Author: Erica Ezeifedi

In light of DC’s tom foolery, let’s start off with a graphic novel. I finally got around to watching the second Doctor Strange movie this past weekend, and found out that Gabby Rivera writes Marvel’s America Chavez comics. America is a main character in the Doctor Strange movie, so I just wanted to include this as a cute little factoid, and not because I wanted to shade DC or anything *blinks innocently*.

This is an adaptation from the novel of the same name, which follows Juliet Palante as she tries to figure out life as a queer Puerto Rican woman. She’s just told her mom and the rest of her family that she’s a lesbian and isn’t sure how that will change their relationship in the long term. So she decides to try to see how other queer women make it by interning with her favorite feminist author. Problem is, the author is white, so there’s an aspect to Juliet’s identity that she won’t necessarily understand. Turns out no one has the answers, so Juliet will have to come up with them herself!

Book Club Bonus: Discuss how you interpret this line given the rest of the book: “Feminism. I’m new to it. The word still sounds weird and wrong. Too white, too structured, too foreign: something I can’t claim.”

I mentioned this one a few months ago, but it’s perfect to mention again as we head into fall. It’s a retelling of The Island of Doctor Moreau that takes place in 19th century Yucatán, Mexico. Young Carlota Moreau lives with her father, Dr. Moreau, Montgomery, and the doctor’s part human, part animal creations in a sort of innocent bubble. The bubble bursts when the son of Doctor Moreau’s patron, Eduardo Lizalde, arrives. Now, Carlota has questions about her father’s obedient hybrids that he may not be willing to answer.

Book Club Bonus: What do you think this retelling added to the original story? If you haven’t read the original story, how do you think being set in Yucatán, Mexico added to the anticipation of the finale?

The Izquierdos are a family with members who really care about each other, but man are they going through it. The patriarch is dying, a son’s marriage is on the rocks, there are miscarriages, and other misfortunes, and it’s all thought to be the result of a neighbor placing a curse on them out of jealousy. As we’re taken through three generations of Izquierdos, each chapter is told by a different family member, allowing for a fully formed picture of a family as it contends with sorrow, basks in happiness and the love its members have for each other.

Book Club Bonus: Discuss what role belief systems, like brujería and Catholicism, play in the family members’ lives.

This is another retelling, this time of The Great Gatsby. It follows 17-year-old trans boy Nick as he travels from Minnesota to New York City to start life as a young professional. He ends up renting from his cousin Daisy, who is engaged to a wealthy white man and has decided to pass as white instead of Latina. Then, of course, there’s Jay Gatsby, with his mansion and extra parties. Like with the original, we learn that the parties are to impress Daisy, but we also learn that Jay is trans, too. There are some other wonderful surprises in McLemore’s beautifully written book that will make you want to read this sooner rather than later.

Book Club Bonus: I’m really liking seeing all these Great Gatsby retellings because there’s so much room to explore — unpack, really — the American everything. The American Dream, American ideals, beauty standards, class, everything. Which parts of American culture do you feel were called out based on what was changed from the original?

Vern is on the run. She’s seven months pregnant and hiding out in the woods after having escaped from the religious compound where she grew up. The community she escaped from doesn’t want to let her go, though—even as she fights back against them using a kind of superhuman strength. To protect the twins she gave birth to after having escaped, she’ll have to contend with her past within the compound—the existence of which is directly tied to the history of violence in the U.S.—and a new future.

Book Club Bonus: Discuss how affective the story was at making what has been sacrificed in the name of certain ideals in this country truly felt.

The Only Good Indians has a couple major things in common with the movie Beast. I won’t list them specifically in case you want to see the movie, though. Jones’ book follows four young Indigenous men who went hunting one fateful day. Their decision to shoot into an elk herd on elder land, violating Blackfeet boundaries, is one that later comes with a great reckoning. Jones works in illuminating social commentary and subverts horror tropes as he also tells of how the young men fight to stay alive.

Book Club Bonus: In what ways can the sentiment behind Blackfeet hunting mores be applied to global warming?

The Donner Party descends into chaos after it gets hit with misfortune after misfortune. A little boy dies mysteriously, food is running low, and people are fighting. Looking for sense amidst tragedy, talks of Tamsen Donner being a witch start to circulate. Whatever the reason, though, the fact remains that the group has to survive the journey through a mountainous area—with its intense temperatures on both ends of the spectrum—if its members are to live. But as people start disappearing, the question of “is there something in the mountains?” takes root.

Book Club Bonus: What did you think of Katsu’s weaving of historical details with her explanation of what happened with the infamous Donner Party?

