2026 book 149

 Emily St John Mandel’s Exit Party

Mandel’s latest STRESSED ME OUT, but was also beautiful? She’s good at that. We start in Los Angeles 2031, where after a coup and a civil war, the former United States has splintered into a bunch of new countries and republics, controlled by militias. TOO REAL. Our main character is a woman who’s just gotten out of prison, and she and her roommate go to a party—where suddenly two dopplegangers of party guests appear, and their host vanishes. The story moves on from there to cover arms dealers, art heists, and other worlds. It’s totally engrossing, like I gulped this down. There is definitely some overlap with some of the other St John Mandel books and I might do a big reread of her backlist to see all the connections? And hope none of her visions of the future come to pass????? A????

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in September.

2026 book 139

 Naomi Salman’s Nothing But the Rain

I’m always looking for more novels that are epistolary/told as diaries, and this novella was a doozy. It’s told by a 63 year old woman, a doctor, trapped in a town where the rain erases your memories—and it’s almost always raining. Honestly haunting! I’ll be thinking about this one for a while and will definitely check out whatever Salman writes next. A/A-.

2026 book 137

 Suzanne Collins’ Mockingjay

I wasn’t actually planning on rereading this one after I reread the first two and was mildly annoyed by Katniss’ POV (and also the whole rebellion thing seen through her eyes makes very little sense), plus I wasn’t really up for the whole Peeta being tortured thing. But I couldn’t stop thinking about all of it! And this was amazingly even grimmer than I remembered! And also doesn’t really make a ton of sense if you think too hard. But it’s nice to read about authoritarian regimes being dismantled.

2026 book 133

 Suzanne Collins’ Catching Fire

Ok, this one does not really hold up that well! Knowing more backstory on these characters (and the great performers like Jeffrey Wright in the movie) helps, but this plot is all over the place. Having Katniss be so clueless is ok the first time you read it, as you’re caught up in all the twists as you discover them, but on this read I was just like, this is not working for me! I also hate the love triangle stuff but I’m pretty sure I hated that on previous reads too.

2026 book 132

 Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games

This was very interesting to reread in light of Sunrise on the Reaping—little things like Haymitch calling Katniss sweetheart are suddenly resonant. I will say this does feel more YA-y than Sunrise, not just because of the love triangle stuff, but the narrative voice. Not a complaint, this holds up very well! I’m looking forward to the sequel now that we’ve gotten backstories on some of those characters.

2026 book 131

 Suzanne Collin’s’ Sunrise on the Reaping

Finally getting around to reading the Hunger Games prequel about Haymitch! (A local teen has assured me I can skip the one about Snow, which I have very little interest in.) This turned out to be a perfect read for the Fourth of July, not just thematically, but because it turns out the reaping takes place on that very day. Super compelling and heartbreaking, I cried at least three times. And now I guess I will reread the original trilogy? Good vacation reading? A.

2024 book 162

 Sarah Gailey's Have You Eaten?

Is there such a genre category as “cozy dystopia”? Because this book features a queer found family group who is on the run but also every chapter revolves around a meal they’re cooking. I mean there are definitely non-cozy elements—one of their group is missing, perhaps detained. But it has a cozy hopeful feel anyway. Plus there are recipes! I was hoping for one more chapter to really tie things up, but I liked this a lot. A-.

2024 book 143

 Frankie Barnet's Mood Swings

I absolutely read this because of the cover. It's fine, it starts off about several mildly annoying people in their early 20s living in a world like ours (based on all the pop culture references) but where all the animals started attacking people--until some billionaire created a machine that killed all the animals. In the back half one of the early 20s girls starts dating said billionaire, who’s working on a time machine. Interesting book but I wasn’t super into it. B.

Content warning for mentions of sexual assault and depictions of domestic violence.

