kat 🐈‍⬛

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Synopsis: https://anon.to/U6WWgu

📚Library Setting ☕Cozy Fantasy 🐉Dragons

I have not read any of Kate Quinn’s historical fiction, so I have nothing to compare this book to, but I absolutely loved it. As someone who did not grow up in an anglophone country, and thus has not read most of the classics mentioned in this book, I did not think you needed to be familiar with them to understand their role in the context of this story. Also, and this one is huge for me, while I usually stay away from didactical storytelling that hits you over the head with its message, I did not find this to be much of an issue here. I disagree with reviews saying the book’s strong stance on book bans may antagonize some readers. Because good, it should. Literature and libraries are under attack, and we expect authors not to address this in their work? This is the kind of attitude that has made some of the worst atrocities in human history possible. And I’m saying this as both a reader and a historian. 

But even beyond its clear stance on book bans, I really, really enjoyed this book! The world building was not the most solid, but as someone who reads mostly for vibes, I didn’t find this to be a huge issue. The book is incredibly atmospheric, and that alone makes me curious about the author’s historical fiction. The story drew me in from the first page. I appreciated how the author explored how your origins determine your opportunities in U.S. society in the first few chapters and then seamlessly transitioned to — Dragons. Another aspect of this book I really enjoyed was the romantic subplot. Closed door romance that is not the center of the story is my favorite kind of romance. And that is exactly what I found in this book.

⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5

Synopsis: https://anon.to/gFZp1D

💕 Romance 🧙 Witches 🏘️ Midwestern Small Town

This was the fourth and final part in the Witchlore series, and the book was kind of a mixed bag for me. This was the only part I did on audio, and I thought the narrator was great. And the book did get me out of an audiobook slump. But overall, it was not as strong of a read as the previous parts. I love the first two parts (the second one being my favorite), and the final two parts were just okay. Part of this is likely to be expected. It’s hard to keep the moment going across four books whose content is very closely linked: same protagonists, same atmospheric setting, same overall storyline. But part of the issues was also a few specific tropes I don’t love. Each of the books is told from the perspective of one of the female members of the Riverwood Coven, and as a love story with one of the male members of the coven. Georgina (Georgie) Pendelton, the coven’s historian, was the narrator of this book. And while I have enjoyed getting to know better one particular coven member in each book, the trope of the insecure girl, constantly playing up her “diztziness” was getting on my nerves. And because a cliché female protagonist is not enough, this issue gets addressed by introducing a patronizing, boundary-ignoring male love interest, who essentially saves Georgie from herself and her self-doubts. Just, no.

What redeemed this book somewhat for me was the shifting of the focus toward the entire dragon and their friendship, and away from Georgie and Asrael, in the second half. I loved how it again required all of them working together to defeat the Joywood one last, definitive time, although things got a bit cheesy at times. Overall, I think I would have DNFed the book, had I not already been so invested in the series. But since I was, I’m glad I stuck around to find out how it all plays out.

⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5

Synopsis: https://anon.to/GIMMxh

🏳️‍🌈 Queer Fiction 🧙 Witches ✊ 19th-Century Labor Organizing

The Storygraph recommended this novella to me, and my first thought was: Radical queer witch protagonists in a historical fantasy novel? Sign me up. That was also my second thought, except, and I'm not the first one to say this: The way the author referred to the lives of enslaved people was — confusing. I think I know what she was trying to get at, i.e., what it means for a human being to be treated like an object. But there was just too little room to elaborate, and so it ended up reading like an afterthought, which, ironically, ended up contributing to exactly that racist dynamic. The book did not need that reference. Or, if this was a point the author felt strongly about, it would have likely been a whole different book. As for my interest in the intersection of queer witches and organizing, I keep reading about The Once and Future Witches. I may have to check that one out next.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Synopsis: https://anon.to/gYDqkb

