This a beautiful, strange, unflinching, mysterious little book. The lead character is Lila Mae Watson, the first black woman to ever earn the badge of Elevator Inspector in a city obsessed with verticality. The Department of Elevator Inspectors is a sprawling institution, with an attached university to train its members and associations with the city government, major manufacturers, and the mob. A local election is coming up, with a fierce race being run by men from two different factions: the Empiricists, who take elevators literally, and examine them by looking at their pieces; and the Intuitionists, who listen to the sounds of an elevator and intuit it's workings by a kind of synesthesia. Lila Mae is an Intuitionist, perhaps the best living Intuitionist, with a 100% success rate and an almost spiritual understanding of her craft. Which makes it even more shocking when an elevator she has recently inspected goes into total freefall, a catastrophic accident at a crucial moment. Was it sabotage? Has Lila Mae been set up, and if so, by whom? And what to make of the rumored plans of a "black box", a perfect elevator, which are being whispered of throughout the Department?

The subject of this mystery (elevators? really?) is so bizarre that it leads an almost dreamy quality to some of the characters' concerns. However, Lila Mae's experiences of institutionalized racism are firmly grounded and never shied away from. This contrast- the levity of the absurd, the gravity of the real- is what makes this book so great. This was my first dip into Colson Whitehead's writing and I will definitely be reading more!

I've been reading Roz Chast's comics in the New Yorker ever since I learned how to read (at age 11). I remember reading an excerpt from this book probably back when it was first released in 2014. Aging and dying aren't easy subjects, but I admire Chast's honesty and this book finds humor even in the most trying of circumstances. This book also sparked a conversation with my own parents about what we'd all like done with our bodies after we die, and firmed up our (continually delayed) commitment to finally filling out advanced directives for our own medical care.

This is only the third novel told in poems I can remember reading (the first two being Love That Dog by Sharon Creech and Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson). I am once again impressed by how this author, like those other authors, achieved not only a successful story but also a successful poetry collection. Xiomara Batista is a high school sophomore in Harlem, New York; she is a daughter of religious parents from the Dominican Republic; a twin; a fighter and a poet. Her notebook feels like the only place in the world she can express her true thoughts. In her poems she questions God, defends herself against her overbearing mother, expresses her fury over being constantly catcalled and groped by men, while at the same time curious about what it would be like to kiss a boy she loves. When a supportive teacher invites Xiomara to join a poetry club, she might finally have a place to release her words into the world- though it means sneaking and lying to attend, since she is supposed to spend her afternoons in communion class at church. I do want to add a trigger warning to this book for religious-based slut-shaming/sex negativity, abusive parents, and some background homophobia. However, all of these are things that Xiomara actively struggles and argues against in her writings.

This book was surprising, unpredictable, and better than I expected. Porochista Khakpour writes about being sick nearly her entire life, while consistently living a life which defies what many people would expect from a chronically ill person. Khakpour was born in Tehran in 1978 but was raised in Los Angeles after her family fled the Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq war which formed her toddler memories. She had a lonely and painful childhood, during which at an unknown time she contracted Lyme disease. This went diagnosed for decades, and was compounded by the trauma of two major car crashes. Before she knew (or was willing to acknowledge) she was ill, Khakpour lived the reckless life of a mid-1990s college student in New York City, which involved parties wild with alcohol, cigarettes and causal drug use. She moved over and over, up to Baltimore for grad school, out to Pennsylvania for a university teaching position, to Santa Fe and Germany and New York and San Francisco and back to Los Angeles for jobs and residencies and breakdowns. Her health ebbed and flowed: periods of relative stability in which she was able to finish school, work as a magazine editor or a professor and finish her first book; other periods in which weekly trips to the ER or week-long hospital stays became the terrifying norm as Lyme eroded her ability to drive, walk, type, think, swallow food and sleep. This book is told mostly chronologically with chapters themed around place, as place often informed her health and the availability of medical care. I left it feeling rage at a medical system which often ignores or downplays the pain of women, astonishment at everything Khakpour has survived, a better understanding of this condition, and an extreme gratitude for my own health.

Set in Paris in 2013, this graphic novel focuses on a woman named Luisa who at 33 has to deal with the queer identity she has been suppressing for decades when her own teenage-self travels forward in time and lands on her doorstep. Her teen self is outraged that she has compromised her desire to be a fine-art photographer by doing primarily food-photography for advertising; confused as to why she barely communicates to her mother; but most of all sad and angry that she lost touch with the one out lesbian friend she had in 8th grade, with whom she shared one fateful kiss. Things become even more complicated when the two Luisas begin to blend into each other- the older one breaking out in acne, the younger one shocked to discover gray hairs. The older Luisa's inhibitions are loosened and she invites her attractive female neighbor out for a wild night on the town which includes a make-out session. Meanwhile the younger Luisa is getting both more mature and more frightened- how will she ever make it home to her own time? Considering the fancifulness of the narrative, the art is very simple and beautiful, and does an excellent job of distinguishing between the two Luisas. Though the time travel is never fully explained, it's still overall a satisfying narrative. The only reason I didn't rate it a bit higher is that I'm not super interested in reading stories of queer characters dealing with so much internalized homophobia these days. I think this book would have hit the spot when I was in high school or younger though!