Holy not-so-micro-aggressions. Holy GASLIGHTING. Invisible Boy was incredibly difficult to read without weeping. Every time Harry’s mother or other family members gaslighted him I wanted to scoop him out of the pages of his past and take him far, far away to people who would love him as he is, for who he is, for what he is.

I cry for all the children, teenagers, people who are where he was right now.

For all its pain, I do not regret reading Invisible Boy… because the pain embedded in Harrison Mooney’s past is insidious, latently seething, and all too common still. Decolonization is an eternal task, its end is nowhere in sight. Memoirs and works like Invisible Boy remain relevant and necessary in our collective, societal process towards decolonization. Like Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks, Mooney’s Invisible Boy is a call to action. It is a reminder that we still need a rebellion of the mind and soul.

Invisible Boy relates the path of Mooney’s awakening to his race and the ways in which racism hides behind a myth of colorlessness. It begins with his childhood and ends in his early adulthood. His memoir exposes to the reader how racism seethes in the most intimate places, in the places it should not exist — in this case, within a family. Families are supposed to be safe. They are supposed to be supportive, loving, nurturing. Invisible Boy tells a sad tale of how racism is the silent reaper within, turning the sanctuary of the family into an emotional, mental prison.

What makes Mooney’s Invisible Boy unique from other works like it (Sam Selvon’s Lonely Londoners, George Lamming’s novels, Franz Fanon’s memoirs and works, James Baldwin’s calls to action, among others) is Mooney’s attention to a community that is little attended to: adoptees of color with white adopted families. As in Mixed-Race Superman, Will Harris’ essay on the transcultural ways of being mixed race, Invisible Boy highlights a different kind of process of decolonization that confronts adoptees of color in white families and white communities that hold onto racist beliefs.

I do not know if I can re-read Invisible Boy for the sake of my own peace as a person of color who has grappled with my own decolonization; but, I am glad I read it at least once and I am privileged to have the ability to choose to only read it once. I am privileged to have been given a rare glimpse into another’s experience of racial awakening. I am privileged that my own decolonization was less traumatic. In truth, Invisible Boy is a book that demands re-reading and reading again. One day I will summon enough courage to read it again.

I was fully expecting a traditional ghost story. Maybe a haunted house. Something that is tried-and-true in the ghost story genre. And I don't mean that as shade; I like ghost stories that follow a formula. They are still scary as F if they are written well. The creepy ethereality of gothic horror is my jam. And that's what I thought Ghost Eaters was going to deliver.

Was I wrong in the most deliciously skin-crawling way! Ghost Eaters reads like a mature Young Adult novel that merges the horror of fresh-out-of-college, emergence-from-the-chrysalis loss with the ghostly supernatural. Chapman's prose fits the YA genre; this novel borders on YA and contemporary adult horror. It feels like YA to me because, well, I'm not in my early twenties like the characters are. But the events and themes in the novel are better suited for an adult (if young adult) audience. There are mature themes here of death, grief, the loss of friends, parents, and loved ones. There is the threat of loss of the self: perception is a two-way mirror in this novel, and you're never quite sure which side of the glass you're on.

The story follows a young woman and is told from her perspective. Erin is a privileged, educated woman. She has family, family money, family connections, but despite this, she flounders in life. That's the first horror, one that is banal and familiar to many. Erin is part of a group of friends; their leader has floundered in worse ways than Erin. Silas seems to be drowning in a drug-induced depression. When their social circle falls apart as the result of an untimely death, each one of them seeks to find meaning and reconnection in different ways.

Some of them take the task literally.

And that's the second horror of this novel. The dark mental and physical adventure that ensues as Erin, Amaya, and Toby play dangerously with the line between living and dying, the present and the afterlife. I won't ruin this for the reader. Just know that "ghost" in this novel has multiple meanings, and the loss that one associates with death is more than never seeing someone again.

A worthy Halloween horror read that haunts in multiple ways!

In 2019, before the madness of the Covid-19 pandemic, I got the chance to visit Berlin for a conference. I wasn’t there for long, but it was magical. I got to walk the bridges, stand under the Brandenburg gate, see some castles, and eat currywurst (all kinds of wursts!)

So when I saw this novel, I was immediately intrigued. The contents did not disappoint. But, first, a caveat: This is a Young Adult novel. The primary characters around which the story revolves, the brothers, Rudi and Peter, are in their early-mid teens and the story does not progress far into their adulthood. The prose, language, structure and so on are clearly written for a YA reader, but the historical and emotional content is potent and will suit a more mature reader.

