Category: Read This Book

Evelyn Caldwell is an award-winning researcher whose scientific breakthroughs on genetics and cloning are cutting edge. So when she discovers that her husband has used her research to clone her—or rather, a more docile version of her—she’s livid. But there’s nothing she can do to stop him from leaving her for Martine, because exposing him could cost her the funding she desperately needs for her lab. When he ends up dead, both Evelyn and Martine find that they’ve got to work together in order to not arouse suspicions.

I really loved the idea of a sci-fi take on the domestic thriller genre, and this book doesn’t disappoint. Evelyn is a driven character who cares deeply about her work, and her relationship with her husband has all the hallmarks of a man who can’t stand to be second-best next a brilliant wife. The twist of him cloning her, and using her research to neatly trap her into silence, was maddeningly brilliant, and I really enjoyed the fascinating world building Gailey sets up in a world that seems very similar to our own, but with more advanced genetic discoveries. There are limitations to cloning, naturally, but the more that Evelyn and Martine get to know each other, the more Martine seems to defy these limitations. At times, the tension in this book was so thick I could barely stand to put the book down and there are enough twists to satisfy even the most well-read thriller reader. I also really enjoyed that Gailey dug into some big ethical questions about cloning, and forced Evelyn to really consider her own morals. This is a unique take on some well-trod genres, and nearly impossible to put down!

Ring Shout is set in 1922 in Macon, Georgia. Our narrator and protagonist is Maryse Boudreaux. Her closest friends are Sadie and Chef and they’ve all set a trap for the creatures they are hunting. Nearby there is a KKK march/rally and it’s the 4th of July. While the human Klan members are awful, they are mostly vehicles for the real monsters called Ku Kluxes.

Ku Kluxes are terrifying beasts that are reminiscent of the aliens from the Alien films but Ku Kluxes are bone white with rows of eyes. So creepy. They gain power and feed off of hate and they often use human Klan members as disguises and hide right alongside them.

Maryse, Sadie, and Chef hunt Ku Kluxes. Sadie is amazing with a rifle and Chef is a delightful butch lesbian veteran who is brilliant with explosives. Maryse? She has a magic sword. Not everyone can see Ku Kluxes but these three have The Sight.

In the United States in 1915 there was a film released called The Birth of a Nation and it gave rise to and a lot of momentum to the KKK. This is actual history. In Ring Shout, the 1915 release of The Birth of a Nation was actually a magic ritual that white men used to summon demons, aka the Ku Kluxes. Ring Shout takes place seven years later when there are plenty of demons to be hunted. The person at the center of the demon-hunting is Nana Jean, who is a Gullah woman with some psychic powers. From some of the research that their little group’s scientist is doing and from Nana Jean’s visions, they can tell something is brewing. Something real, real bad.

Through horror, the author also offers us a really great examination of hate and the different kinds of hate. It’s a novella clocking in at just under 200 pages and it had me on the edge of my seat the entire time.

Content warnings for violence, gore, racism, racist violence, and body horror.

In 1955, hundreds of thousands of women across the United States spontaneously turned into dragons in a three hour period, setting fire to countless homes and businesses and devouring more than one philandering husband. Then they took to the skies and disappeared. Alex was only a child when the mass dragoning occurred and while her mother stayed, her beloved Aunt Marla left. Her cousin Beatrice became her sister, and Alex learned after that to never speak of the dragoning, or of dragons in general. But as she grows up and begins to learn more about her mother and aunt and the injustices of the world, and as Beatrice becomes perilously fascinated with that which should not be named, Alex must confront all of the anger and secrets that society would keep hidden.

I adored this book. The premise alone had me hooked from the get-go, but the actual writing is incredibly beautiful and fairy tale-like, yet grounded in wonderfully real and tangible details. Barnhill is a Newbery Medal winning children’s writer and you can see that in how deftly she writes about Alex’s childhood, but this is also very clearly a book written for grown ups. It probes into the injustices women face and the ways that society expects everyone to keep quiet about the obvious, and how we suppress knowledge if it doesn’t conform to the conclusions we’ve already drawn. These ideas can be explored at any point in American history, but I loved how it was set in the ’50s and ’60s, as women who found freedom during WWII were suddenly forced back into stifling gender roles and change was brewing. The book is written in the style of a memoir, interspersed with various reports, witness statements, studies, and other ephemera that help expand the world and give context to Alex’s story. Her own account is a beautiful memoir of love, acceptance, queerness, found family, and self-determination that spans years and had me crying and laughing and crying again. I inhaled this book—it’s a truly magical gem.

