This short story really exceeded my expectations. I was thrilled to go back to the world of All the Birds in the Sky, to come to love some new characters (I was so invested in their lives so quickly, a real strength of Anders') and tie up loose ends with old ones. Absolutely beautiful, but I definitely recommend reading All the Birds in the Sky first to get the full impact of this story.

I had a very mixed reaction to this book - I did find it easy to fall into and read, but it was also kind of trying because each character has their own part, and it felt like starting over each time you were abruptly switch to an entirely new story. The siblings’ stories were obviously connected, but varying degrees of estrangement between them made it so that the characters were hardly part of the others’ stories. When I finished the first half I was really unenthused about the remainder, feeling like I was leaving characters I cared about for ones I didn’t. Still, the second half swept me away again once I picked it back up. Overall, I found each part to be fast-paced separately, but I was missing momentum to carry me between the parts. ⁣
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I loved many of the characters, especially some of the side-characters who are sketched in with care and just the right amount of detail. Allison in her review describes how two of the siblings receive privilege checks from their non-white partners in a way that felt stilted to her. I don’t know if I would have picked up on it as strongly without her observation, but I absolutely agree, and really found most of the conflicts in the novel pretty heavy-handed. I wasn’t able to find any reviews of this novel by Romani readers, and while the portrayal of the Romani fortune teller was somewhat nuanced, I still felt like this novel played into harmful stereotypes about this marginalized group of people, and I was uncomfortable with that aspect. (Side note: based on scrolling Goodreads I feel like a lot of reviewers don’t know, or just don’t care, that g*psy is a slur, so just fyi don’t use that term.)⁣

My Soul to Keep is the first of Due’s “African Immortals” series, paranormal horror which builds on the premise that a group of men achieved immortality in the 1500’s and have been living in secret ever since. The novel follows Jessica and her husband David as her life comes crashing down around her with the unraveling of David’s secret and the chilling lengths he’s gone to protect it. If you’re not traditionally a fan of horror but dig domestic thrillers, this might be one to try, as it’s super suspenseful but light on gore or gruesome detail.⁣⁣
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Intensely plotted, Due weaves together Jessica and David’s stories with a deep understanding of her characters. Jessica is a smart and observant investigative reporter, but her love for her husband obscures the layers of lies he’s woven since they met. David is a frightening and barely sympathetic character study. His insistence that he knows what’s best for his wife and daughter as he creates and invites danger into their lives is all too familiar to reality, even as it’s combined with an otherworldliness resulting from his long life. I was on the edge of my seat, mentally shouting advice to Jessica and raging against David's selfishness. Definitely recommend this one, I’ve already purchased the sequel!

I’m so glad I read this book right now, it was just the perfect remedy for a stressful week. Emoni is a new favorite character, I love how passionate she is, how caring, how grown up she’s had to become and how she embraces challenge and believes in herself. I was so excited to dig back into Acevedo’s writing, and to read a book centered around a character who loves food as much as I do! Emoni’s creativity in the kitchen is a delight, and I love this book in conversation with other foodie books I’ve read this year, specifically Like Water for Chocolate and the themes both novels explore about how food can communicate a memory or an emotion. ⁣

I feel bereft as to how to describe this experience today, except to say I loved it!

This is a perfect spooky times read, and I highly recommend it if you like unsettling stories, feeling confused, thinking a lot and still having many questions. Reading this book gave me so much anxiety I got a stomach ache, so watch out for that, and prepare yourself with a couple hours in case you want to read it straight through as I did. It goes fast but I spent a while flipping back and forth orienting myself, especially at the beginning.

For all the monster girls <3

This book was awesome. Very funny, but also a well realized plot with characters that change and grow and reveal more of themselves and learn things.

I enjoyed this book, although I found the plot somewhat hard to follow. The novel is centered around the aftermath of an alien visitation, an aborted first contact story where humankind has only the leftover alien trash/treasures to puzzle over. The ideas in this novel were so interesting, and I loved the exposition about the world established through dialogue. Though I never felt excited about the pacing of this book, I’m super interested in what the Strugatsky brothers have to say. I easily forgive a difficult read if it ends well, and here I was completely fascinated and captivated by the final scene. Definitely reading more from these two! ⁣

I'm glad I picked up The Miniature Wife by Manuel Gonzales on a whim at the library. It's a 2013 short story collection by an author I hadn't heard of, but unsettling speculative stories are my jam lately and this seemed it would fit the bill. Gonzales' premises are so creative; one of my favorites was the title story, a chilling tale about a man who accidentally miniaturized his wife and the war they wage upon each other. I also loved The Sound of Early Morning, which imagines a world where sound has become physically painful to hear, and One-Horned & Wild-Eyed, a story about two friends who become obsessed by a unicorn. ⁣
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My enjoyment of the book was a little uneven, I especially didn't know what to do with the "Meritorious Life" series of strange obituaries that were interspersed throughout, but I was always excited to read the next story and see where Gonzales' imagination would take me next. ⁣

A pretty good read for a theoretical true crime fan who's actually only read Michelle McNamara’s I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (i.e. me.) ⁣⁣
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I did find this book to get sorta tedious/convoluted. It was often hard to pick back up the threads of the many cold cases Jensen discusses, as he weaves together discoveries sort of chronologically. Jensen’s crime solving methods revolve around dumping money into targeted ads on Facebook and other social media to spur viewers to identify perpetrators or victims of crimes. It was exciting to watch these methods occasionally yield results, but as Jensen aims to assert in his addendum, there’s a lot of ways to do it wrong. The argument that anyone can do this work is a little undermined by the money that many will not have access to in order to create promoted ads. Reading, I can’t help but wonder what impact his dream to mobilize a civilian crime solving army will have, and what nasty unforeseen consequences might come out of this rallying cry. The book just scratches the surface on racism and bias, which is a huge issue with our existing criminal justice system that will doubtless cause a different mess of issues in a world full of social media sleuthing.⁣⁣
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Where the book was strongest for me was Jensen’s stories about his father, and his friendship with McNamara. (Spoilers follow, but only for stuff that’s been in the news.) My heart broke alongside him as he grieved her death, and I loved the way he always credited her for all the work she did on the case, never saying “I/we/they got him,” but always “she got him,” after the Golden State Killer’s capture. The one spot I thought was a miss was that he argued that it wasn’t her book, but her death that added the final needed pressure to solve the case, because of coverage of her death and his memorial writing about her. This is a flawed argument because we can’t say how large a splash the book would have made if it was published by an alive McNamara; I think it could easily have been just as impactful. ⁣⁣
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Loved! My Time Among the Whites is an instant favorite essay collection. I was immediately captured by Crucet’s writing, and her thoughtful observations about topics ranging from being a first generation college student, to her complicated love of Disney world, to whiteness and institutionalized racism in academia. Crucet is witty and whip smart and convicting. As a white person, this book opened my eyes to places of privilege I wasn’t previously aware of in unexplored nooks of my experience. I also didn’t know almost anything about the ways Cuban immigrants were previously afforded unique privileges over other Latinx immigrants, and while I’m sure this book only scratched the surface I still learned so much. Crucet’s manifold insights on our world and herself, and her vulnerability in confronting the diverse personal topics of this collection make this an easy new favorite. Naturally, I’m now absolutely rattling with excitement to get my hands on Crucet’s novel, Make Your Home Among Strangers! ⁣
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Tldr - highest recommendation for this one, just wow.