The story is told from the two brothers’ perspectives; it is the tale of their parents and their lives after WWII has ended and German society — Berlin society — has settled into a kind of uncomfortable holding pattern, caught between the two ideologies and cultures of the American West and the Russian-controlled East. Vesper focuses on the interior perplexity in the boys’ minds: in a period of their lives when they are already grappling with puberty and teenage crises of identity, they are forced to also wrangle with the localized manifestations of external pressures of international politics, Cold War propaganda, and collective post-WWII German angst. They struggle with what anti-semitism means in this age, what Nazism had been and is now (Vesper makes this point clear: the end of the Second World War was now the end of Nazism or the hate that that regime promulgated. It lives on and remains as insidious as was), what socialism is and truly is, what the Russian and American regimes represent.

One brother awakens to an understanding that the Russians are selling them a false promise. The other brother believes the Americans are doing the same. One brother seeks the freedom of the West, the other seeks the stability and order of the East.

In the mean time, they are struggling against one another as well; competing as siblings for the attentions of their parents, for a kind of childish glory, for a sense of belonging within their own world.

They wrangle with the more mundane things of teenage life as well: understanding love in all its conflicting forms. Their parents are products of the war as much as they are; their relationship is fraught with tension, not unlike the kind of tension between the East and West: irreconcilable, ideological, built on a history that was not of their own making and borne out of the War. The brothers are also young men, their minds and bodies are tangled in novel feelings of love and sexuality. They are on the edge of adulthood and are testing out how they might victorious in this new domain; they experience losses, betrayals, and grief as the story unfolds — and failure, that first, very painful sting of rejection that is inevitably accompanied by new experience.

The novel follows Rudi and Peter as they navigate their parents’ and the city’s divergence. They eventually find themselves on opposite sides of the Berlin Wall, erected one night in secret.

This is a powerful YA novel that is also fulfilling for an older, more experienced reader. The moral and ethical dilemmas embedded in the politics and social interactions in this novel are ones that might be introduced to us at the YW stage of life, but they remain tangled in later adulthood too, so much of the conflict will be recognizable and moving for a maturer reader.

The cover got me, I admit it. The Grim Reaper is one alluring fellow, I couldn't help it. I buy my wine the same way too: the more morbid the label -- reds, black, and intricate patterns of monstrous or predatory creatures -- the more likely I'll buy it. And if it's under $10, so much the better, NGL.

A Fig For All The Devils delivers too. Like a robust cheap wine, it was dark -- almost bloody -- with scents of dark foggy Oregon pine (the novel is set in Tillamook), oaky smokiness (well, more like cigarette smokiness, but go along with me in this metaphor play), and a generous injection of alcohol (cigarettes aren't the only narcotic drug in this novel). And, just like when you bring a cheap oversized bottle of wine to the party, A Fig For All The Devils is fun in a package.

The novel is spun around a teenaged boy, Sonny, who is unfortunately saddled with a less than stellar family life. His father is gone. His mother is... not present (to say the least). Sonny is left to his own devices, grappling with grief of loss of one (but really both) of his parents. The Grim Reaper finds his cue here. In need of an apprentice, the Grim Reaper makes himself and his proposition known to Sonny. The novel is premised on this encounter.

A Fig For All The Devils reads as Young Adult fiction, a bildungsroman, albeit a dark one. Sonny's problems feel fitter for an adult world, but to be fair, the kinds of dilemma Sonny encounters are likely commonplace for teenagers today (Death excepted). The prose fits a YA reader as well, easily accessible and authentic in its teenaged voice. The story flows at a fast pace, yet slows at key points for the reader to engage with the interiority of the protagonist, Sonny. On that point, while Sonny is the main character and it is through his eyes that we witness this novel, the other characters are vivid. They are all tangible, visible to the reader in their flaws and virtues. Death even, a mythical being, comes to life (pun!) in this novel in a very human manifestation.

A very fun (early) Halloween Horror read! 

Valley of Shadows was WOW, a great slow burn paranormal mystery. The ghostly element really kept me on my toes, you never could tell which way something was going to go. I was hooked from the first page!

