writer
The Seep by Chana Porter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
THE SEEP by Chana Porter is quiet and strange, a new utopia for a new era with new discomforts and new questions. Porter’s questing, soft narrative explores the burdens and the wisdom of resistance to easy solutions. Humor, otherworldliness, fantastic worldbuilding, and open-ended possibilities abound.
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All Systems Red by Martha Wells
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Science fiction at its absolute finest, the first book in the Murderbot Diaries series ALL SYSTEMS RED is downright delightful. A solid adventure-rescue story in its own right is enhanced into something really special with the narration of its genderless, socially anxious, reluctant hero–a robot designed to kill stuff who really just wants to binge watch a show called Sanctuary Moon.
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Raft of Stars by Andrew J. Graff
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Andrew J. Graff brings old-school adventure in his debut, RAFT OF STARS. The lovingly described northern Wisconsin landscape is the star in a book that is set in the 1990s, and honestly feels like a book that was written in the 1990s. A very nostalgic read, full of narrow escapes, miracles, and small town misfits-turned-heroes.
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Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Reading Kent Haruf’s final novel is watching a master at work, fluid and effortless. Our Souls at Night is a stunning piece of contemporary realism. Doing so much in few pages and spare language, it left me breathless with its unfettered sincerity.
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Shark Heart by Emily Habeck
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Listen: I think we all believe, deep down, that there’s a chance we wake up one day and have begun to transform into an animal. In Shark Heart Emily Habeck takes this idea for kindling in a book that burns with hyponotic energy and familiar truth. Life’s hardest roles are those of inevitability and release, and Habeck casts them brilliantly in this moonlight-drenched, ocean-wide love story.
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Together We Rot by Skyla Arndt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This YA debut is wonderfully tender and toothed. Using the natural world’s hostile indifference as inspiration, a group of angry high school kids (one of my favorite kinds of characters) band together to unveil a horrifying secret at the center of their town. I loved the Skyla Arndt’s old-school gothic technique of really dialing in to the physical decay of the mundane settings the kids spend time in, and the love story at the center gives some sweetness to the book’s bite. A little bit of mystery, a little bit of nature nerdery, and overall well-paced storytelling with not a paragraph wasted.
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Light Bringer by Pierce Brown
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Pierce Brown is at it again, rewarding his loyal legion of Howlers for their ability to keep track of a million different characters/loyalties/feuds/family ties with another powerful ride. Perhaps the most introspective book of the Red Rising series while approaching the grandest scale, Light Bringer feels like coming home. Hearts will break. Mayhem will ensue. Last page will leave you frantically looking up the expected release date of the final book.
Disclaimer: If you don’t want spoilers, do NOT read the acknowledgements in advance. I’m probably the only weirdo with that habit, but just in case.
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Triplicity by J. Mercer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
What if Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile was crossed with your wildest daydreams about the people-watching we all do on vacation (come on, admit it), and was written for a young YA audience? It would result in the outlandishly fun mystery/romance/coming-of-age story woven in J. Mercer’s TRIPLICITY, which will make you want to solve a ticking clock mystery on a cruise ship with your besties and re-live your first real kiss.
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Fish Gather to Listen by Jes McCutchen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A memorable collection from a dynamic new press thematically unified around that most primal of fears: deep, murky water occupied by things unknown. The grotesque swims parallel to the lyrical in Fish Gather to Listen. There is much here to disturb and delight, often simultaneously.
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Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Strange and sensual, surprising and intimate, Nell Stevens weaves a meditation with music and sensation that interprets human life as a collection of rapid and urgent desires, pleasures, pains, tastes, jealousies, and reveries. The historical facts are merely the stage for Stevens’ story to dance over–irreverently, longingly, ultimately full of life.
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