As the title indicates, this is a novel about cartographers, that is PhD geography scholars. One of the settings is the Map Division of NYPL. (Or "the NYPL" as it's referred to in the book, but I doubt that any NYPL employees employ the "the") The protagonist, Nell Young, is the product of a marriage between cartographers, or as we learn Cartographers. When we meet her, her mother is long dead, and her father recently so. She'd had a falling out with him over what's referred to as "The Junkbox Incident." The Incident caused Nell's father to turn on her, turning her out of her internship and likely scholarly career in the Map Division. To these nerds, all maps are special, but we learn that one workaday gas station map from the 1930s is very special. 

The mystery thriller with a handful of murders tells the story of the map and its mystical properties. Nell and her ex and her mentors are compelling. I love people with a niche interest being niche and interesting!

You Made a Fool... is a romance where the romance takes a while to unfold, though the sexuality is present from the start. Emezi wants us to really know our protagonist first. Feyi is a Nigerian-American artist living in Brooklyn with her best friend Joy. She's a 29-year-old widow whose high school sweetheart and husband died in a car accident, holding her hand. Ergo, falling in love again is not a thing. She remarks to Joy, who is wondering if they're having a quarter-life crisis

I highlighted that sentence because it resonates with own my 2020s worldview, but now that I read it again, I see that this page 20 observation sets up Feyi's whole struggle. 

A friend turned me onto the concept of the "MFA novel," which refers to books that are densely descriptive. Emezi is guilty of that sometimes, like

but sometimes a description really lands without being showy, e.g., 

Or is that too showy? I couldn't stop picturing webbed glass or hearing or feeling it after I read that sentence. I just love the image--how webbed glass is broken but holding together and flexible. It's functional, but just. Another description that got me was 

Which is about wanting to be alone, not being interested in spending time with a potential lover--one who loves her in a way she doesn't return. Even with the person I love, I feel possessive of myself and feel a longing to be alone. 

The love interest is compelling, but maybe a little too perfect (other than his flaw of being older than Feyi and that he is the father of Feyi's unrequited). 

Book two of the Sookie Stackhouse series finds Sookie lent out to a Dallas nest to listen in for enemies. She does a good job, almost dies a couple of times, and meets another telepath. 

The first time reading the series I didn't think much about the idea that Sookie might only have been in love with Bill because he was the first guy she met whose mind she couldn't read. On this read, I thought he was kind of a too. Eric, too, though. 

Definitely a good read when you can't concentrate on books because the world is terrible. 

I didn't know who Hill was and don't remember how I heard about her book. It was a great listen, and I'm psyched to know about Ms. Hill now! She's a sports writer/anchor/personality? who covered sports for newspapers and later for ESPN before parting ways with them for Reasons. She's a smart, funny, political person who is open about the fact that there's no such thing as objectivity in journalism (see also: neutrality in libraries) and so brings her whole self to her work. That means Blackness. 

Plus she got into it with then-President Trump for factually describing him as a white supremacist. And he got mad about! https://x.com/RickStrom/status/1158073483579936768/photo/1

Morgan grew up poor, and now she's living a dream life. She's cohabitating with billionaire Sebastian Reid, which gives her the time and space to make her art--quilts. She's a fashion school grad who slept on her FIT friend's couch before she started dating Sebastian. Sadly, her bubble bursts when she realizes that Sebastian's fortune is the planet's famine. And of course, there's another man. 

Morgan's political awakening is sudden, but the fervor of a new convert puts her in the perfect position for corporate espionage. 

Rapper Deza accidentally gained fame when a lyric of hers about a Black girl named Shaq(u)ana getting killed on the way home from school came true--just one letter off in the name. She's tapped to headline a tour when the original star drops out. She oversleeps the first morning of the tour and immediately gets into it with her tour mates, including her DJ, who quits in a huff. Enter the DJ she had a moment with the night before while dancing at a club with on the dl. 

De León's romances are always packed with intersectional feminist politics, and Deza's raps uphold that energy when she learns a fast fashion endorsement deal is bad news

One of the most impressive things about this romance is that the lover is a full-fledged, flawed person who also has to learn some things about himself. 

PS I really want to read a story centered on Deza's sister!

Interconnected stories of queer and/or BIPOC students at the same fictional college is a sweet idea. The stories are full of romance, hope, and finding your people. I found them a little repetitive, but folks in the target demographics mileage may vary.

This was an easy listen with some tales from Grey's engagements to Matthew Broderick and Johnny Depp. I watched Dirty Dancing after reading it, and honestly, it's really good, and Grey is really good in it. I wish she'd had more starring roles, with her Jewish face and all, which reminds me, she talks about her nose a lot!

The description of this book was highly appealing to me, but I gave up on it about a 1/4 of the way through. I wasn't interested in the characters and was distracted by grammar stuff. It was too slow. I hope other readers' mileage varies! 

I'm always looking for books about people going through perimenopause, and I like witches as well as the next guy, so The Change seemed like a winner. I enjoyed the vengeance demon of it all, but in general the novel has a binary, gender essentialist energy that I found troubling. Miller is a Barnard alum. I wonder if I can get any intel...