There are so many reasons I love this novel. First, the historical landscape had nuance and depth; the perspective decolonized the past, highlighted the transnational experience of the American-Mexican borderlands through the eyes of the Mexicans and the indigenous peoples who lived there. Ruiz did not shy away from the racial tensions, the ethnic conflicts, and the histories of colonization that were part of the fabric of life on the borderlands in the 19th century — and I deeply appreciated that. Indeed, much of the plot revolves around those very transcultural tensions. This grounded this paranormal western/mystery/horror in a historical reality that made the events all the more horrific; they were real. The violence of this time was real, not a fiction of Ruiz’s imagination.

Second, Ruiz’s use of linguistic and ethnic markers is significant. Yes, this is a novel, but it is also a work of decolonization. Ruiz disrupts the whiteness of the Western genre with Valley of Shadows. The primary protagonist is Solitario Cisneros, a Mexican man who used to be sheriff — and could still be. Onawa is a young half Mexican, half Apache woman who assists Solitario in his investigation of a series of murders. The living and the dead show up in various parts of the story, some from Solitario’s past which is never far behind him. History in this novel is very much a dynamic, fluid factor in this novel; it is almost as alive as the characters.

There is a mix of white, Mexican, mixed-race, and indigenous characters in this novel, mimicking the historical and contemporary reality of North American borderland communities; nothing is ever cut-and-dry, black or white in such places, then or now. This diversity of identities makes the characters more recognizable; their ethnic and historical diversity mimics our own multiple identities and ways of being. Race, ethnicity, class, and history shaped these characters, making them palpable, their decisions and actions authentic and borne out of subjective needs and ambitions as much as they were shaped by social and historical factors.

Third, Ruiz unfolded the story with skill. Tension and mystery were embedded in the plot, compelling me to read on, but it was the way in which Ruiz slowly unravelled the plot. At the end the reader will see that all the threads of the mystery were there, almost from the very start, waiting for us to weave them into fabric. The story revolves around a series of gruesome, brutal murders. There is very real, physical horror here; the idea that these could be done by a human being on another is scary enough — but there’s the possibility this could be something more supernatural. Which is more sinister?

Valley of Shadows is Solitario and Onawa’s adventures in this realm and the next as they speed against time to save the other potential victims, apprehend the murderer(s), and deliver justice to the victims and their surviving families. 

If you love horror movies and gothic horror this is a book for you. Gallows Hill reads like an independent, low-budget horror film that successfully builds tension out of nothing but silences and thoughts that teeter on the edge of madness.

The story begins with Margot at the funeral of her parents whom she’s never met. And no, she’s not adopted. That’s the first mystery. The rest is classic haunted house and horror flick stuff. Very gothic horror; the scares are all Margot’s. The story is told from her perspective, though in 3rd person not first. The readers are silent witnesses, like ghosts trailing her in her every move, watching her. Nothing is left out of the reader’s sight; chapters pick up exactly where they’ve left off. Every detail is accessible to the reader.

Coates evokes a proper sense of dread with well-chosen words; her descriptions are succinct and sparse, giving the images that are spun in the mind an appropriate filter of blue-grey darkness. There’s always a sense that Margot could escape this, that this is just all in her mind, and real life is just beyond the gate, down the road, in the town nearby. But the reader becomes quickly acquainted with Margot and knows that that’s not possible; like Margot, we are compelled to read on to discover the history of her, her family, this place.

The story unfolds in a matter of days. Most of the events take place at Gallows Hill and the house; it is the hill on which the house is built, the hill in which the cellars of the winery were dug. She inherits Gallows Hill, a winery and an estate that has belonged to her family for hundreds of years. That’s the second mystery; the people who work and live on the estate are a strange cast. Even the townsfolk are an odd bunch. Their interactions with the estate and the land will compel the reader to read on: What happens after dark? Why does the land need a blessing? The reasons given are mundane and reasonable; there’s a normal explanation for everything, but the reader — like Margot — will find them unsatisfactory.

The ending is satisfying. It is explosive and a tad Hollywood-esque. But it does answer every question and its brings the story to a complete and organic close. You’ll close the book feeling like Margot got what she needed. A really great, creepy Halloween read!

