Does what it says on the tin. A good book if you want something cozy, with the smallest bit of conflict. Mostly tagging along to Christmas parties with fictional characters. Satisfying, although Barry continues to annoy me in regards to his relationship with Patricia.

Felicity was my favorite character in Gentleman’s Guide, so I was eager for her to take a more active role in the series. Mackenzi Lee does a good job of examining the false equivalence of vapidity and femininity and the ways that girls who consider themselves to be feminists sometimes discount their peers unfairly—the “I’m not like other girls” phenomenon. And she does so while delivering a funny and exciting story featuring travel, pirates, and sea serpents.

What doesn’t sit well with me is Felicity’s complicity in racism against a black Muslim character, who eventually becomes her love interest. Felicity admits that she misjudged her and becomes more aware of the role race plays in her life, but it didn’t feel deep enough for me. Race is conspicuously absent in discussions the characters have about their oppression as women, and that’s a problem.

Katherine Faw’s Ultraluminous is a gritty, experimental suspense novel that plays with what power and control look like. The narrator is a sex worker who, through a series of vignettes, shares her mundane routines and her interactions with a stable of clients, whom she identifies only by dehumanizing nicknames. Sprinkled throughout are references to her past in Dubai, a man who tried to murder her, and her ex-lover. Who is she, and why is she back in New York? Just as her johns think they know her story, you only think you know what this novel is doing until the last piece comes into focus. I loved watching the revelation unfold petal by petal, and I loved Faw’s chilling economy of language. A spot-on recommendation from Garrett.

Four stars rounded to five for nostalgia. I read this book 14 years, half a life, ago, and it, along with Stardust and Labyrinth and Charles de Lint, drew me into Faerie for the first time.

Do not be fooled: Bolin devotes little space in her meandering essay collection to its titular dead girls and analysis of the media’s preoccupation with them. Instead, she wanders through erudite but unfocused meditations on her life, Los Angeles, and Joan Didion, pausing along the way to discuss books ranging from Toni Morrison to Scandinavian crime novels. Not bad, but not what it says on the tin.