Several short stories and one big novella, this collection is a tour de force debut. All the stories revolve around Virginia in some way, shape, or form, and all address issues of race. It's timely and gripping.

While all the stories engage with clever storylines and intricately observed comments on race and racism in America, the novella, My Monticello is the star of this collection. In a not-to-distant future, a young Black woman named Da'Naisha and her mostly BIPOC neighbors living in Charlottesville, VA, escape white militia violence and end up finding refuge in Monticello. Da'Naisha and her grandmother, MaViolet, are descendents of Thomas Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemmings.

Through Da'Naisha and her companions' experiences at Monticello, readers learn about Thomas Jefferson's muddled relationship to slavery. This story also is eerily prescient based on real-life experiences of today. The white militia has formed a group that's hell-bent on destroying POC and their homes, the members marked by blue bands on their arms. The country has "lost" the electric grid, phones don't work, devastating storms have decimated many parts of the land, and there are mentions of the government doing nothing to help with any of it. Many of the things Americans are decrying and warning about today--white supremacist violence, racism, climate change, the breakdown of public services like an electrical grid and cell phone capabilities--have come true in this story, and it's pretty bleak. This story is part warning, part character study, and part dystopian thriller. It was riveting.

Johnson's collection is a must-read. Highly recommend.

In this engrossing memoir, retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Vindman tells how he went from being a Russian immigrant living in New York City to the Ukraine expert on the National Security Council whose testimony contributed to the first impeachment of former President Trump.

Vindman speaks about his time in the military as well as his time in the White House. He also tells the story of how him, his twin brother, and their family emigrated to America from Russia. Through all the various personal and professional narratives that make up this memoir, his passion for his work and, especially, his love of his adopted country shine through. He doesn't downplay the pushback and challenges he faced as part of the Trump administration, yet his commentary about it isn't mean-spirited or catty in any way. He had a job to do, and he did it based on his knowledge of international diplomacy and what he held as important governing principles of the United States. As interesting as this section was, I most enjoyed the stories of him and his brother growing up, emigrating to the United States, and coming to love this country so much they dedicated their professional lives to defending it. This book shows again how vital immigrants are to our country's growth and its humanity.

A satirical look at an IKEA-type company and a product designer, Ava, who works there, this odd book did not work for me. Ava suffers a horrific loss and a romance with her new boss opens her up to coming out of the funk she's been in since that loss. Yet a certain plot point tweaks this seemingly fun and redemptive book of healing and growth into a thriller-type book that ends with little closure. Maybe I missed what I was supposed to get out of the send-ups of the IKEA-like company or the corp culture or the bro-culture that were intended, but I just ended up being underwhelmed at the end. Ava, after all the loss she suffered, wasn't redeemed or didn't really "grow." The rushed ending seems to indicate that she is finally open to loving and growing again, but it didn't feel earned. Overall, I was disappointed with this one.

Anna is the 40-something, mixed-race British woman who—while sorting through her late mother’s things—finds journals written by her father—a Black man who engaged in radical politics in 1970s London & eventually became the president/dictator of a small western African nation. She sets out to find her father and, in the process, discovers who she truly is.

Through sparse but powerful prose, Onuzo creates the portrait of a complex middle-aged woman who is searching for her identity in several spheres. The first, as a middle-aged woman in a world that assumes that with half a life lived, women are secure in their sense of self. This struggle echoes the struggles many middle-age women face that society (and fiction other than women's fiction) often neglects to parse out time to explore.

Anna's journey also focuses on her sense of self in both the family she does know and the one she doesn't. Through these experiences, the narrative touches on elements of racial identity and national identity. As a mixed-race woman, Anna is denigrated in London for being Black and in Bamana for being "obroni," or white. I loved the exploration of this juxtaposition and also how all of these identities are reconciled during the experience Anna has at the end of the novel.   

The spirit of the mythical sankofa bird means going back into the past and taking what is good and bringing it into the present to make progress in the future. It's on-point with what Anna achieves in this engrossing novel. This story starts slow and Anna is a complex mix of subdued & bold. The writing is quiet but emotional. Onuzo has taken a heightened fictional situation and explored some very real, very important challenges middle-age women face in their lives,. She's made Anna's specific in various ways (through race and nationality), yet I feel like even with that specificity there's a compelling narrative here that all readers can appreciate and enjoy.

Highly recommend! 

Bond's romantic comedy is an inventive take on the usual opposites attract trope. As the daughter of the owner of an escape room enterprise (fun idea!), she's anxious to handle things while her mom's out of town. But before she and her best friend Mag know it, they're inundated with a Satanic cult that wants to use a fake spell book they have in one of their rooms (it's not fake, it's real!) to summon a demon from hell--who turns out to be hot and snarky Luke Morningstar (the son of the Devil). As expected, sparks fly between Callie and Luke while they work with Mag to stop the cult from ending the world as they know it.

I loved the banter between Luke and Callie and the overall plot...I just felt like it dragged a bit. Over 300 pages was too long for the story. And although Luke and Callie do have a banter, I felt like the romance between them was lukewarm at best (sorry, pun not intended). They seemed more like friends than hot-as-hell lovers. Loved the nonbinary rep with Mag, though. Overall a cute story and warmish couple, but not a best-of book of the genre.