2024 book 134

 Madeline Ashby's Glass Houses

So this is billed as a story in which a near-future tech mogul and his start-up team crash land onto a mysterious island, and what’s the deal, and how will they survive. But REALLY it’s a story about one of the women there, the mogul's chief of staff, with lots of flashbacks to how she ended up here. I think the flashbacks and her narrative arc are more compelling than the island stuff, which is actually pretty weak—it feels like mis-marketing. A few interesting surprises and some less cool ones. Good summer kind of read. B+.

2024 book 47

 Micaiah Johnson's Those Beyond the Wall

I have been VERY eagerly awaiting the sequel/companion to The Space Between Worlds, and this may have even surpassed my expectations?! The story is set ten years later and the protagonist is a minor character from the first book, Nik Nik's girl runner/mechanic—but many of the characters from the first book are prominent. Anyway, things kick off with a series of grisly deaths that are clearly related to world-hopping, and our protagonist and her cohort have to figure out how to stop it. I loved seeing the inner worlds of the emperor and the runners, and seeing more of the politics between the city and the people outside it. Once again, totally gripping action and trenchant commentary on class and poverty, but most importantly, amazingly vivid characters and world. I can’t wait to see what Johnson does next. A.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on March 12th.

2024 book 46

 Micaiah Johnson's The Space Between Worlds

This was one of my favorite books of 2020, and I've had it on my list to read for book club ever since, and I finally made it a pick this month because a companion novel is out in a couple weeks! Anyway, it was JUST as good on a reread, still totally gripping and fun but also really hitting on some complex themes. The protagonist is a young Black woman whose job is to hop between different worlds for research purposes, but she can only travel to worlds where that version of her has died--and she's died on so many worlds. SO much happens in this and it's such a fun but also a GOOD read, can't wait for the followup.

2022 book 216

 Waubgeshig Rice's Moon of the Crusted Snow

Woof, this was tense! It’s set on an Anishinaabe reservation in Northern Canada, and the story kicks off when all the power/communications/etc stuff stops working, which is mildly concerning as winter is on its way. And because the communications have failed, they don’t know what happened. But some of them are more prepared to survive without modern luxuries and are planning to make do—and then a white dude from the south shows up asking to be let in. And as a reader you’re just like oh noooooooo. I will say as tense as I found this, I actually think that part of the story needed to be built up a bit more. But I loved the main characters, their relationships, and their desire to connect to their traditions. There’s a companion novel/sequel coming out in 2024 and I’m looking forward to it. A-.

2020 book 5

Gish Jen's The Resisters
All I knew going into this book was a) I like Gish Jen, and b) that is a badass cover and title. So I almost don’t want to say anything else about it so you too can be surprised about where it starts, and where it ends up. Here are some tidbits: a near-future dystopia, race and class struggles, a father watching his daughter grow up . . . and baseball. (I am not a person particularly interested in sports, but Jen makes the baseball pretty compelling.) It's great. A/A-.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on February 4th.

2019 book 111

Margaret Atwood's The Testaments
Ooh y'all, the unexpected sequel to The Handmaid's Tale is here, and it lives up to the hype. It's set fifteen years after its predecessor, narrated by two young girls who've come of age in this new order--one a cherished daughter in Gilead, and one a regular girl up in Canada. There is also a third narrator--Aunt Lydia, from the first book. Eventually, their stories start to come together, and there are some really great women friendships and rivalries and some potent moments here. I will say that I kiiiiiiind of felt like this story cheapens the original book and its powerful ambiguity. It’s a great book, don’t get me wrong, but I am not sure it’s a /necessary/ one.

If you're wondering how this reads to someone who stopped watching the show after the third episode (too upsetting, and then I heard it went off the rails in season two): I kind of felt like I was maybe missing stuff, but nothing crucial. I did read an interview that implied this and the show share a continuity, or at least Atwood made sure the show didn't contradict the book. But it reads fine on its own. A/A-.

