Contemporary Book Review

Can’t Spell Treason without Tea Review

Book: Can’t Spell Treason without Tea
Author: Rebecca Thorne
Publisher: Bramble / Tor Books
Year: 2024
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “All Reyna and Kianthe want is to open a bookshop that serves tea while firelight drifts between the rafters. However, Reyna works as one of the queen’s private guards, and Kianthe is the most powerful mage in existence. Leaving their lives isn’t so easy.
But after an assassin takes Reyna hostage, she decides she’s thoroughly done risking her life for a self-centered queen. Meanwhile, Kianthe has been waiting for a chance to flee responsibility – all the better that her girlfriend is on board. Together, they settle in Tawney, a town nestled in the icy tundra near dragon country, and open the shop of their dreams.
What follows is a cozy tale of mishaps, mysteries, and a murderous queen throwing the realm’s biggest temper tantrum, where these two women will discover just what they mean to each other…and the world.”

Review : This is another first for me, notably from the same publishing house as the last book I reviewed, a book that was originally independently published in 2022 and has now been picked up by a major publisher, scheduled to be re-released in 2024. I thought it looked familiar! Turns out I’ve been seeing people post about Can’t Spell Treason without Tea for a little while after it’s independent publishing. With the popularity of Travis Baldree’s Legends and Lattes, it’s little wonder a book that credits Baldree’s debut novel with it’s inception, has done so well! I have also found myself swept up in Baldree’s world, searching for additional cozy fantasy novels since finishing both his books, so this was a welcome surprise.

Thorne has successfully created a cozy, relatively low-stakes, fantasy novel that seems to check all the boxes for me. There’s rich world-building without the confusing word salad that sometimes accompanies fantasy novels, I never once struggled to visualize the queendom or any of it’s surrounding countries; there’s just enough mention of tea blends, baked goods, and rolling fires without going so far down the rabbit hole that the entire story becomes a cook book; and there’s mystery and adventure, peppered with betrayal, gryphon flights, and just a dash of magic. It’s the perfect blend of everything I’m looking for in a cozy, no-anxiety, fantasy novel. Thorne sets us up well for additional books, something I’m greatly anticipating (I know there’s a second book coming! It, like the first book, was also originally independently published, but will be re-released later this year). I even tried to buy book two in it’s independent form, but it’s already been marked up to roughly $150 so, like the rest of you, I will be waiting until the fall for the second installment. And that’s about as high of praise as I can give – I never attempt to buy a sequel of a copy I’ve been gifted as an ARC, I try my hand at getting the review copy for the next book in the lineup, and if I don’t get it, I move on.

There were a couple instances where I felt this book could have benefitted from some additional editing, but I suspect that may come with a bit of time, experience, and additional books. None of it felt so grievous that I wouldn’t read more in the future or wouldn’t recommend the series to friends (which I have already done!), but it’s worth mentioning. First, I realize the series is literally called Tomes & Tea, but the overuse of the word “tome” grated on my nerves throughout the book. I think this book, and subsequent books, would benefit from occasionally referring to books as something other than tomes, but that’s a personal preference on my end and perhaps it doesn’t bother anyone else. And second, there were several instance of dialogue that felt so stilted, it was clear this is a debut novel – and I do thin that’s okay! Like I said, I think some of these small errors will be adjusted with time and experience and I expect that book two, and any further books Thorne decides to write, will likely improve. There’s a lot of overuse of the word “girlfriend” in conversation that doesn’t read true to spoken dialogue, or overly formal wording that doesn’t quite strike me as realistic to a verbal conversation. I’m aware that this is a fantasy and not meant to be realistic, but I do expect dialogue to be at least convincing.

Advice : I highly suggest you mark this one on your calendar! If you love cozy, low stakes, but highly enjoyable, smut-free fantasy, this will be right up your alley. If you enjoyed Travis Baldree’s books, this one is definitely for you.

