Thanks to St. Martins Press for the free advance copy of this book. Full review to come. 

 Linus is a case worker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. For years, he's investigated the orphanages that magical children are sent to and ensures they are safe. One day, Extremely Upper Management selects Linus for a top secret assignment, investigating an orphanage housing that supposedly houses some of the most dangerous children on the planet. But the Marsyas Island orphanage holds so much more than that, and Linus' life will soon change forever. 📚
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Everything you've heard about this book is true. It's a complete delight. It's warm and loving. It's full of characters you wish you could hug and be friends with. It's casually queer. It's about loving yourself and loving others no matter who or what they are, because everyone deserves to be treated with love and respect. 📚
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I could go on and on about this book, but I want you to experience the joy for yourself. Get yourself to your library or bookstore now, I promise you will love it, no matter what kinds of books you usually read. 📚 

Thanks to the author for the free copy of this book.

WE ARE STAYING is Rubin's account of the history Radio Clinic, the electronics and appliances store her family ran on Broadway in the Upper West Side of New York City for 80 years.

This book, while primarily about the ins and outs of a family run business, is also about much more than that. Rubin follows not just the story of the store, but the parallel story of the neighborhood it resided in. Beginning with her Jewish grandfather's escape from Russia in the 1920s, WE ARE STAYING examines the changing demographics of the Upper West Side and all the factors that played into its eventual gentrification - rent raises, urban renewal initiatives, world wars, government indifference to small business owners, impossible business loan arrangements and more. It's the story of a family and their store, but also the story of a whole community.

Thanks to Algonquin Books for the free advance copy of this book. 

BODY TALK is a collection of works from 37 authors, celebrities, illustrators and more exploring all the many ways to have and to live in a body. 

At first glance, BODY TALK may appear to be another book for tweens and teens talking about how their bodies are changing. And there's some of that, but wow, it is so much more. This book is a place where everyone gets to show what it's like inside their body. Fat bodies, disabled bodies, Black and brown bodies, trans bodies, hairy bodies, chronically ill bodies, and more. And they're all about how there's no right way to have a body, no dumb questions to have about your body, and about taking ownership of and joy in the complexities and oddities of being alive. 

One thing that struck me as an adult reader of this book is how many of these stories are by women who had a hard time getting medical professionals to take their pain and illness seriously, especially when it had to do with reproductive health. It might have stuck out to me since I've had similar struggles, but it is still rather shocking to have a book with such a broad array of experiences and still see so many stories with this common throughline. 

Thanks to Ecco Books for the free advance copy of this book.

When she was 19 years old, Natasha Trethewey's former stepfather murdered her mother. MEMORIAL DRIVE is Trethewey's attempt to finally confront her grief, and maybe, 35 years later, find closure. 

Natasha Trethewey is the former national poet laureate and a Pulitzer Prize winner, so I knew this book would be a must-read. I did not expect it to be so completely devastating, even knowing it was a story of domestic abuse ending in death. The writing is full of small details snatched from memories as Trethewey tries to untangle prophecy from hindsight, unravel the racism and bigotry she experienced as a mixed race child, and deal with lingering feelings of guilt. Trethewey unearths the story slowly, slowly, until suddenly the moment arrives for the reader just as quickly as it did for her all those years ago. 

One can see precisely how trapped her mother was, and how everyone around them knew the entire family was in danger but could not or did not do anything to stop it. Even with assistance, even when they were able to escape temporarily, her mother’s story sadly goes the way of many abused women, and Trethewey shows us the lasting pain this violence inflicted on everyone left behind. 

Content warnings: murder, domestic abuse (physical and emotional), threats of suicide, alcoholism, racism, misogyny.