Review: "A Fire Story" by Brian Fies

A Fire Story by Brian Fies
Published March 2019 via Abrams ComicArts
★★★★★

In 2017, fires swept through northern California—and in a matter of hours, Fies and his wife packed up what little they could, fled, and returned home to little more than ashes and rubble.

The earliest version of this story is one that Fies wrote more or less in the moment, perhaps as a way of processing the enormity of the loss. I read the book in the wake of the 2025 LA fires; I have no connection to LA, but it's hard not to see devastation like that on the news and not want to know more. So many people are in the reality of this book right now: dealing with insurance companies that won't pay enough for them to rebuild, worrying about more fires in the same places in the future, being cut out by unscrupulous developers and landowners, mourning the loss of personal history gone to the flames.

The art style here is simple but effective, sometimes longer clips of story and sometimes single-page observations about life after a fire. I assume Fies already had extensive experience sketching himself and his wife; they look very similar in the early versions (included at the end of the book) and the final ones. I particularly like the way he draws his wife (whose job was uniquely fitting to be written about in this book), but there's a focus on minutiae that hits home. You don't always know what's important until it's gone, I suppose. Fies manages to make the book both funny and heart-wrenching, often at the same time, which my gosh is a skill.

Highly recommended to those interested in graphic novels and...well, anyone who's seen wildfires in the news recently.

Review: Heartstopper, Volume 4 by Alice Oseman

Heartstopper, Volume 4 by Alice Oseman
Published May 2021 via Graphix
★★★★

Sweet. This is a 3.5-star read for me, but I probably would have gotten a bit more out of it if I hadn't jumped in in the middle of the series, and teenaged me would have loved it. I don't have a great handle on the side characters (again, jumped in in the middle, so that's on me), so I wouldn't really recommend reading this as a standalone, but it's clear that Oseman put a lot of care into addressing mental health and family dynamics here. In particular, she focuses on the getting-well part of things—acknowledging that there aren't instant fixes—rather than dwelling on illness, and when illness is discussed it's largely in terms of what it does emotionally rather than on behaviours.

I'll leave it at that—I'm unlikely to read the rest of the series (though you never know; it's not what I'm looking for in graphic novels at the moment, but there will be other moments), but I see why the series is so popular.

Review: "Sweet Valley Twins: Sneaking Out" by Nicole Andelfinger and Claudia Aguirre

Sweet Valley Twins: Sneaking Out by Nicole Andelfinger and Claudia Aguirre
Published February 2025 via Random House Graphic
★★★

Books four and five of this graphic novelization showed up at my library on the same day, so I read them back-to-back. Here, Jessica is determined to go to the Johnny Buck concert...never mind that her parents have said no and she doesn't have $60 to spend on a ticket. The solution: to commit to a few days of dogsitting, convince her parents that she will absolutely be the one taking care of the dog...and then evade even the slightest whiff of responsibility while trampling her twin's feelings (and new possessions) at the same time.

Again, this adaptation feels pretty true to the originals. I've reread some of those originals in recent years, and it's safe to say that Jessica is and always has been an absolute terror, and Elizabeth is and always has been a bit of a doormat. Does she sometimes yell at Jessica and tell her to do better? Sure. Does Jessica sometimes apologise and promise to make it up to her? Sure. Does Jessica ever follow through on those promises? Hah, nope. Not ever. And yet Elizabeth forgives her every time.

Having ranted a bit about The Haunted House, I don't have as much to say about this one. The art style is still a bit comic-y, but I prefer the facial expressions in this one compared to those in The Haunted House. And I can't blame the people adapting the series for the sheer wtf-ery that is Jessica—honestly, sort of wondering whether Sweet Valley High might ever be graphic-novelized in a meaningful way, because tween Jessica is a terror, but teen Jessica? Total sociopath.

Review: "Murder in the Dressing Room" by Holly Stars

Murder in the Dressing Room by Holly Stars
Published January 2025 via Berkley
★★★

Misty is doing well enough by herself—she has a job she hates, a boyfriend she loves, and a side gig as a drag queen that more than makes up for the day job—but when she finds her drag mother dead in her dressing room, well, things get complicated.

I'm kind of shocked, to be honest, that this is the first good, campy drag queen murder mystery series (well, start to a series) that I've come across. How has this not been done before? It's high time and then some.