The Coven Review

Book: The Coven
Author: Harper L Woods
Publisher: Bramble / Tor Books
Year: 2023 & 2024
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “I was raised to be my father’s weapon against the Coven, who had taken everything from him. I would do anything to keep my younger brother from suffering the same fate. My path lead me to the prestigious halls of Hollow’s Grove University, where witches learn to practice their magic free from human judgement.
There I come face-to-face with the beautiful and infuriating Headmaster, Alaric Grayson Thorne. He despises me just as much as I loathe him – in spite of the fire that burns between us…”

Review : This is a first for me, a book that has been previously published being sent out as an advanced reader copy. I admit, it took me a little bit of digging to figure out why I received an uncorrected advanced reading copy of a book that was published in 2023; it seems this marketing campaign is running ahead of a special edition publication of The Coven debuting in August of 2024, a month before the sequel releases. Whatever the case, this book has been circulating and doing surprisingly well over the last few months, so by the time I received an ARC, opinions had already filtered their way to me. I received this book and immediately heard from a friend how much they enjoyed it, I know the author has amassed a monstrous following on social media, falling into the category of fantasy romance which means the loyal fans are deeply loyal. I had expectations, to say the least.

Unfortunately, The Coven lived up to the low, low bar of my expectations. Now, before we dive in, please don’t get me wrong! I’m not here to shame anyone for reading smutty fantasy novels, I don’t look down my nose at the books or the readers of the genre. At all. However, it has been my experience that many of these fantasy romance authors, in an effort to churn out as many books as possible for their droves of die-hard fans, often sacrifice quality for quantity. Or even quality for smut. It’s fair to say that I went into this book with a bit of trepidation, knowing Woods’ second book is set to debut just a year after her first – a timeline which is pretty drawn-out as far as fantasy books are concerned lately. I expected this book would sacrifice plot for smut, but what I didn’t expect was the shoddy writing (though, perhaps I should have given the passive voice used in the synopsis).

*Spoilers Ahead*

The Coven is a hard to follow fantasy that very clearly draws on so many fantasy and witchy tv shows. Unfortunately for Woods, I too have watched so many fantasy and witchy tv shows, meaning my mind immediately jumped to all the storylines she’s at times all but outright copied. First of all, the vampire-witch romance trope is unbelievably overplayed, but if you’re going to go that route, at least stray away from names used in tv shows like Vampire Diaries (*cough* Alaric *cough*). I find it hard to believe that any reader interested in a book like The Coven hasn’t also watched Sabrina, Legacies, or A Discovery of Witches. Like I said, the vampire-witch struggle and eventual romance is played out. There’s something deeply aggravating about a controlling, toxic male vampire who for some unknown reason just cannot resist the temptation of an “impossible” and frustrating female witch. We’ve seen it played out hundreds of times through so many fantasy books, movies, and tv series…it’s not compelling. Pun not intended. There’s nothing about an over-done trope that makes me want to continue turning pages. It makes me want to throw the book in the trash.

My second issue with The Coven is that while I can appreciate that Woods chose to include content warnings at the beginning of the book, clueing the reader in that the central male character is nothing but toxic, at the end of the day the portrayal of a controlling, manipulative, and coercive relationship is at best disquieting and at worst misogynistic and traumatic. I have yet to decide where Woods falls on the spectrum with her male main character (MMC) – a content warning isn’t enough, simply choosing not to write toxic men into stories where the reader is meant to find their humanity and fall in love with them is more of what I’m looking for. And this leads me to my third grievance with The Coven, which is the, frankly, hard to believe convolution of the storyline that means we readers cannot actually find humanity with Woods’ MMC because he is, in fact, the literal devil. Woods has created a universe where magic is readily available to those who have magical family lines they’ve been fortunate to be born into. Magic, then, is available through whatever means your family line is able to work with : air, earth, water, life, crystals, and the cosmos. However! In Woods’ universe, this ever-present magic is only available through these forms thanks to a blood pact that was made with the literal christian devil, Lucifer Morningstar. I told you, convoluted.

It’s this blood pact that brings me to my fourth grievance with The Coven : setting. While this book is modern, the witches and their family lines all stem from Salem, MA, as if that trope weren’t played out enough already, though as you can see, Woods is not one to run from an overdone trope. Though we’re to believe that Salem is the pinnacle of witchy activity (and not, I don’t know, any of the sites where thousands of people were burned overseas thanks to an unrelenting witch-trial that barely made it’s way to the States), Woods chooses to use the name of someone who didn’t exist in real life as the witch-mother herself, she who made a pact with the devil. It’s like there are all these puzzle pieces and they’re all close enough to fitting, so you shove and shove at them, hoping they will eventually fit, only to realize they’re pieces from two different puzzles.

