Category: Read This Book

The first Catriona Ward book I ever read was The Last House on Needless Street, and it’s probably still my favorite. But having talked to many fans of this author, I’ve learned that most people enjoy their first Catriona Ward book the most. Your first Catriona Ward book is the one that introduces you to the mind-bending world of the author. It’s the book that lets you know that you can absolutely sit back and enjoy the ride, knowing that you’re in good hands. And while you might have moments where you ask yourself what the heck’s going on, you know it’s all going to make sense in the end. And then you’ll want to read it back to figure out what you missed the first time.

That was my experience with The Last House of Needless Street, and that was definitely my experience with Looking Glass Sound, the most loopy, brain-twister of all of Catriona Ward’s novels so far. I will try to sum it up for you, but just know this is only dipping a little toe into what actually goes on in this book.

When Wilder Harlow was young, there was one summer that turned his entire life upside down. It was a summer he will never forget and a traumatic experience from which he still hasn’t been able to completely recover. A killer stalked his small town in Maine, and a tragedy bonded Wilder to his friends Nat and Harper in ways that would forever change them. Now, decades later, Wilder is back in that small town, writing a memoir in the hopes of making sense of that summer. But the longer he spends in the town and the more he writes, the more Wilder feels like he’s losing his grip on reality. And it feels as if the book is somehow writing itself.

Looking Glass Sound is difficult to categorize in terms of genre, but if you like psychological horror and twisty thrillers, this is going to be your kind of story. This novel also serves as a meditation on the art of storytelling. Indeed, the person who controls the narrative controls reality. You’ll see what I mean when you read this and experience the delicious strangeness of this story for yourself.

If Looking Glass Sound ends up being your first Catriona Ward read, I’ll bet it will be your favorite. But I also promise you that you’ll love the rest of them almost as much. So don’t just read this book…read this author!

In the 1930s, when work was scarce, roughly 5,000 people — the majority of them African American — found employment working on the Hawk’s Nest tunnel project, which would divert the New River in West Virginia. But disaster struck when faulty drilling techniques caused silica dust to fill the air, permanently harming the lungs of hundreds and hundreds of workers inside the tunnel. Over 700 of them died of lung damage that resulted from exposure to the powdered silica.

Photographer Raymond Thompson Jr. strives to highlight, in particular, the Black men who worked on the Hawk’s Tunnel who are all too often left out of the history of the tunnel’s construction. While thousands of Black men worked on the tunnel, there is little visual documentation that they were ever there. As historian Catherine Venerable Moore says in her introduction, Appalachian Ghost is a “photographic reimagining of the Hawk’s Nest story.”

In some of the images, we see archival photos of the work camp, the gravesite, and the tunnel itself. In some, Thompson has edited in enlarged images of Black workers, as if putting them back in the recorded history where they belong. Other photos reflect Thompson’s background in photojournalism as we see photos of the gravesite, powerlines, and other details many would ordinarily miss.

Throughout the books, Thompson has recreated images of Black models covered in white powder. One of the images — a Black hand covered in white dust and reaching upward — is featured on the cover of the book. Thompson’s reimagining these images of Black men in work gear covered in dust brings history to life in such a stark and completely arresting way.

This book is a retelling of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of James, also known as Jim, the runaway enslaved man and Huck Finn’s companion during his adventures down the Mississippi River. If you have read any of Everett’s other work, then you know you are in store for a hilarious, clever, gut-wrenching, punch-in-the-face book.

When this book starts, you immediately know what the character James is about. He is intelligent and knows how to read, illegally consuming books from the Judge’s library. James is astute enough to know not to show any of his hand, carefully speaking to white folks in the manner in which they expect a simple enslaved person to speak. He teaches this to his children, not only the correct “incorrect” grammar but also the ways in which to speak according to social structure.

It’s clear that James has a soft spot for Huck. When James catches wind that he (James) may be sold to another enslaver, he runs away. He doesn’t really have a plan, and while understandably more than a bit panicked, he’s confident he can figure something out. Huck Finn comes along, and so now James is navigating a situation where he’s constantly having to keep himself and Huck safe while also doing the extreme code-switching he has perfected and formulating a plan to somehow liberate his wife and children.