🏳️‍🌈 Queer Fiction 🫂 Found Family ☀️ Atmospheric Southern California Setting

I absolutely adored this book! The audiobook version, read by a different character for each of the four protagonists’ perspectives, brought the characters to life. The author does an incredibly job bridging humor and serious topics, including childhood sexual abuse, transphobic violence, and the struggles of now-older gay men across their lifespans. I loved the ida of having the four protagonists perform in their own show, "The Golden Gays," based on the 1980s sitcom "The Golden Girls," and I truly wish and hope that this show does exist somewhere in the real life. This book was more character-driven than my usual fare, but the characters were so complex and well-written, I loved diving into their experiences. Another thing the author did really well was bringing together biological and found family. In my experience, getting this right, without it ending up feeling cliché is hard, but the dynamic worked great in this book. As did the incredibly sweet and thoughtful romantic subplot between Sid and Leo. And finally, Palm Springs felt like it was its own character, and the book gave me an entirely new appreciation of the city. I’d love to visit again! 

⭐️⭐️.5/5

Synopsis: https://anon.to/DJgVme

🎨 Graphic Novel ✍️ Memoir 🇵🇱 Poland

This book was okay. I was born in East Germany and six years old when the Wall fell, so I’m pretty familiar with the post-socialist frenzy the states of the so-called Eastern Bloc experienced over the next two decades. The exploration of the author’s life in this historical context may be more interesting for readers less familiar with it, but I found it overall underwhelming. I also found the exploration of gender dynamics and gender-based violence to be kind of superficial and cliché. Overall, this book clearly seemed to be written for a Western audience, and I’m kind of over it. Case in point, there is no such thing as a "Post-Soviet Poland." I’m a historian, but you don’t have to be one to understand that a country that was never part of the Soviet Union cannot be post-Soviet. To imply the experience of those of us in the Soviet sphere of influence was comparable to that of folks in countries like Belarus or Georgia is straight-up ridiculous and yet another example of that "woe is me" attitude prevalent in so much post-socialist writing for Western audiences. (Which, to be fair, is encouraged by publishers because it sells. So I would not be surprised if the title choice was the publisher’s, not the author’s.) One aspect I found interesting was the exploration of the power of the Catholic Church in the immediate aftermath of post socialism. And I did enjoy the grayscale artwork with the splashes of red, although I agree with other reviewers that parts of it were hard to follow. 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Synopsis: https://anon.to/qD5ln4

🔍 Historical Mystery 👩🏻‍❤️‍👩🏼 Sapphic Romance 🏙️ Early-20th-Century NYC

I devoured this book. I can definitely see why it’s been compared to Lev AC Rosen’s Evander Mills series, although the Harriman & Mancini series, of which this is the first book, has a much cozier vibe and overall centers the queerness of the protagonists less. But this is just based on my reading of the first book, and I’m curious to see where the author takes the series. As someone who reads a lot for vibes and setting, I really appreciated how atmospheric this story was. I felt like I was right there in 1912 New York with the characters. (Granted, that I live in the NYC metro area probably helps.) I was a huge fan of the fierce queer female protagonists, including Shiloh and CeeCee. I’m really hoping they will continue to appear in future books. A few gripes I had with the book were related to the editing. And I’ve seen this frequently enough in books published by major publishing houses to get kind of tired of the cutting of corners to save a buck. A solid editor would have caught that a woman in 1912 would not have understood her oppression as based on her "gender," an concept that gained traction only decades later, and identifying someone as a "second-generation Italian American" is just as anachronistic. And then there were the copy editing oversights such as missing words. Just, no. It’s really not fair to writers or readers, especially when the imprint has a massive publishing house like, in this case, Macmillan behind it. However, my enjoyment of the book far outweighed my criticisms, and I will definitely be back for more when the next book in the series comes out later this year.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Summary: https://anon.to/2SHbCm

👥 Multiple POVs 🍽️ Restaurant Setting 🤝 Relationship-Focused

I enjoyed this book way more than I thought I would. I checked out the audiobook on Libby on a whim, not really sure what I was in the mood for. And even though I don’t particularly care about John Grisham or ribeye steaks, the premise sounded compelling enough. What I did not expect was reasonably well developed characters I actually empathized with, a few fun plot twists, and how well the different POVs worked together. Each chapter is told from the POV of a different person associated with the restaurant. Some characters just disappear into the background after we hear from them, others reappear in the narratives of other characters. Surprisingly, the relatively large set of characters and constantly changing POVs do not make the book confusing, which is quite a feat. And just as surprisingly, several of the characters have an unexpected depth, as has the author’s exploration of their relationships. I particularly liked the character of Glen, the lead line cook, even though his was one of the sadder storylines in the book. Overall a quick, very entertaining read! 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Summary: https://anon.to/i6Ii9v