Finally, my last, and possibly my biggest frustration with The Coven is the slipshod writing Woods employs. We can see it first in the synopsis, an ever-present passive voice. All I could think as I read this book was how much my high school english teacher would have despised it (content aside). He drilled into my head on a regular basis how insufferable a passive voice is, and to this day it lives in my brain : thou shalt not use a passive voice. The Coven is a lot of “what had happened” – again, as you can see from the synopsis. The writing doesn’t improve as the book continues and given that this is an ARC of a book that’s already been published, I don’t suspect additional editing will truly occur here. This book is how it is, passive voice and all. Woods could have benefitted from removing about 50% of the occurrences of the word “that” as well, something that I would think any editor would notice in a first or second draft. Again, this is an ARC for an already published book. It is what it is.

Advice : If fantasy smut is your thing, this book is pretty dang boring. If quality writing is your thing, run as fast as you can in the opposite direction. Don’t. Bother. It’s a waste of money and time. Trust me.

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.

Rise of a Killah Review

Book: Rise of a Killah : My Life in the Wu-Tang
Author: Ghostface Killah
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Year: 2024
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “Dennis Coles – aka Ghostface Killah – is a co-founder of the Wu-Tang Clan, a legendary hip hop group who established themselves by breaking all the rules, taking their music to the streets during hip hop’s golden era on a decade-long wave of releasing anthem after classic anthem, and serving as the foundation of modern hip hop. An all-star cast who formed like Voltron to establish the pillars that serve as the foundation of modern hip hop and released seminal albums that have stood the test of time
Rise of a Killah is Ghost’s autobiography, focusing on the people, places, and events that mean the most to him as he enters his fourth decade writing and performing. It’s a beautiful and intense book, going back the the creative ferment that led to Ghost’s first handwritten rhymes. Dive into Ghost’s defining personal moments, his battles with his personal demons, his journey to Africa, his religious viewpoints, his childhood in Staten Island, and his commitment to his family (including his two brothers with muscular dystrophy), from the Clan’s early successes to the pinnacle of Ghost’s career touring and spreading his wings as a solo artist, fashion icon, and trendsetter.
Exclusive photos and memorabilia, as well as graphic art commissioned for this book, make Rise of a Killah both a memoir and a unique visual record, a “real feel” narrative of Ghost’s life as he sees it, a one of a kind holy grail for Wu-Tang and Ghost fans alike.”

Review : Chronicling his life, from formative childhood years growing up in the West Brighton projects, to being introduced to kung-fu movies in his early teens, to forming the Wu-Tang Clan, crafting his Toney Stark persona, and everything in between, Ghostface Killah takes the reader on journey into stardom and the drive to simply make it in Rise of a Killah. It would be difficult to listen to music or engage with pop culture without encountering Wu-Tang clan, either having listened to their music or running into one of their cult-like followers. However, for someone like me, who has listened to their music over the years and enjoyed their work, though isn’t a die-hard fan, this book felt a little lacking. This book is very clearly geared toward the ride or die fans, the fans who’ve followed Ghostface and Wu-Tang Clan, who know the ins and outs, the ups and downs of the Clan and are familiar with the intricacies already – prior to reading the book – but I’ll get into that.

Rise of a Killah reads like a conversation, and that’s because it is a conversation. This book has been transcribed, and while I’ve enjoyed that style of reading in the past, there were very few moments during the course of this book that I didn’t feel this would be better suited as a docu-series. I enjoyed reading Ghostface’s story, he is, and has been, open and vulnerable about things that were, and continue to be, hard topics for people to talk about. I found it invaluable to read about his experiences with his mental health struggles, with how he wishes friends would reach out when they see those they’re close to having a hard time, and the way he found peace through speaking openly with RZA about what he was experiencing. During a time when it wasn’t nearly as acceptable to speak about your mental health or wellness, Ghostface leaned into being open with those around him – much the same way his lyrics spoke to things people weren’t rapping about at the time, like growing up in the projects and buying welfare cheese. He talks about the pressure he felt from a young age, living with a single parent and two wheelchair bound brothers, both of whom had muscular dystrophy, and how that helped shape his experience and push him into spaces with people he might otherwise not have come into contact with.