While it is not necessary to have read Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn before reading this book, if you want an absolutely sublime reading experience, I suggest you read (or reread) it and then read James immediately after. I never thought I’d be suggesting that anyone read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, yet here we are.

Content warnings for racist violence (isn’t it all violence?), murder, other violence, and a host of other things that come along when talking about slavery without romanticizing it. This book also contains perhaps the funniest exchange I have ever read, an exchange that is the pinnacle of comedy, and it rendered me speechless for a good ten minutes after reading it.

I first read Megan Giddings’s The Women Could Fly two years ago, and I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s the type of book that made me feel all of the emotions. I laughed, I cried, I felt deeply unsettled. And I want everyone else to read this book, too, so I can talk to them about it.

This novel is set in a dystopian world where witches are real, and the government closely monitors all women to make sure they don’t turn into one. And if women aren’t married by 30, they become property of The State, their every move dictated and monitored. Josephine Thomas has heard rumors that her mother is a witch, and that’s why she disappeared, abandoning her family, never to be seen again. That was 14 years ago.

Now, as Jo’s 30th birthday looms ever closer, she desperately wants to move past the disappearance of her mother, but marriage and the life society wants her to lead seem wholly uninteresting to Jo. She’s dating, but she doesn’t feel a deep connection with any of the men in her life (including her father, whom she feels doesn’t really know the real her). With all of the pressures and expectations of women in this world, Jo feels like men can’t understand what she’s feeling or going through. In other words, the older Jo gets, the more she understands why her mother would want to run away and leave everything else behind. Jo has often had thoughts of doing the same.

Then Jo is offered a window into another way of life and gets new insight into who her mother was and who she would become. Suddenly, and perhaps for the first time ever in her life, Jo is presented with choices. But the choices aren’t easy, and following her heart might also put her in danger.

I absolutely loved every moment of this book. It confronts sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and other topics that, unfortunately, feel very relevant to contemporary times. But most importantly, what made me connect to this story was Jo’s voice. Jo felt authentic and unique as a main character. She’s vulnerable and honest, but she’s also just really, understandably, angry. And somehow, this book still manages to have some genuine moments of humor. Like, I literally laughed out loud at points.

After Lakewood and The Women Could Fly, I can confidently say that Megan Giddings is one of those authors who will immediately jump to the top of my TBR every time she has a new book. If you haven’t checked her out yet, take this as your sign to do it now!

When I first read Lisa Ko’s debut novel The Leavers, I felt completely consumed by the story of a young Chinese American man who had been adopted by white parents. Ko possesses this ability to flesh out her characters with such care and attention to detail. So the moment I heard that her second novel, Memory Piece, was coming out, I knew I had to get my hands on a copy.

It’s the 1980s, and three friends — Giselle Chin, Jackie Ong, and Ellen Ng — come of age determined to make their mark on the world. Giselle Chin is a performance artist, and even locked herself in a mall for an entire year, chronicling her experience for art’s sake. Jackie Ong is a programmer who creates her own social media space in her spare time. Ellen Ng is an activist, working to create a communal space for marginalized folks in need of a home.

The three women make their own ways in the world, each moving in and out of each other’s lives, for better or worse. The novel moves forward in time from the 1980s to the 2040s, showing the changes in the friends’ lives through the decades. I particularly loved how all three friends are so different, each with their particular quirks and interests. They fight, make up, and fight again, creating a unique friend group that holds up through the tests of time. 

Audie award-winning narrator Eunice Wong performs the audiobook beautifully. Each viewpoint character is distinct, each with her own narrative voice. I felt consumed by their story and found excuses to keep listening until the very end. Memory Piece is a must-read for anyone who loves women’s coming-of-age stories or complex, decades-long female friendships.

On the first day of 11th grade, Naho receives a strange letter. The writer of the letter claims to be Naho from the future — ten years in the future, to be precise. And in it, future Naho tells her younger self to look out for Kakeru, a new student who will be joining her class. From the moment Naho sees Kakeru, she feels a deep connection with the melancholy boy, and she happily invites him to be a part of her close-knit group of friends. Still, she’s skeptical about the letter. How could it possibly come from an older version of herself in the future? Surely it has to be a prank.