This is an essay collection from a wide range of disabled folks. About one in five people in the United States is disabled which is a massive amount of people. It makes the already horrific disregard, lack of representation, lack of access, and more all the more egregious. The essays in this book are a wide range of experiences, which makes sense, because the disabled community is a wide range of people. There are essays that are heartbreaking, uplifting, anger-inducing, and joyful, sometimes all in a single essay.

So many of the essays lay bare the layers of oppression at the intersections of identities and they can be very, very heavy. I had to take several breaks while reading this book because some of the essays filled me with massive amounts of rage. The essay titled “The Erasure of Indigenous People in Chronic Illness” by Jen Deerinwater and the essay titled, “The Isolation of Being Deaf in Prison” by Jeremy Woody as told to Christie Thompson come to mind.

One of the essays that blew my mind was by Sky Cubacub, the non-binary, queer, and disabled Filipinx creator of Rebirth Garments which, from the website, are “fully customizable gender non-conforming wearables and accessories centering Non-binary, Trans, Disabled and Mad Queers of all sizes and ages.” The bit that just absolutely floored me was when they wrote about accessibility during a fashion show. Fashion shows often have loud music and are very fast-paced and it can be difficult for a person to offer live descriptions of what is going on on stage. So, they collaborated with a musician to integrate the descriptions of the fashion into the lyrics of music that they were writing for the show. I thought that was incredibly rad!

I read this book quite a while ago and it is one that stays with me. If you are a person that is reading all kinds of social justice books, all kinds of books on anti-Blackness and books on homophobia and books on intersectional feminism etc., you absolutely must read this book as well. Even if you’re not reading all those books, if you are an adult human, or even a young adult, this is a must-read.

There are content warnings at the beginning of each essay that warrants them and there is a range too large to fully list here but it includes infanticide, genocide, institutionalization, abuse, and more.

Nao has decided to defer college for a year in order to do something she’s long dreamed of: return to Japan. Although she lived in her mother’s homeland as a young kid, she’s mostly grown up in the States and feels like a part of her is missing. When she arrives at Himawari House, a place for young students from all over the world, she meets Hyejung and Tina, who are from Korea and Singapore. The three form a bond despite their differences and language barriers, and they learn to rely on each other as they navigate Japanese classes, work, and the unknowns of their futures.

I loved this book for so many reasons, but I’ll start with the characters and their unique perspectives. Although the book is centered around Nao’s experiences and perspective, we also get the backstories and POV of both Hyejung and Tina as they share what brought them to Tokyo and what their goals are. Their friendship is really sweet, and I love how they relate to each other through food (so much delicious food, it was like being in a Ghibli movie!), bonding over being homesick, and by supporting each other while far from home. The use of language is also really fascinating in this book, and it’s notable because Becker lays it all out on the page—Japanese, Korean, English, and more. The scenes in which the characters are learning Japanese or struggling to understand each other are artfully smudged, so you get this really cool visual representation of the words they’re catching and their confusion. From a linguistic standpoint, I thought it was really fascinating and creative. The only language I read in this book is English, but it was really cool to see multiple languages represented on the page.

Overall, this is a really lovely book about the emotional storm of returning to a country that you’re from but haven’t grown up in, and what it means to be an outsider and citizen at the same time. It’s also a thoughtful portrayal of the bravery it takes to go to a new country and learn a new language, and nuanced look at the many reasons why young people might emigrate to Japan. The ending was bittersweet, but perfect.

This book is simultaneously absolutely beautiful and wildly anger-inducing. One of academia’s problems is that there is no wiggle room for studying something outside of a rigid set of westernized, colonialist rules. Full disclosure: I work at a university and I appreciate the scientific method and also there are multiple ways of learning about the world around us.

Dr. Kimmerer is a biologist, environmental scientist, decorated professor, a mother, and an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Before I read this book, I imagined that trying to bridge the gap between Indigenous wisdom and scientific knowledge would be like trying to walk a tightrope. Dr. Kimmerer makes it clear that it is actually more like examining something that is woven. They aren’t two separate thoughts and instead are intimately related, as if they are woven into each other.

