This month we read and enjoyed eclectically: everything from classic fantasy adventure, to trans poetry, to young adult romance, to creepy fairy tale reboot and to contemporary suspense. Whatever your taste, our August reading has you covered!
Emily: I just read the new edition of City of Bones by Martha Wells that will be coming out from Tor on September 5. I think it’s my favorite fantasy of hers I’ve read so far! City of Bones stars Khat, who has a lot in common with Murderbot. Khat is a member of a humanoid race, invented by post-apocalyptic survivors after their world was overrun with the Waste. Khat can pass for human sometimes, but not everyone considers him a person. He’s hardier than humans, since his race was created to be able to survive the Waste.
He lives in a tiered city where every drop of water is precious and expensive, working as a relics dealer. His expertise gets him hired by some clients from an elite tier, who, it turns out, are deeply embroiled in a world-changing conspiracy. The plot is extremely fast-moving, with Khat getting repeatedly beaten up and imprisoned, intersections of his own personal backstory with the main plot, and overall, a noir feel to both his physical interactions with other people and the way the hierarchical city structure holds secrets at every level.
This new updated edition feels extremely polished and contemporary, and as always, Wells’ characters and world creation are rich and immersive.
Carrie: The great poet Audre Lorde once wrote that “poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence.” I thought of those words when I saw that Haymarket Books was having a big sale in July and added H. Melt’s There Are Trans People Here to my cart. I had not bought any poetry in a while and it was a recommended book so I had to buy it.
I believe, at its heart, this book of poetry is a beautiful celebration of trans folks with so much love, dedication and hope bound within the pages.
I love the final stanza of the poem “Ode to Terfs:” where the poet writes, “We are living in a new world. You can join us or become extinct.” It stands a resolute final stand of words near that bottom of the page that leave no room for compromise nor question. Another favorite poem is “If You Are Over Cis People (After Morgan Parker)” which includes five short stanzas for survival–all simple instructions to a cis person like me, yet revolutionary and lifesaving to the trans family who meet Melt, the poet, on that single page that contains multitudes. There Are Trans People Here is a blessed reminder that not only do trans people exist, they also flourish and bloom in all the spaces and places they should with a resilience made creative by the laws and attitudes of our time then and now.
Kathryn: Award-winning picture book creator Jon Klassen’s The Skull is a retelling of a Germanic folktale with a spooky gothic twist. A girl runs away from home to live in an abandoned mansion in the woods, where she discovers that she’s now roommates with a disembodied skull. At the end of the original folktale, the skull vanishes and the curse on the mansion is broken, but Klassen writes in his “Author’s Note” that this wasn’t the ending he remembered.
I love the idea of misremembering something creepy from your childhood in a way that makes it even creepier. Granted, Klassen encountered the folktale of “Ottilia and the Skull” as an adult, but the scenario he describes still has echoes of creepypasta such as the infamous “Candle Cove,” in which adults discuss the eeriness of an old children’s show. The elegant simplicity of the writing in The Skull creates a lovely undercurrent of dread beneath the gorgeous art, which uses deceptively simple elements of color and composition to draw out the uncanniness of each scene.
No matter how well-crafted they might be, I’m generally not a big reader of children’s books, but The Skull uses the medium of “a children’s book” to tell a story that will resonate with anyone who has ever been a weird little kid – or fantasized about running away from modern society to live in a haunted mansion in the woods. The Skull is strange and disquieting, yet the story still has its own quiet type of happy ending.
Alenka: I weeded my library’s teen fiction collection earlier this summer, and took some time to note books with bisexual protagonists so I can do a display in September (AKA bi month, long-celebrated by WWAC!). Never Ever Getting Back Together by Sophie Gonzales caught my eye with its enticing “The Boy is Mine”-esque premise: two girls, both exes of a pseudo-royal, semi-famous asshole agree to go on a dating show starring their ex, Jordy. Maya, who dated Jordy for about a year, wants to overwrite his new humanitarian image and expose him for what he truly is. Skye, who dated Jordy while he was still with Maya—unbeknownst to Skye—feels that, maybe, letting Jordy back into her heart would be worth it…only to discover a connection with Maya instead.
While the premise is quite spicy, Gonzales’ book quickly shifts to dive into some bigger questions: is it even possible for Maya to get justice by using the insidious and cutthroat world of reality dating television? Is it even worth it—or is it better to seek a quieter, private but happy life? Gonzales is very aware that in the growing sub-genre of reality show-focused romance (including The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun, Love and Other Disasters by Anita Kelly, arguably Patricia Wants to Cuddle by Samantha Allen etc. etc.), both readers and characters know that reality show producers are more interested in good TV than the well-being of participants. Maya and Skye are very young—I think 18 and 19 respectively—and while they’re legally adults, both are caught up in a world that is only interested in tearing them apart for ratings and cash.
The more I sit with this book and the direction it took, the more I think Gonzales has written something very smart, aware, and full of concern for teens who are in Maya and Skye’s stage of life. Amidst all the reality show bullshit they’re figuring out how they can build independent adulthoods that are fulfilling and not soul crushing, and it’s easy to empathize with that stress. Never Ever Getting Back Together isn’t a super heavy read, but it asks some compelling questions.
Masha: I just read Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen in one sitting and really enjoyed it! It’s a short novel about a Chinese American woman who gets into the counterfeit handbag business with her old college roommate. What really made it work for me is the twist at the midpoint that challenged my assumptions and preconceived biases. It was one of those twists that reframes how you view everything you just read, so I can’t say exactly what happened, but it was really powerful and made the rest of the book a lot more fun to read. Counterfeit has a lot to say about luxury goods, wealth, Chinese and Chinese American identity, racism, stereotypes, class, lots of stuff comes up in a surprisingly small number of pages! I think if it was any longer it’d feel like it was dragging. But it was fun!