But then things in the letter start coming true. And the more the letter is able to foretell the future, the more Naho has to take the warnings seriously. No matter what the cost, she must save Kakeru from a horrible fate. And every change she makes to the timeline will have consequences.

If you’ve ever lost someone close to you, then you have probably wondered what would have happened if you could go back and change the past, knowing what you know now. You’ve probably wondered if there is some alternate world out there where they are still alive. I really appreciated how this manga explores that possibility. And without giving too much away, we do also get to flash forward to the future to see where Naho and her friends are now, years later, still reeling from the loss of Kakeru, a person who had such an immense impact on their lives when they were younger. How does changing the past affect these people in the future? You will have to read to find out.

Orange is juggling a lot of elements, and I think this series does it really well. It’s a reflection on grief and loss, absolutely. But this is also a story I would comfortably categorize as sci-fi, as it also explores elements of time travel and the consequences of alternate timelines. Orange is also a love story, one in which — no matter how the story shakes out — someone is going to end up brokenhearted.

Above all else, though, this is a story about friendship. This is a story of a group of six friends who will do absolutely anything to support each other and take care of each other. Friends who manage to stay connected into adulthood. Despite the often depressing subject matter of this manga, ultimately, the message of Orange is that friendship is what makes life worth living.

Aphrodite Du Bell feels incredibly burdened by her name: it’s a lot to live up to. Though she is incredibly beautiful and talented, she feels pressure to constantly be the most beautiful, the most talented, and the most everything. Being named after the goddess of love and beauty is a lot to ask of someone. She loves to walk about the gardens, and her mother thinks she loves to read a bit too much. Aphrodite is part of a big family of five siblings, and they are all very loving and close to each other.

Aphrodite is 22 and unmarried. She had every intention of marrying her childhood friend, Evander Eagleman, the Duke of Everely. As far as she knew, he had every intention of marrying her as well. During the season of her coming out (four years prior to the start of this book), she turned down every offer from every suitor, as she expected Evander to show up and ask for her hand. She waited and waited and he never showed. In fact, the next she heard was that he had gotten married to someone else. It is now the next eldest daughter’s turn for her coming out, and the family has insisted that Aphrodite go to London for the season with everyone to show support for her sister Hathor, who is just a giant ball of anxiety. Coincidentally, Evander has a younger sister, Verity, who is also coming out this season, and on top of that, Evander’s wife just passed away. The likelihood of Aphrodite and Evander crossing paths is incredibly high. The family is torn on this whole situation. Aphrodite’s mother, who is also Evander’s godmother, is depending on them running into each other and making up and getting married. Damon, Aphrodite’s older brother, is very much against it and does not want his sister to get hurt yet again.

While Evander is the Duke of an estate, he and Verity have had multiple traumatic experiences growing up due to their careless, abusive, and now deceased father and the father’s second wife, who was his mistress and not from their circles. This book went to some places that I did not expect it to go, and it’s told from multiple viewpoints. There is definitely sex on the page, which is both steamy and charming. While there is some trauma talked about in the book, it isn’t racism-based trauma, and racism is hardly a theme in this book, if at all. Content warnings for physical and verbal abuse, including child abuse, discussion of suicide, and violence.

I first discovered Garrard Conley through his bestselling memoir Boy Erased, which was made into a movie starring Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe. Boy Erased follows his experience when his parents learn that he’s gay and send him to conversion therapy. Now Conley is back, but this time with his debut novel.

All the World Beside follows two men, minister Nathaniel Whitfield and physician Arthur Lyman, living in Puritan New England in the early 18th century. When Nathaniel and Arthur begin their affair, they never expected their relationship to turn into an all-encompassing force that consumes them and their families.

Nathaniel is a preacher from England who has created his own community in the new world that he calls Cana. There he and his followers wait for an “Awakening” that will prove that their community is truly blessed by God, that they have found the one true way, that they are chosen by God.