2019 book 108

Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale
I had to reread this because the sequel is out on Tuesday! I always forget how beautifully written and structured this is, and tend to only remember the grim reality of the world. And of course, really this is a story of the struggle to survive (mentally and otherwise) a horrible situation. This merits rereading for sure, not just to get all the details and things you've forgotten, but because once you know the framing device (or that there even is one), it does feel more optimistic. Anyway, great literature, fingers crossed that the sequel lives up to it.

2018 book 117

Thea Lim's An Ocean of Minutes
This was an extremely interesting and well-written book, but also it was a major bummer in a lot of ways. It centers on a young woman in 1981 who time travels to the future to save her boyfriend from a flu pandemic (too complicated to explain in a brief review), and he promises to find her when she arrives in 1993. Except she instead arrives in 1998, where she is basically an indentured servant to the corporation that sent her there. (If I didn’t already think capitalism was a corrupt system, this book would have convinced me very quickly.) This is all interspersed with flashbacks to her relationship. I wish there had been more to the ending sections—I think there was a bit more story there to tell—but I found the ruminations on the past to be effective.  Still, like I said, a lot,of this was a big ol' bummer, don’t buy the hype that this is the new Time Traveler's Wife (that book is a bummer in an entirely different way). Content warning for attempted rape. B/B+.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book is available now.

2017 book 199

Leni Zumas' Red Clocks
Continuing my habit of reading feminist dystopian fiction with this one—set in the near future, in a world where the US has finally granted personhood to fetuses, this story focuses on four women in a small town in Oregon. Obviously I found some of these women more compelling than others, but it was interesting to see them through each other's eyes. I think Zumas is a very fine writer, this is a very well done book, and I eagerly await whatever she does next. A-.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in January.

2017 book 127

Jennie Melamed's Gather the Daughters
Hoooooo boy. Let me start with a trigger warning, which I'll explain in a minute, but just imagine giant flashing lights here. So this story is set on an isolated island, in a community that fled the wastelands of our world several generations ago and set up their own little religious cult community. And here is where the giant flashing trigger warning lights are: because it is a community where one of the central tenets is incestuous sexual abuse of children. And also the usual patriarchal cult bullshit where girls are married off as soon as they're fertile. The story is told from the POVs of several girls, nearing or just past puberty, and all are heartbreaking and real. The other stuff going on is not too hard to figure out if you've ever read a book or seen a movie before, but the story itself is well-done, if utterly nauseating. Another one of those that is well-written but that I for one plan never to revisit and cannot really recommend it in good faith unless you have a strong stomach. B/B+.


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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on Tuesday.

2017 book 124

Louise Erdrich's Future Home of the Living God
I am both intrigued and depressed by this wave of post-apocalyptic fiction that is looking at issues of women's fertility. In this one, an unexplained event is causing evolutionary throwbacks--things seem to be going backwards. And so a pregnant woman begins writing a diary for her unborn child, chronicling political and natural events, domestic and larger-scale, as she (a Native child adopted by white upper class parents) meets her birth family, and is also wanted by the authorities because of her pregnancy. Compelling stuff and wonderfully written. I also loved everything about a local saint appearing in visions to gamblers. Erdrich is one of my favorite authors and this is an interesting departure for her. A.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in November.

2017 book 112

Naomi Alderman's The Power
Oooohhh lordy, do I have a lot of so-called feels about this book. It's not out in the US till October, but it's been out in England for a while, and I just really felt like I NEEDED a book where the premise is that girls the world over suddenly develop electricity powers. and can awaken it in other women, and THEY TAKE THE EFF OVER. I mean, that last part is hyperbole, but barely. There were moments when I was simultaneously teary eyed and cheering as women took vengeance against men abusing them, but then there were some parts that were not-cheerable at all. Really great characters and plotting here, though I do think the framing device could have been sliiiiiightly more subtle. But then stories like this perhaps cannot be subtle. It was blurbed by Margaret Atwood and A.L. Kennedy, and I think you can favorably compare this to The Handmaid's Tale (which is kind of weird if you think about it, but the point still holds). Anyway, I still really want electricity powers. The end. A.

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Content warning for . . . Lots of bad stuff that goes down.