One of the many ideas that rocked my world is to think of everything in the world as a gift instead of a commodity. When something is free, many of us will tend to take what we need and not be greedy. How different would the world be if we only take what we need? In fact, when used for ceremonies at powwows, sweetgrass cannot be bought; it must be a gift. Dr. Kimmerer walks us through some research about sweetgrass and the symbiotic relationship between the sweetgrass and humans. It must be shared from the Earth and harvested to survive.

I was particularly enamored by the section on sugar maples and what it takes to make maple syrup. I really appreciated the sections on salmon on the west coast and learning about the devastating effects humans have had. This is the first time I’ve been taught explicitly about what happened and what can be done to reverse the damage and how some people are trying.

I was surprised by the section on hunting. In fact, the author herself states, when talking about a fur trapper, “I have to confess that I’d shuttered my mind before I even met him. There was nothing a fur trapper could say that I wanted to hear.” I was also very skeptical but I went along for the ride and kept reading and my understanding has deepened significantly.

I love this book so much and I hope you do too.

Henri is a Haitian American teen living in New York City. He attends a fancy private high school on scholarship and lives in a really nice apartment building on the Upper West Side…because his dad is the super. He’s got big goals and dreams of getting into Columbia, which would send his parents over the moon. The only issue? Living in New York is expensive. College is expensive. Enter: Henri’s side gig. He created and runs an app for a dog walking service, and walks dogs himself, essentially double dipping on the service and earning tips. It’s a pretty benign hustle in the grand scheme of things, but when he’s found out by Corrine, an intense classmate who happens to live in his building, she promises to keep his secret…if he helps her elevate her social status to become a well-rounded candidate for college recommendation letters.

I really loved this book a lot because first of all, it’s really, really funny. I know that humor can be. subjective thing in books, but Philippe is a truly funny writer who uses jokes and humor to poke fun at and explore larger and more complex issues, such as racial injustice, classism, and the challenges that Henri’s family faces as Haitian immigrants. But there are also lots of pop culture references and genuinely funny moments that truly help break things up! I also really enjoyed that this book is a sneaky exploration of how far you have to go to achieve your dreams and the ethical quandaries that arise. Henri lives in an unjust world and is working within an unjust system—there’s no doubt about that. While he’s generally a good person and fairly honest, he does engage in some deception and dishonesty to get where he wants to be, and he’s forced to truly reckon with that in a big way when his choices have consequences that extend beyond him. I loved that this book swings from funny moments to serious ones, and that Henri and the reader really think about the impact that one person’s choices can have and how difficult it can be to get ahead when the world is stacked against you. Plus, there’s a great slow-burn romance at the center that is really sweet to behold!

This book is equal parts incredibly steamy sex and absolute hilarity. The romance trope that is central to this book is fake dating which historically I was ho-hum about, but this book totally ruined me and I was all-in after the first couple of chapters.

Dani Brown is a Ph.D. candidate who doesn’t suffer any fools. She has super short hot pink hair and just broke up with her girlfriend who teaches in the same academic department. The ex-girlfriend did the thing that Dani avoids at all costs, which is to start having Feelings. Yes, Feelings with a capital ‘F’ is the surefire way to send Dani Brown running. In the prologue, Dani prays to the goddess Oshun for a no-strings-attached sex buddy.

Her counterpart, Zafir Ansari, is the very fit security guard who works in the same building that Dani teaches in. Unbeknownst to Dani, Zafir is a former rugby player and he began a nonprofit teaching kids both rugby and how to talk about their feelings because Zafir has pretty serious anxiety and panic attacks. Also, Zafir is an absolutely hopeless romantic and full of feelings 24/7.

The two of them, Dani & Zafir, flirt shamelessly daily. Dani brings him coffee on her way from the cafe to her office. Zaf brings Dani a protein bar every morning because he knows she works a lot and never makes time to eat properly. This exchange is their ‘thing.’