Slow clap, folks, slow clap. I’m standing up for this one. Africa Is Not A Country: Notes On A Bright Continent is everything it aims to be: a sharp, well-researched critique of white-centric historical narrative and a sharp, well-researched critique of racial “enlightenment” today. For all the progress the world collectively has made in the direction of decolonization, we have not gotten very far. In so many ways, we’ve just gone in circles, retracing the road of colonialism with new vehicles. The route of racism is well-worn, a hard path to diverge from. What’s that phrase…The road to hell is paved with good intentions… that’s the one. That’s what Faloyin highlights in Africa Is Not A Country: the fact that colonization has continued to perpetuate, only in different modes — and still insidiously, under a familiar guise of tolerance and progressivism. Ugh, now that I write that I can see nothing has changed, even the veneer of human compassion.

The “Civilizing Mission” lives. Paternalism thrives in our media-frenzied, self-care touting, feel-good-no-matter-who-pays-for-it society. For the love of biscuits, will it ever just die? No. No, it won’t. That’s Faloyin’s message. It is a dismal one, but Africa Is Not A Country delivers it with witty, authentic, impassioned prose that balances intellect with humor. Faloyin does not hold back; words are weaponized in this work, they aim with accuracy at whiteness and the continuing erasure of Africa in all its dimensions. This use of language is especially poignant; it has been for so long used against the “formerly” colonized world, it is refreshing to see the ammunition firing from the other side.

On that note: The language is highly accessible and the case studies within appeal across generations. I am seriously considering assigning this in my courses on the history of racism. It is is not academic in the strict sense, but the historical content is sound and importantly, it communicates without pedantism, without supercilious lordliness. It’s downright funny in parts (well, as funny as history can be.) The case studies Faloyin examines are recognizable; students will be able to relate to this material with little explanation. For example, Africa Is Not A Country discusses white saviorism in entertainment, film, and on social media. Even if they are unfamiliar with specific events, they are savvy enough with the world of entertainment and social media to understand the historical implications and contemporary consequences.

The structure of the book is also well-suited to the classroom (and for any reader). It maps a chronological logic for the reader. The first chapters are focused on history, giving the reader ample and necessary context to understand what follows. Specifically, it provides necessary context about the Berlin Conference of the 1880s in which the powers of Europe literally carved up the African continent to assuage their imperial satisfaction. Prior to this international conspiracy and violation, the continent was autonomous and its peoples organically organized, if not always harmoniously, then at least according to their own choices and actions. The eradication of African sovereignty, identity, complexity, and visibility occurs rapidly from that point, undergirded by a much older and very established historical foundation of Orientalism and pseudo-scientific racism. The remaining chapters reveal to the reader how such erasure has continued and been actively perpetuated, purposefully and unintentionally. The division of these chronological events into short, assignable chapters serve classroom/course use well.

My courses are built for students of color, students who come from immigrant backgrounds, are first generation college students, and generally have little experience with academia and the culture of the academic elite. Africa Is Not A Country is perfect for the student population I serve.

Africa Is Not A Country is written with the African continent and its peoples in mind, but coming from a former British colony I found deep connection with this historical/contemporary commentary. Faloyin is Nigerian; in parts where he brought forth his own history I smiled at particularly British colonial references and uses of language. I could almost hear my mother’s voice in some of the words… I could not help but laugh out loud sardonically every now and then. The chapter on “We are the world” (yes, that ubiquitous song touting a generic Let’s-all-get-along-we-just-have-to-try message) summoned up memories and a bit of shame; I loved that song, sang it at all my family’s karaoke-pot-luck parties as a child. I remember believing so wholeheartedly that I was that future.

And that’s the horror of white paternalism. Colonialism was so successful; we are all complicit in it, regardless of our heritage, our race, our histories. That too is Faloyin’s message.

That said, ultimately, Africa Is Not A Country is also about keeping up the fight. Despite everything and all the obstacles we all must continue to work towards decolonization. This book serves as a necessary eye-opener for everyone. For some readers it is a reminder, an epiphany for others. This is a book for everyone: People of color, from any “former” or current colony, for those of European descent, for those at the beginning of their decolonization or those in the thick of it (who might need a jolt or encouragement). We are all descendants and inheritors of colonial culture.

This novel is creepy AF. I really hope none of the home invaders in this story exist, but that's the thing that makes this so terrifying: they probably do. Seidlinger's Anybody Home? has no named narrator, no named characters at all, no named locale, and no loci in time; the events in this slim, punchy novel could happen anywhere and to anyone. That's what makes it a successful horror story. Seidlinger lets the reader's imagination do the work -- some of the work -- for him.

