Otter's world is tribal: she lives in a tribe of mostly women, who are occasionally visited by other tribes for purposes of trading. Her world is also one of magic: the dead don't like to stray too close to the living, so Otter is learning to be a binder like her mother so that she can tie knots to keep the dead from hurting the living. I found it hard to connect with; the world building was never fleshed out enough for me and the characters never felt realistic, only like pawns being pushed around the chessboard of Bow's greater story of death and purpose. This is the kind of magic-saturated, fairy-tale-like tale I would recommend to fans of Keturah and Lord Death or The Near Witch.

Offerman has the perfect deadpan voice to narrate his dryly funny memoir-slash-advice-manual. He talks about his childhood, his predilection for building things with his hands, his ongoing romance with his wife, his college years, and all the normal things a memoir contains. He shakes up this formula by adding in copious amounts of advice, most of it along the lines of Go outside, make something with your hands, stop whining, appreciate your life. His stories were hard for me to relate to and I found the transitions between story and advice to be a bit forced. Overall it was entertaining but I don't think I'd read anything else by him.

Fisher's novel is as disjointed and cagey as her protagonist's brain. It takes place in the 80's, and is a fascinating look into the culture of Hollywood at the time: cocaine overdoses, taxis, home phones without caller ID, and other traumatic experiences. Darkly funny and bitingly insightful, it's more a moment in time than a novel.

Lucifer Box is an over-the-top self-involved drama queen who is just as likely to kill an assassin at the behest of the British government as he is to get himself into some kind of sex-fueled trouble. This book has a lot of things I like: spies, drama, international travel, humor, ridiculous schemes -- and yet it falls completely flat. Lucifer is so stuck up it is truly a wonder he doesn't die from sheer inability to see the world around him as anything other than a machine for worshipping him. The main plot surrounds the work of a bunch of scientists, yet when you actually meet the villains they are all so stupid that maintaining the suspension of disbelief requires the reader to shut both eyes. I truly wanted to love this book as the cover related it to two of my favorite authors (Wilde and Lovecraft) and yet I couldn't manage to do so.

Nathaniel is an LA-living wannabe comedy writer whom Crosley paints as lovable despite his utter lack of redeeming qualities, Keziah is a NYC-living designer's assistant who spends so much time inspecting other people's lives that she is incapable of realizing how much she hates her own, and Victor is a mentally ill unemployed man who goes to Paris to find a necklace that a dying old woman told him a story about. This seems designed to be a tongue-in-chic portrayal of three former college friends who meet up at another college friend's wedding and end up having a French adventure that reignites their lopsided friendship triangle -- but in actuality it is an insipid faux-intellectual melodrama whose barely realistic scenes are matched only by its paper thin caricatures-- I mean, characters. Wait, no, I didn't.

Vick is tired of being bullied, so when she gets moved to yet another new school, she tells everyone she is a witch. No one catches on to her street magic game until Gio, and Vick has to decide if she can trust him or if she should start preparing to get bullied again. The street magic element adds a fun twist on the standard high school drama fare; the magic gives Vick something to focus on and her discipline is impressive. It's a funny book and I'd recommend it to someone looking for a lighthearted read.