So, Dani teaches her first class of the day and after class, Dani has an awkward interaction with her ex and then gets in the elevator which freezes to a stop when she is in it because there is a fire drill she didn’t know about. Meanwhile, Zafir is in his element, making sure everyone is out of the building. He’s been planning this fire drill forever, he’s checking off his boxes, and everyone is outside except, he notices, Dani Brown. She never made it outside. Zaf goes in, hears her yelling from the elevator, pries open the doors and carries her out firefighter style. The lust between is palpable, even to the dozens of students who are now taking photos of them.

Zaf and Dani end up trending on social media and it gets a bunch of donations for his nonprofit so they agree to fake a relationship for a month, you know, for marketing purposes.

Evelyn Maltravers has two passions in life: riding, and her family. With her family’s security in question and four younger sisters behind her, her aunt and uncle have scraped up enough money for her to have one season in London—and one shot at finding a husband. Knowing that she has little to offer in the ballroom, she decides to distinguish herself on horseback, riding daily in Hyde Park. But in order to stand out, she needs a truly spectacular riding habit. For that, she turns to Ahmad Malik, a British-Indian tailor with aspirations of becoming a lady’s dressmaker. He agrees to Evelyn’s unusual request for an attention-grabbing and sophisticated habit, but as she returns for fitting after fitting, sparks fly between them and Evelyn must contend with the fact that she’s falling for a man who cannot offer her the security she hopes for.

I do love a good Victorian and Regency novel that takes into account class and explores what life was like for the lower class and marginalized people of the time period. This Victorian novel balances these worlds gracefully, giving insight into Evelyn’s attempts to break into the upper crest of English society while also showing her more at ease with a simpler life, in the country. We also get to explore life from Ahmad’s perspective as a biracial man deeply affected by English colonialism, and his struggle to find a place in a world that can’t accept his whole self. I really enjoyed the dressmaking aspects of this book, and I loved that the story isn’t afraid to get political! There is also a good mix of current events, politics, and insight into the early days of the spiritualism craze, all of which contribute to an atmospheric and detailed historical novel with plenty of clever turns. Overall, this is a lighter, sweeter romance with no one-the-page sex but plenty of yearning and delicious scenes of tension as our hero and heroine are left alone in a fitting room, and find themselves weighing virtue and reputation against desire.

We are also introduced to three other delightful young ladies in Evelyn’s social circle who are also riders and also bluestockings, setting up what’s sure to be some delightful series—in fact, look for secondary character Julia’s story in The Belle of Belgrave Square, out later this year! This is the perfect series to satisfy your itch for more Victorian romances in the style of Evie Dunmore’s League of Extraordinary Women books!

I do love a book with a map in the front and a glossary in the back. To me, it’s a sign of some extensive world-building and the world-building in this book is phenomenal. Raybearer takes place in the land of Aritsar, which is made up of multiple unified realms.

The book starts with our hero, Tarisai, when she is a child. She lives in the realm of Swana in a large house with many tutors and caretakers. Her mother (aka “The Lady”) visits very rarely, even only once a year, and Tarisai is desperate for her approval and touch. Tarisai has the power to take someone’s memories if she touches them, so all her tutors and caretakers avoid touching her skin to skin. They teach her all the languages of all the realms, reading and writing, but unbeknownst to her, the history she is taught is heavily censored. In fact, she has never left Bhekina House, where she lives, and she’s also not allowed to interact with any other children.

When she is seven, Tarisai sneaks out of Bhekina House and gets caught by an alagbato, who is the guardian fairy of Swana. He shows Tarisai a troubling memory of his own, where the Lady tricks him and enslaves him and he must give her three wishes to be freed and one of the wishes must be fulfilled by Tarisai.

When Tarisai is eleven, The Lady makes her wish. She shows Tarisai a portrait of a boy Tarisai’s age and commands that she kill him, but only when she loves him and he anoints her as his own. Tarisai has no idea who this boy is and she’s just so happy to be with her mother she doesn’t pay much mind to this weird, troubling request.

Two of The Lady’s friends take Tarisai to the capital and unbeknownst to her, she is entered into a competition to become part of the Emperor’s son’s council. The council siblings have a magical connection to the Emperor or, in this case, the son and each sibling then makes it so that the Emperor is immune from being murdered and can only die from old age or if one of his council members turns on him.

When Tarisai meets the Emperor’s son she is shocked because he is the boy in the portrait that The Lady commanded her to murder.