However, there were so many instances in the book that felt like partial stories, partial retellings, so many aspects left out, that the book felt lacking, at times even incomplete. And don’t get me wrong, I understand not everything can or should be included in an autobiography, I’m not naive – I just wish there had been more meat on the bone here. For example, toward the end of the book, Ghostface’s manager, Mike Caruso, speaks with the transcriber, going back in time and sharing his side of how things were happening mostly with the Def Jam label. Ghostface had already covered the years that Caruso was covering, yet we got infinitely more detail and more interesting stories from him than we did from Ghostface. I don’t think this is a poorly told story, but I do think the format choice is wrong for the impact the stories could be making. I found myself thinking over and over again that this would be the perfect documentary or docu-series, I would thoroughly enjoy watching this, having moments where the narrative could cut away and more details could be provided; at the end of the day, if I wanted to full understand this book, I’d have to spend as much time googling things as I did reading it. Had this been less of a transcribed conversation and more of a video interview, I think the impact would have been monumental. Instead, it falls a bit flat and leaves me with more gaping holes than I had before I read it.

I think the final release of the book will be a huge deal for fans of Ghostface and Wu-Tang Clan, it’s filled with photos, illustrations, and lyrics that will have fans drooling. The book talks a lot about Ghostface’s iconic wardrobe choices, from the diamond studded robes to his gold armbands, and details how colors impact his mental state in a way that profoundly influences his work. This is a great book for those fans who have been with Wu-Tang Clan since the inception, who collect every piece of merch, attend every show they can, and know all the infinite details.

Advice : If you’re a die-hard Wu-Tang Clan or Ghostface Killah fan, this is it. You’re going to want to mark your calendar for May 14th 2024 and be sure to grab a copy. If, however, you aren’t a day one fan, this might end up feeling confusing and hard to read. It definitely has its audience, but I think the broader appeal might be lost.

This Ordinary Stardust Review

Book: This Ordinary Stardust
Author: Alan Townsend
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Year: 2024
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “A decade ago, Dr. Alan Townsend’s family received two unthinkable diagnoses: his four-year-old daughter and his brilliant wife had developed unrelated life-threatening forms of brain cancer. As he witnessed his young daughter fight her tumor during the courageous final moths of her mother’s life, Townsend – a lifelong scientist – was indelibly altered. He began to see scientific inquiry not just as a source of answers to a given problem, but also as a lifeboat – a lens on the world that could help him find peace with the painful realities he could not change. Through scientific wonder, he found ways to bring meaning to his darkest period.
At a time when society’s relationship with science is increasingly polarized, Townsend offers a balanced, moving perspective on the common ground between science and religion through the spiritual fulfillment he found amid grief. Awash in Townsend’s electrifying and breathtaking prose, This Ordinary Stardust offers hope that life can carry on even in the face of near-certain annihilation.”

Review : Alan Townsend begins This Ordinary Stardust by talking about just that : stardust. He begins by explaining that, while he doesn’t love the cliche, “When viewed in our most elemental form, people are trillions of outer-space atoms, moving around temporarily as one, sensing and seeing and falling in love” (1). This outlook will go on to permeate the entirety of the narrative, from Townsend’s own work as a biogeochemist in Amazonian and South American fields, to the life he creates and grapples to understand with his wife, Diana, and young daughter, Neva. He meticulously creates a narrative in which we are immersed in the beauty and fragility of life, both planetary and human, where we cannot look away even for a second, even when it grows difficult. Townsend lets us in on the fact that he doesn’t subscribe to organized religion early on, but does pepper the book with words from the bible and the talmud – showing us how science and religion aren’t as far apart on the scale as one might assume.

