmed conversations, catalogued but rarely recited. Complicated stories with no easy ending, stories that remind us karmic debt is a contrivance of despair, that there is nothing fear or sweet about this world. This is one of those stories.”

Review: I almost didn’t write this review. I read the book, I was enthralled, I was mesmerized, I was horrified, and then I was disappointed. I put The Salt Grows Heavy down, fully intending to walk away from it without reviewing it, but something about it kept pulling me back. I had to review it. I had to give it the space to be seen. Be forewarned, this one is odd; perhaps in the best possible ways, perhaps in the worst.

Khaw, in her letter to the reader, explains that TSGH was birthed from the question “what would happen if Ariel laid eggs?” and that’s possibly all you need to know before diving into this one. It’s short, a quick read, but it delves into themes of body horror, bodily autonomy, and existential dread. This novella is graphic, pointed, and poetic. I stopped short of giving it five full stars because of the disappointment I felt over the ending, but we’ll get into that. It is masterfully written with Khaw driving the plot forward, never mincing words, never adding detail that didn’t serve a purpose, all the while turning a disney fairytale into a twisted brothers Grimm tale.

The Salt Grows Heavy begins with a mermaid-eque creature leaving the kingdom she calls home, though it is notably not her home, after her clutch of daughters hatch from their eggs, eat the king, and subsequently eat the entire kingdom (sparing a precious few). Unable to speak because of an injury incurred by the Prince, as many Grimm and folktales go, we find the protagonist-mermaid leaving the kingdom with the Prince’s plague doctor, one of the only remaining survivors of the hatchling’s apocalypse, uncertain of where she’s headed. As they leave together, they burn the entire kingdom to ash, the plague doctor remarking “What’s the point of revenge if you can’t enjoy it?”.

Spoilers Ahead

As the unlikely pair leaves together, they get no further than a strange, cobbled together village of wildlings, children who systematically and routinely kill each other for sport, only to be rebuilt and recreated by their saints – a trio of physicians who have mastered the art of bringing creatures back from the dead…seemingly. The mermaid and the plague doctor are both horrified, though we come to learn that this horror stems from two distinct places. From the mermaid, she seeks to prove the physicians wrong; having had her own tongue cut out of her mouth by the Prince, her teeth removed, and her sisters slain, she feels a sense of purpose amongst these “saints” and the children they seek to rebuild over and over again. However, the plague doctor, who until this point has never removed his mask, experiences horror for other reasons entirely. As they and the mermaid grow closer, we are offered a glimpse behind the mask only to find that the entirety of the plague doctor’s body has been stitched back together, unable to die, unable to discern any form of gender, a blending of hundreds of parts. In fact, they were the saint’s first project.

The Plague doctor begs the mermaid to allow them to stay behind, to bring wrath upon the saints, and to free the children from their menacing grasp. As this is not a long book, these events happen quickly and before long the mermaid and the plague doctor are discovered by the saints, tracked and attempted to be killed. We come to realize that the mermaid is much heartier than the mermaids of Walt Disney’s imagination and can regenerate nearly at will. The plague doctor, because of their many differing parts, is almost unable to be killed, but they are, after all, still human. As the plague doctor reaches the end of their life, they once more beg the mermaid to allow them to die – to attain the one thing the saints have kept from them for a completely unknown number of years, iterations, and science projects that have kept them alive and uncertain of who they are.

The mermaid allows the plague doctor to die, she kills the saints, and then in epilogue, she resurrects the plague doctor because she’s in love with them. And this. THIS is where I take issue. In a book that is entirely about bodily autonomy, how these creatures have had zero say over their bodies and minds for lifetimes, Khaw chooses to posit that love is more important. She distorts the message of the book, completely does away with the autonomy of the plague doctor, a character who has been (pun not intended) plagued by rebirths and regenerations for so many lifetimes that they cease to understand who they are at all, for the sake of love. I think Khaw misses the mark when it comes to the execution of this book. In her letter to the reader she says, “It’s my love letter to the people who can’t and won’t give up. Who love the end of days. Who love like it is the end of days, and there’s nothing left to lose. It’s my nod to love that comes when you’ve given up, when you’ve concluded that’s it, there’s nothing left.” Personally, I don’t find this book to meet that thesis at all. I think Khaw has written a masterful book full of hard hitting and timely messages, and she throws it all away at the end for the sake of selfish love that cannot allow someone the autonomy to choose to die.

Advice: If you’re looking for a body horror book, this is it. If you like something to move at a quick pace, not take too many pages, and still hit hard, this is it! If, however, you cannot help but analyze a book, see where it went wrong, and find frustration over it, I suspect you’ll find, like I did, that this is not it. If you don’t enjoy gore or graphic violence, this will probably be one you’ll want to skip.