When five office colleagues go into a mountain range as part of a corporate retreat meant to build teamwork, one goes missing. So far, this is the only Jane Harper novel I’ve read, and one of the things I liked about it was how the setting is its own character. The Giralang Ranges—a fictional mountain range that could represent a number of Australia’s national parks—grants a sense of claustrophobia and a constant, uneasy presence as detective Falk must determine if the missing woman was a victim of foul play, the elements, or another, unknown force.

Book Club Bonus: Discuss what you would do if you were placed in a similar situation where you had to survive in abject wilderness. Do you think how the characters behaved was realistic?

Born in Fukushima the same year as the emperor, Kazu has always felt tied to the Japanese royal family. He’s also tied to this one place: the park near Ueno Station in Tokyo. As a ghost, his spirit haunts this one particular spot where his nebulous thoughts swirl around things like the conversations he overhears and other sensory experiences. They eventually manifest into more concrete thoughts, like the life experiences that led him to being homeless and dying in the park. His story speaks volumes on humanity’s disregard for the most vulnerable populations.

Reading Gods of Jade and Shadow, made me super hype to read more books set in Mexico City, where this one also takes place. In it, we find the very precocious 12-year-old Ana who likes to read Agatha Christie novels to try to forget about how her little sister died. One day she decides to plant a milpa in her backyard. The digging it requires leads to her neighbors digging up their past, sharing with her stories of lost mothers, mysterious wives, and other questions, like how a girl who knew how to swim could drown. Jufresa’s writing can be funny but also heartwarming, and the Mexico City she writes of is both modern and whimsical.

Virginie Despentes is a writer and filmmaker who wrote this book as part of a trilogy on the owner of a music shop in Paris named Vernon. Wellll, Vernon ain’t doing too hot; though he was once a bit of a legend in music circles throughout Paris, the 2000s have him on a decline. The advent of the internet has led to considerably fewer CDs and vinyls being sold, and now his store is struggling. His savings eventually dry up and the rock star who had been paying his rent (must be nice!) has died from an overdose. A comment he made on Facebook goes viral, and once people realize he has been dragging all these rare VHS tapes around as he couch surfs, he becomes a bit of a target. Now, an eclectic cast of characters — from porn stars to screen writers — are after Vernon’s tapes that have the last recordings of the dead rock star.

Reading translated poetry is an interesting concept to me. Since the word choice in poems is so exact and precise, I wonder how much gets lost in translation. With that in mind, it makes sense to have another poet translate poetry, as Kazim Ali has done here for Devi’s poems, which are simultaneously autobiographical and meditations on things like aging and desire. There’s also a translator’s note, an essay on reading poetry, and an interview between the author and translator.

It’s said that Buddy Bolden took ragtime, mixed it with the blues, Black American spirituals, and even a little hoodoo music to make what would be known as jazz. Thing is, none of his recordings survived. What has survived is the mystery surrounding the man. Ondaatje takes that mystery and writes a novel around it, bringing to life Bolden’s world where he would birth a beautiful new art form before he succumbed to his struggle with mental illness.

Book club bonus: How do you feel the experimental elements of the author’s writing lend to the story?

An interracial rock duo, Opal and Nev, rise to fame in the ’70s as a result of their bold and funky sound. During a concert, another musical group waves a Confederate flag and when Opal protests, violence breaks out. Decades later, music journalist Sunny Shelton seeks the duo out to record their history, but is surprised to learn about allegations that threaten the duo’s legacy.

Book club bonus: A few of these books have a different form than the usual novel. This one is told in an oral history format. How do you think the format aids the storytelling here?

Also, how do you think Opal & Nev’s success would have been altered if Nev was Black?

This YA novel in verse is about a 17-year-old named Denver who dreams of making it in music. First, she’ll have to get out of her small, very white hometown, though. She and her best friends Shak and Dali get on the radar of the biggest R&B star in the world, and soon he’s giving them everything they could dream of. But eventually the parties turn into something else, and Denver realizes this isn’t the singer’s life she had in mind.

Book club bonus: Discuss why you think the entertainment industry is so full of abuse. Is it something intrinsic to it, or just more obvious because the people are famous?

Hieronymus Falk, a rising music star, is arrested and never seen again in 1940s Germany. Fifty years later and inspired by a mysterious letter that reveals secrets surrounding what happened, Hiero’s bandmate Sid travels back to Germany. Through Sid, we see not only the mystery of Hiero’s disappearance unfold, but also what it was like to be a group of Black musicians in Nazi Germany.

Book club bonus: Discuss what surprised you about what it was like living as Black jazz musicians in Germany in the ’40s.