Bouncing back and forth between the past and the present in the early pages of the book, Townsend eventually settles fully into the present around the three quarter mark. He lays the groundwork for us, showing us the work that he did as a scientist (literally) in the field, studying the impact of logging in the Amazon on fields, on the remaining plant and animal life, later studying similar things in South America. He introduces us to his wife as he was introduced to her: shit-eating-grin, brimming with life, never stopping her scientific inquiry into bacteria, never slowing down for anyone. We come to know and love Diana as he sees her, a force to be reckoned with, someone who is not only destined for greatness, but becomes the greatness she was destined for. I knew from reading the back cover that this would be a difficult book to read, especially as I grew to love Diana more.

Fortunately, the majority of the book is comprised of lyrical prose, of the excitement that comes from a scientific mind experiencing the natural world, and of Townsend’s own deep connection to the Universe. We discover early on that Neva, at a mere four years old, was diagnosed with a brain tumor that grows near the occipital lobe. We spend time with the family as they navigate a scary and unexpected circumstance with a daughter who is as bright, inquisitive, and stubborn as her mother. As they navigate the fragility of life, Townsend muses over the way Diana dives into the realm of science as a means to maintain a level of control and distance from the situation, never stopping to question, working to better understand the available options and proceed in the best way possible. Townsend takes the opportunity to discuss the way the brain exists when it’s presented with the space for curiosity, how it perseveres, and the way plasticity comes into the picture, quoting scientists and C.S. Lewis alike.

After the majority of Neva’s tumor has been removed, tragedy hits their family again, this time with a blow to Diana and another, completely unrelated, brain tumor. Unfortunately for Diana and her family, the tumor(s) she’s diagnosed with have no known cure. Though there are several experimental therapies and trials she can take part in, the brain tumor(s) that Diana suffers from are detrimental – most people do not survive the year. Townsend finds himself in the intersection of caring for a young daughter who has had her own experience with a brain tumor, and caring for a wife who is dying. It is science which bridges the gap for him, leading him through the understanding that while science is not perfect and there’s no certainty, there’s a degree of stability to it that weaves it’s web into our lives and threads itself through all the ways we interact with the world. In a quote from Mary Oliver, “All things are meltable, and replaceable. Not at this moment, but soon enough, we are lambs and we are leaves, and we are stars, and the shining, mysterious pond water itself” (3) Townend reflects that it’s through science that we find, what he calls, “no purer love” (7).

As the book wound its way down, I found myself reading more and more slowly – being less and less quick to pick it back up, not because I didn’t enjoy it but because I was delaying the inevitable. It was challenging to read the last quarter of this book and that’s because Townsend did such a remarkable job. Of course I fell in love with Diana, the spunky, big-hearted, stubborn, amazing, wonderful woman that she was. Of course my heart was broken when she left. Of course. And in truth, this is the kind of story I might normally avoid specifically because of the heartbreak. But I’ve finished the book and have no regrets at all. Townsend has created a beautiful gift to the world with This Ordinary Stardust. So has Diana.

Advice : This is a must read. If you enjoy the natural world, this book is definitely for you. If you enjoy science but find yourself gravitating away from dry lectures or cite-laden books, this one ticks all the boxes. Run to grab it as soon as it’s available.

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.

Fruit of the Dead Review

Book: Fruit of the Dead
Author: Rachel Lyon
Publisher: Scribner
Year: 2024
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “Camp counselor Cory Ansel, eighteen and aimless, afraid to face her high strung single mother in New York, is no longer sure where home is when the father ozone of her campers offers and alternative. The CEO of a Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company, Rolo Picazo is middle-aged, divorced, magnetic. He is also intuited boy Cory. When Rolo proffers a childcare job (and an NDA), Cory diets and internal warning and allows herself to be ferried to his private island. Plied with luxury and opiates manufactured by his company, she tires to assure herself she’s in charge. Her mother, Emer, head of a teetering agricultural NGO, senses otherwise. With her daughter seemingly vanished, Ever crosses land and sea to heed a cry fro help that only she can hear.
Alternating between the two women’s perspectives, Rachel Lyon’s Fruit of the Dead incorporates its mythic inspiration with a light touch and devastating precision. The result is a tale that explores love, control, obliteration, and America’s own late-capitalist mythos. Lyon’s reinvention of Persephone and Demeter’s story makes for a haunting and electric novel that readers will not soon forget.”