Conley delves into ideas around faith and belief, and what it means to truly believe in the love of God. But you don’t have to be a Christian or even a person of any faith to appreciate the multiple layers that Conley weaves into this novel. The universal ideas of love and connection in the face of a ridiculous number of obstacles make this novel accessible to just about any kind of reader.

Pete Cross performs the audiobook edition of the novel, creating this quiet, intimate sort of listening experience that makes you feel as if you are right there, part of the community watching Nathaniel and Arthur risk everything for their relationship.

I am a huge fan of the Quick & Easy Guides put out by Limerence Press. They are unintimidating, clear, concise, and fairly inexpensive, so they aren’t only good, impactful reads, but they may also be easy to buy extra copies to give to others. I definitely did that with the Quick & Easy Guide to They/Them Pronouns as well as the one on Queer & Trans Identities.

As it says in the title, this installment is about consent — specifically consent in sex, relationships, and other physical contact. The information in this book is far from the often common and sometimes oversimplified “no means no” advice. This book focuses on and reinforces enthusiastic, informed, active consent, also referred to as “yes means yes.” Affirmative consent means that whatever the people involved are doing, they are all truly interested in doing it. This framework focuses on people wanting to do something and not just willing to do something.

Our guide through this book is Sargent Yes Means Yes from the Consent Cavalry. They are witty and charming and I would venture to say that this book is probably more explicit consent training than most people get. One of the most important things is that this book is really positive. It’s less about danger around every corner and more about how consent is not only good and necessary, but getting and giving consent can also be fun and sexy in itself.

This book doesn’t really cover laws, because laws vary and are dependent on many things, such as time and geographic location. This book does, however, make it very clear that consent is for all gender identities, and the people drawn in this comic are diverse with regard to race, gender, and orientation. Sexual violence is definitely discussed, but there are no visual depictions or graphic descriptions.

If you are thinking to yourself, “How can there be a whole entire book, even a small book, on consent?” then it might be in your best interest to read this book!

The Pace family is taking their annual vacation, and this year they’re headed to Montepurso, Italy, where they’ve booked a stay at the beautiful, remote Villa Taccola. The weather is gorgeous. The views are incredible. The food is next level. The wine is flowing all day long. And the locals seem pretty nice. There are even a few neighborhood kids for the young ones to play with. Truly, it would be the ideal vacation…if not for a couple of major issues.

For one, there’s the family dynamics. The Pace family, just like every other family, has their issues. Anna and Benny are twins, but they’re not on the same page. Anna feels like she’s constantly ostracized by the rest of the family for her life choices, and Benny is so go-with-the-flow that he refuses to stick up for her. Meanwhile, their older sister, Nicole, is super controlling and wants to plan every moment of their trip down to the minute. No one else is allowed to say anything about it, and her husband and her two kids are so used to it that they just reinforce her behavior. Then there’s their judgmental mother. And their father just refuses to talk about anything. It’s a weird group of personalities that end up clashing at every turn.

But that’s not all. The Pace family is also contending with supernatural forces in Villa Taccola. Whenever they leave the villa, they come home to strange surprises, like bugs everywhere and furniture overturned. Someone is lurking behind Anna, breathing on her neck when her back is turned, and maybe even licking her? Oh, and those kids Nicole’s daughters have been playing with? They might actually be ghosts. There’s a strange tower in the villa that’s locked away and hidden, but everyone keeps hearing scratching noises on the other side of the door. The villagers try to warn the Paces that something is wrong with that house, but most importantly, they must not open that tower.

This book was such a wild ride that kicked off immediately from page one and then relentlessly delivered scares all the way to the last paragraph. But somehow, Diavola also fit in a lot more. I know this isn’t supposed to be an ideal vacation or anything, but wow, all of the beautiful writing about Italy made me want to go really bad. It felt like a little escape from my really bad month, reading about the food, the wine, the locales, the museums. This book was also really funny! Terrible family vacations are incredibly relatable to everyone, right? You kind of have to laugh at just how bad this particular family vacation is, from start to finish. Funny and engaging family drama, compelling travel writing, and a scary story: this book really has it all.