Some. The heavy lifting is done by Seidlinger. The prose is sparse, but accurate like a puncture to the jugular. A hanging question, a sentence left unfinished -- the words in this novel function like a silent slice of a knife through air; they elicit a spurt or an arc of blood as desired. Seidlinger delivers enough to elicit pain, but not enough to kill; reader, you'll live to read on. You'll be compelled to read on to deliver yourself from the suspense.

Anybody Home? is about a home invasion, a carefully planned crime and its implementation. The story is told from the interior perspective of the mastermind of this crime.

Despite the facelessness of the narrator, the protagonist in this tale is not a mystery to the reader. This is, I think, part of Seidlinger's brilliance. The reader is treated to the full landscape of insanity in the narrator's head; what you're not sure of is who they are talking to and what the relationship is between the narrator and the others of their kind. This unreliable narrator adds to the sensation of dis-ease; the further the reader gets into the book and into the narrator's head, the more infectious the madness becomes. Things start to make sense. You can't help but respect the madness a bit. In fact, it does not feel quite so mad. There's a logic -- even a sense of justice or nobility -- to the plan the narrator has in mind. Almost.

Reader, you might begin to wonder if the madman is the hero here. But that feels squeamish; you can't quite reconcile the deontological unfairness of this cruel act with some kind of enlightenment. You can't quite call the ending "happy", but you might be tempted to ponder on it. You might creep yourself out a bit when you realize your own moral compass may not point true north... Maybe.

It would be hard not to fall in love with this magic-tinged historical fiction. I loved this book so much I stayed up several nights to read it, refusing to bookmark it until I absolutely could not hold my eyes open any longer. The loss of sleep was worth it!

The White Hare is set in post-WWII England. The narrator, Mila, her daughter Janeska (Janey), and her mother Magdalena have left London and bought a large house in Cornwall, which Magda and Mila hope to refurbish and turn into a hotel. Mila also hopes the change of location will allow her to move on from a toxic relationship. Magda too has lost her husband of many years to the War and is seeking to rebuild a life for herself in a new place. The two women are Polish evacuees/refugees of the war; England is their home now.

As the story unfolds it becomes clear that it will not be so easy to shed the past for the three of them; it comes back to haunt them in real and imagined ways. The house and land too that they see as their revival brings its own hauntings and histories into the present. This magic interacts with Mila, Janey, and Magda in positive and less-pleasant ways; it becomes clear there is something afoot at the house at White Cove.

The White Hare is not only a tale of magic and myth; what drew me back to its pages night after night was the deep, terrible past between Mila and Magda, the angry relationship between Janey and her grandmother, and the wedge and glue that comes into their lives, causing friction and connection all at the same time, in the form of another character, Jack. In many ways, this is a novel of intergenerational histories; the ways in which understandings of the self and our place in the world are inherited. That said, Johnson does not suggest that the past dictates the characters' present or future; there is hope for change.

And there is plenty of change in this story. (The plot revolves around the revival of a place and its new denizens after all.) The novel is not a vehicle to retell history; it is much more subjective than that. This is a novel about how a group of people who have individually suffered ordinary and terrible events struggle to reconcile their pasts with their futures. Every one of the characters' actions and choices are imbued with a history, sometimes a good one, often a tragic one. As the novel progresses, the reader witnesses how the characters' histories and their knowledge of another's helps them shed those ghostly pasts and create a new future for themselves and each other.

The White Hare immerses the reader in a poignant lesson of how the past and present are ever intertwined. Lingering in the latent, vibrating background is the White Hare herself, a spirit that inhabits the land and the haunted history that comes alive in her presence. The novel suggests that there is a world beyond our own mundane one, in which we are embedded. In The White Hare this is the magical, historical world, a state of being in which the past and present are not constrained by the physics of time.

What was also very satisfying for me was the way in which the novel resolves. Not only do the characters come to their own organic conclusions, but history also is validated and finds a place of belonging in the present in a very real, tangible way. It emphasizes Johnson's narrative: that the past is never as far away as it might seem, it is really buried -- sometimes literally -- in our contemporary moment. For readers who love long, nuanced resolutions and endings, The White Hare delivers in abundance; nothing is left hanging.

This is a novel that takes the reader on a rollercoaster of emotions, from sadness to anger to pity to redemptive hope. It is inspiring. It is queasy in some parts. Reader, be warned, there are mentions of abuse, gendered and sexual violence, violence and murder. Ultimately, for me, this was an inspiring tale of vindication and hope.