Review : I was a little skeptical about Fruit of the Dead at first, feeling as though I was about to walk onto Jeffrey Epstein’s island with the back-cover synopsis, not so much a modernized retelling of Persephone’s descent into the underworld and Demeter’s journey to retrieve her. Oh, how wrong I was. Rachel Lyon has spun a masterful tale of persuasion, adoration, and tragedy; a poignant retelling and perfect stand-alone novel. Lyon has completely grasped the fever dream of drug use in such a way that left me feeling dizzy and unmoored as I read Cory’s descent into addiction – a powerful parallel to Persephone’s own descent.

Lyon brings Cory into alignment with Persephone, goddess of both spring and the Underworld, quickly and with ease, as she gets to know Rolo Picazo, her new employer. As the CEO of a big pharma corporation, he has access to medications, drugs, opiates that have not yet been granted FDA approval, most notably a small, gel coated, gleaming red pill called Granadone, Grannies for short. A perfect, ripe, shining pomegranate seed, the demise of Persephone herself. Picazo shares a drink recipe with Cory, a mixture of vodka, pomegranate juice, lime, and, you guessed it, the contents of a Granny; called? Fruit of the Dead. And with her first sip, not even 100 pages in, Cory is snared.

After having been camp counselor to Picazo’s seven year old son, becoming a live-in nanny for his son and slightly younger daughter is easy as can be. Plied with as much alcohol and Grannies as she wants, Cory finds Picazo’s island intocicating. And while Picazo himself (middle aged, bloated, sad) is intriguing to her, she only finds herself (eighteen, unsteady, uncertain) mildly attracted to him in ever-so-brief moments that feel more like the intrigue of someone who grew up without a father. Meanwhile, Picazo expresses clear interest in being both a father figure as well as a romantic partner to Cory right off the bat. And like all master manipulators, he removes his mask and reveals himself nearly immediately, declaring himself a narcissist and reading Cory for the perfect victim she, in fact, is. And like most victims, Cory brushes it all aside, looks beneath the lumpy exterior, and attempts to see the good within. All whilst sinking further and further into a fever dream of addiction and loss of control.

This seems as good a point as any to talk about some content warnings, because, believe me, this book is a walking content warning. Not only does the entire book revolve around the explicit experience and physical sensation of being high and / or drunk, it also speaks in detail about sexual assault, physical assault, and the trauma that results from both. This book is not for the faint of heart, nor should it be read lightly. And while it is written with breathtaking prose, if you do decide to read it, please be careful and gentle with yourself if any of the above are problematic for you.

Bouncing back and forth between an elder teen who does not yet know who she is, who has been the victim of sexual assault and has entirely lost herself because of it, who is then scooped up by a predator and fed mouthfuls of little red happy pills; and a devastated mother who begins to unravel and become feral when she cannot get in touch with her daughter, Fruit of the Dead is nothing short of a masterpiece. We not only glimpse behind the curtain of a well curated mother, a woman who manages an NGO, who hobnobs with google executives, who pulls a few strings and gets her daughter prized internship after internship, who works her magic and lands Cory a scholarship to an all girls private school in Manhattan, we are privy to her downward spiral into mania as she loses herself in the search for her missing daughter. While we find Cory grasping at the very idea of her own identity, we see Emer, Cory’s mother, whose identity no longer fits, a mask that slips, falls, and shatters. The two are wrapped together, entangled in a connection neither can escape.

As a true retelling of Demeter and Persephone, the book does not end with a neat little bow tied on it. After all, Persephone returns to the underworld once every six months, leaving our world to the decay of autumn and the darkness of winter. I won’t completely spoil the book for you, but just know that this is not a happy ending. It is a realistic ending. And for that I am profoundly grateful. A perfect, feral, fever dream of a book.

Advice : I encourage you to read my content warning before deciding if this book is for you. If, however, you read the warning and feel okay with the content, I think you should run as fast as you can to your nearest bookstore on March 5th, 2024 and buy a copy of this book. 