This book feels like a much-needed hug. Is it all a bit too good to be true? Absolutely. But can we ever have enough joyful queer love stories with an intergenerational component? Absolutely not. Imogen and Alex’s love story is firmly rooted in adult life: the loss of parents, marriage, children — all the trapping of the adult lives of so many. Except, this story is all about exploring how it’s possible to make different decisions, at any point. How some of us know early in life who we are — like Imogen’s daughter Lu — and some of us take longer, taking detours, and experiencing love and loss in the process. As someone who came to terms with their gender identity well into adulthood, this story resonated with me. But so did the way the main characters support each other from the day they meet. The story could have taken many trajectories, and one could argue that the other chose the most conventional one. But it is the exploration of the tension between convention and trying to find one’s own self and way in the middle of all of it that makes this book such a compelling read. I also absolutely loved the artwork: the style, the vibrant colors, the body positivity. In dark times like these, especially for queer folks, this graphic novel is a ray of light. 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Summary: https://anon.to/T9QPIB

This is one of my favorite reads of the year so far! The story is told from the perspectives of the three protagonists: Simone (mother of twins and newly pregnant again), Emory (a new mother determined to finish high school and go to college), and Adele (sent to stay with her grandmother in Florida when her parents discovered her pregnancy). The writing was beautiful, the story propulsive, and the characters both incredibly well developed and relatable. At a time when the religious Right is becoming more powerful again in the U.S., this book is a powerful reminder of how the system has always failed young women, especially young mothers and most especially Black, Brown, and/or poor ones. Simone’s struggle to access an abortion is one of the most harrowing storylines, and the author does an amazing job of getting the stress and anxiety across on the page. We witness how restrictive legislation affects primarily those who do not have the means — time or money — to get around it. But we also witness the resourcefulness of the group of young mothers who make up Simone’s chosen family. Motley portrays this resourcefulness and resilience without ever romanticizing it. But even though her protagonists have been victimized by the social and political system, they are not victims. We learn that Simone is practically homeless, living out of her truck with her preschool-age twins, and yet neither the author nor Simone herself ever uses this word. Instead, the reader learns what it means to live this kind of life, to create something out of nothing day after day. As a parent, both Simone’s and Emory’s deep love for their children made my heart contract. The way they talked about the many contradictions that make up the experience of motherhood, especially early motherhood, was incredibly relatable, even though my own experience has otherwise very little in common with those of the protagonists.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Summary: https://anon.to/m8lvjf

I won the audiobook in a Storygraph book giveaway, and I thoroughly enjoyed it! This book is an interesting mix of literary fiction and a few thriller elements, especially in the last third of the book. And it’s definitely quite plot-driven, which I loved. 

The author does a great job of examining broader dynamics through the lens of the story without ever coming across as preachy. As someone who grew up in Europe but now lives in the U.S., I thought the dynamics between the Irish and the U.S. context were particularly interesting, and it was obvious that the author is familiar with both. It’s hard to go in depth without spoiling a bunch of the key turning points, but having two women fleeing their home countries in opposite directions due to experiences of violent sexism and misogyny is a powerful plot line. And then there is the moment when we find out that most of the bad shit crazy things that led to Saoirse ending up in the desperate position she finds herself in were a result of the complete dysfunction of the U.S. legal and welfare systems, which, unlike the Irish legal system, have not changed in the slightest. So, as a whole, this is really the story of women struggling to be free — the most central one of them being Saoirse (which mean, appropriately, freedom) — when all the odds are stacked against them.

We follow Saoirse  and the other protagonists as this struggle unfolds: witnessing Saoirse’s many layers of childhood trauma, Daithi’s experience growing up as the biracial Black son of a single mother in Ireland, Catherine’s unwavering support of Saoirse, even as things get increasingly dire. The author does an admirable job at weaving together all those different threads without ever losing sight of the main story line.

And finally, there are the interludes, chapters written in the first person, each taking one of Saoirse’s paintings to explore a specific moment in her past. I’m curious to see how this worked in the print version, but I absolutely loved these sections on audio. They were done unlike anything I had ever listened to. 

And these interludes weren’t the only feature that made this book an excellent experience on audio. I loved Róisín Rankin’s narration, enough to add her to my list favorite audiobook narrators alongside amazing artists such as Saskia Maarleveld and Inés del Castillo.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Summary: https://anon.to/GMxfy1

This graphic novel was a really quick read and both whimsical and haunting, if that is a thing. As someone who was born in the Eastern Bloc, and spent over a decade studying it academically, Russia across the centuries remains fascinating to me. I'm a huge fan of stories that take the end of the tsarist regime as its starting point and then do something innovative with it. This was one of those books. Instead of regurgitating the myths revolving around the death of Anastasia, the youngest daughter of Nicholas II, the final Tsar of the Russian Empire, this book explores young Anastasia's life while the revolution drew nearer and nearer. The story, intentionally or unintentionally, provides metaphor for the vague, hard-to-grasp sense of dread she may have felt as a child who was both isolated from the world around her and about to encounter it in its most brutal form. The black-and-white drawings are captivating, and the sparse text makes this one of those graphic novels whose power is mostly based on the artwork. Interested in exploring other works by the author.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Summary: https://anon.to/fYmeHm

As someone with several family members who have been struggling with depression their whole lives, this book really moved me. There continues to be a lot of stigma around mental health issues, and a lot of that stigma continues to be gendered. So I can only imagine what it was like to struggle with, and be open about, depression as a man in the second half of the twentieth century. Les Murray writes about his life with this struggle so eloquently, with so much vulnerability. I was also touched by his exploration of his struggles with sexuality. I honestly think the world would be a better place if more men found it within themselves to deal the challenging parts. Both from the book and from other writing and interviews with the author it also becomes clear how strongly he identified with his working-class roots his entire life and how fervently he opposed the, still existing elitism and classism, within many intellectual circles. I'm honestly not a big poetry reader (otherwise this book would have been a five-star read for me), but I'm so glad Les Murray used his gift to explore this challenging, incredibly personal topic in prose. The entire second half of the book is a collection of his poetry, some of it mentioned in the essay, which will be an extra treat for readers who enjoy poetry. But even if you don't, I highly recommend this book!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Summary: https://anon.to/P4x9kH

I finished this book around the same time the Aspen Words shortlist was announced. (I pick a few books to read from the longlist every year.) And WOW, does this book deserve to be there! Not going to lie, I actually thought about DNFing throughout the first third because I notoriously don't have the patience for slow character-driven literary fiction. But I actually loved these characters, and once the book picked up steam around the halfway mark, I couldn't put it down! The queerness and strong older female characters at the center of the story, the wit! Plus, reading a book by a Lebanese author, set in Lebanon, against the backdrop of previous wars there was a pretty intense experience in the current moment. Can't recommend this book highly enough. (Loved the audio!)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5

Summary: https://shorturl.at/BSFSg

I loved the book but hated the virtual reality. Which I feel like is exactly the way it’s supposed to be. Literally every single time Bree had a chance to get out, I was hoping they would because the experience of being trapped in the virtual reality was so incredibly visceral.

This was a really gripping horror book, and I honestly enjoyed it more than some adult horror novels I’ve read. For one, as a non-binary person who grew up in a very different context, reading a story set in a world were teenagers get to live and explore their gender identities was just amazing, even against the backdrop of friendship breakup in a horror novel! Also, the suspense was just incredible, and the gore present but only ever so slightly, which is honestly my dream combination of horror novel elements. 

What I really came away with from that horror novel was that we all do shitty things. But what makes things go terribly wrong is not our very human fallibility but power differentials. Everyone in this book was just a teenager trying to figure it all out. But one of the teenagers had the wealth and influence to turn everyone else’s lives into a living nightmare. 