The Absinthe Underground Review

Book: The Absinthe Underground
Author: Jamie Pacton
Publisher: Peachtree Teen
Year: 2024
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “For Sybil Clarion, the Belle Epoque city of Severon is a wild, romantic dream, filled with cares, cabarets, and glittering nightclubs. Eager to embrace the city’s freedom after running away from home, she’s traded high-society soirees for empty pockets and barren cabinets. At least she has Esme, the girl who offered Sybil a home, and maybe – if either of them dared – something more.
Ever since Esme Rimbaud brought Sybil back to her flat, the girls have been everything to each other – best friends, found family, and secret crushes. While Esme would rather spend the night tinkering with her clocks and snuggling her cats, Sybil craves excitement and needs money. She plans to get both by stealing the rare posters the crop up around town and selling them to collectors. With rent due, Esme agrees to accompany – and more importantly protect – Sybil.
When they’re caught selling a power by none other that its subject, Maeve, the glamorous girl doesn’t press charges. Rather, she invites Sybil and Esme to the Absinthe Underground, the exclusive club she co-owns, and reveals herself to be a green fairy, trapped in this world. She wants to hire thieves for a daring heist in Fae that would set her free, and is willing to pay enough that Sybil and Esme never have to worry about rent again. It’s too good of an offer to pass up, even if Maeve’s tragic story doesn’t quite add up, and even if Sybil’s personal ties to Fae could jeopardize everything she and Esme have so carefully built.”

Review : The Absinthe Underground is a sweet and fun adventure, that, while not low stakes, somehow ended up feeling just low stakes enough that it didn’t trigger any anxiety while reading it. Pacton crafted a beautiful scene by introducing us to the world of Fae, showing us rather than telling us what an intoxicating other-world might look like to two girls from this world. However, where she did a fantasy world justice, I felt she let the reader down with her depictions of the city of Severon. With a name like Severon and very little explanation to the time frame of the book, I was at first convinced this story was not only fantasy but science fiction. It wasn’t until I read the author’s note (at the end, after finishing the book in it’s entirety) that I realized Severon was meant to be an 1890’s Parisian equivalent. Something got lost in translation, figuratively speaking.

Likewise, Pacton included real world names like Toulouse and Mucha when discussing poster artists whose work is often stolen for it’s one of a kind collector status, which lent a bit of confusion and complication that felt unnecessary to the story. Sybil and Esme live in the top of a clock tower in a made up city that contains real world artists, something that I have a hard time wrapping my mind around when it comes to necessity. Not enough of the pre-Fae exploration of TAU connected me to Paris in the late 1800s for the real world examples to make sense, Pacton could have made a more significant impact on the story by placing greater emphasis on the time frame and reality of the world Sybil and Esme live in, then trying to tie it to our world. She lost me there. 

Spoilers Below

That aside, the Absinthe Underground itself was beautifully described and the subsequent adventure Sybil and Esme embark upon is quite endearing. I did feel, though, that there were several loose ends Pacton left untied; it’s unclear whether they were left untied for a reason or because they were simply overlooked in the editing process. However, one seemingly purposeful loose end does find Sybil and Esme’s adventure into Fae and back into the real world marred by a broken promise to free a human they encountered in Fae and help her find her way back through the door – I find the prospect of another book exciting, I can’t wait to see what Pacton does next! She left several threads throughout the story, dropped like leaves, and I wonder if she’ll pick the all back up in the upcoming book or if we’re simply left to speculate why a forest hag might be frightened of a kitten, whether Sybil’s father was a magician, and why he tried so hard to marry her off and turn her into a “proper” young woman before she ran away. There were small explanations planted throughout the book, but not enough to satisfy the weight each of the aforementioned interactions had on the plot. 

TAU was a cute, low-ish stakes middle grade adventure book that has great potential for future iterations, I think there’s room for improvement, but that improvement could surely come in additional books. Overall, I found it easy to read and enjoyable, if not a little slow and sleepy at times.

Advice : If a low-stakes adventure through a fairy realm sounds up your alley, you’ll want to give this one a read when it debuts in February. If you like a bit of a nail biter or a faster paced adventure, this might not be your jam.