The only reason this was not a five-star-read for me was that the final chapters felt a little rushed. There were a few things that really irritated me because I happen to be both an editor and an EMT. The editing got a little sloppy in those pages (stuff like EMTs, EMTS, EMT's — instead of just EMTs, which it should have been). Also, a minor — which the protagonist was — as gravely injured as they were and without a legal guardian present, would not have been able to refuse transport to the hospital. This would have constituted abandonment and could have potentially ended the providers' career. (Of course, Bree’s reasoning for not wanting to go is completely valid, but in reality, it would just not have mattered.) 

Overall, though, this was such an entertaining read, and I’ll definitely be on lookout for the author’s next book. 

⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Summary: https://shorturl.at/h6bll

I had high expectations for this book, and it honestly didn’t live up to them. The one thing that stood out to me was the exploration of our concept of attention and how it has been shaped by the very industry that is now commodifying it (tech, in collaboration with the state). Not necessarily a new insight either, but the authors explored the issue with a level of depth I hadn’t seen before. But beyond that?

For starters, the whole thing about school. The authors showed how the convergence of the interests of the state and the tech industry resulted in our current understanding of attention. But for some reason, they seem completely unaware of the relationship between formal schooling and the state. There seems to be some weird "Make Schools Great" approach at play when in reality, schools have never existed outside of the dominant power structures and well, now those structures rely heavily on tech. But school have never been a place of curiosity-led inquiry. (With a few exceptions, of course.) This superficial examination of the role of schools (which is interesting because they authors are part of a group of folks running an institution that calls itself a school in Brooklyn) seemed to be an symptom of a larger issue. The book is so hyperfocused one issue — attention — that it kind of leaves out the context of it all. A context that is very much the nation-state and late-stage racial capitalism. On the one hand, the authors argue that individual fixes to our challenges with attention miss the actual point. On the other hand, the collective approach they propose doesn’t seem to be much of an approach at all and kind of toothless. They compare the struggle against the fracking of our minds to the struggle against fracking for oil. On its surface, the fracking analogy makes a lot of sense. But in reality, the current struggle seems to be very much a project carried by privileged academics, which makes it quite different from other struggles and maybe — not really a struggle at all? Which is not ot say that it shouldn’t be. But I’m not sure this manifesto brings us any closer to a world where our attention is ours again. 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Summary: https://shorturl.at/twntw

This book had on my TBR for so long, and I had incredibly high expectations because the premise sounded so promising. Usually a recipe for disappointment, but in this case — completely warranted! For starters, the writing! Writing style is not usually one of my main reading doorways, but in this case, it really stood out to me. No fluff, every word hits. The story gripped me from page one, and the writing style definitely played a huge part here. For example, in the final third of a book, there is a fight scene that takes up about two pages, with the actual action taking up less than a page, and the power and rage that comes across in those lines truly made the scene come to life. Another aspect of the book I really appreciated is how Whitehead weaved together history and fantasy. This book is based on the real horrors of racism, plain and simple: the stomach-churning horror of chattel slavery and lynchings, forced sterilization, medical experiments, human zoos. It’s a collection of the inhumane horrors that will forever be baked into the DNA of the United States. And even know, most readers will (hopefully) know about all of those things, Whitehead brings them together in the same timeline and by highlighting the emotional responses of those brutalized. The reader can’t look away, can’t leave the ways those horrors affected actual human beings, unless they want to stop reading entirely. But the reader also witnesses the resilience, determination, and self-determination Black slaves and free people exhibited day after day after bloody, brutal day in their struggle to become and stay free. There were white helpers, and some ended up paying with their lives. But it's clear as day throughout that it was the determination of those brutalized was what mattered at the end of the day. This is the book that should be assigned in history class because so much of the history that is taught in schools (and I say this as a historian) is sanitized to a point where it becomes hard to grasp how the legacy of this brutality (in conjunction with the Native American genocide) has shaped, and continues to shape, the U.S. In the chapter titled "Indiana," one of the side characters states:

As the years pass, Valentine observed, racial violence only becomes more vicious in its expression. It will not abate or disappear, not anytime soon, and not in the south.

And not just in the south.