Murder in the Dressing Room is in many ways just another cozy, but it's done well. Holly Stars is (I didn't know this until thirty seconds ago, but it makes sense) a drag queen herself, and her care for the community shows. The side characters here have backstories, and they do different types of drag, and while they fill niches they aren't allowed to becomes totally typecast. I also love that Misty comes into the book with not just a boyfriend but a good boyfriend—I've read too many mystery series in which a potential love interest is introduced in book one but it is book seventeen before they finally get together, and then it all falls apart by book 19; I've also read too many books featuring drag performers in which a potential love interest only wants to be associated with them out of drag. It's so refreshing to see a love interest who loves Misty not only as Misty but as her alter ego Joe (and not only as Joe but as his alter ego Misty). Here's hoping Miles sticks around.

I guessed the reveal before Misty figured it out (and before the dramatic villainous confession), but not by much, which feels about right. As a mystery, this isn't doing too much that's new, but I'd keep reading the series for the drag cast.

Review: "Sweet Valley Twins: The Haunted House" by Nicole Andelfinger and Knack Whittle

Sweet Valley Twins: The Haunted House by Nicole Andelfinger and Knack Whittle
Published May 2024 via Random House Graphic
★★

The fourth in this graphic novel retread of the Sweet Valley Twins books. In The Haunted House, a new girl moves to town—and into a house widely thought (at least, you know, by the young and impressionable) to be inhabited by a witch. While Elizabeth sets out to befriend the new girl, Jessica falls predictably in line with the Unicorns as they seek to run said new girl out of town.

These graphic novels hew pretty closely to the originals, which means that Jessica and the Unicorns are just awful. Their bullying of Nora is intense and constant—they mock her relative poverty, steal her gym clothes, lie to teachers to get her in trouble, threaten to frame her for theft, and on and on it goes. And Nora, meanwhile, is so desperate for a bit of kindness that she's ready to forgive and forget the second the Unicorns offer a tiny crumb of kindness...and that she doesn't stop to consider whether that kindness is genuine or lasting.

Reading this brought to mind my own experience of being bullied in grade six—it was way less intense than this, but at the time I also would have been perfectly okay with being friends if the girl in question had just stopped being cruel. And now I think jeepers creepers, self (and jeepers creepers, Nora), that would never have been a healthy friendship. Meanwhile, Jessica comes out of the book feeling good about herself because there are five minutes towards the end of the book when she isn't a bully...but she's spent so much of the book perfectly happy to bully a girl for no reason at all (and again: they're not just being nasty to Nora; they're actively trying to damage her academic record, get her in trouble, and run her out of town if possible) that it really feels like too much for Jessica to come back from. This is, of course, fully in line with the original series...but I have to wonder what younger readers are seeing when they read this. I remember identifying much more with Elizabeth than with Jessica when I was younger, and also knowing that Elizabeth was pretty boring, but gosh. It worries me that there are probably a lot of kids who do identify more with Jessica.

I'm not a huge fan of the art in this one; the art throughout the series is already a bit more comic-y than I prefer, and the change of artists in this one means that the characters often have really messy-looking faces and expressions, which is of course a valid art style but not one that I prefer. Looks like both of the artists used for the adaptations so far are involved in future books, so my mileage might vary...but I have no bookish self-control, so I'll keep reading and just have to get used to it!

Review: "If I Dig You" by Colby Wilkens

If I Dig You by Colby Wilkens
Published March 2025 via St. Martin's Griffin
★★★

Fourteen years ago, Isi's mother disappeared. Isi's never had closure, and since her best friend Louise left on a dig, she hasn't had closure there either—not with their friendship and not with her unresolved feelings. Lou is back, but things have never been the same.

It looks as though they'll both keep struggling along—until a surprise visit catapults them into the woods and into an unasked-for adventure that tests the strength of their friendship...and forces them both to ask if the risk of upsetting the status quo might be worth the reward.

I picked this up partly for the archeology theme (both characters are archeologists, and they end up searching for lost Cherokee treasure) and partly for the queer romance and partly because, you know, into the woods. I love me a good into-the-woods story. The Cherokee material is super interesting—I hadn't heard of this lost treasure before, and I've been curious about archeology fiction since reading Excavations. Wilkens is part Choctaw-Cherokee,* Isi is part Cherokee, and though I'm not usually one for supernatural material (keeping it vague to avoid spoilers) I actually really enjoyed the way that heritage plays into the story.

Now. I'm bad at suspending disbelief. This is a theme in my reviews. Normally the supernatural element here might have given me trouble, but again, in this case I didn't mind. However...I struggled with quite a lot of things in the rest of the book. There's the way characters jump to conclusions: Isi's mother is "declared deceased" (loc. 28**) six weeks after going missing, and I'm not an expert but that is a wildly fast timeline to decide that someone is dead (missing, presumed dead...maybe? Maybe. But not definitively deceased, not with the limited information they had). There's an assumption that a daughter searching for her missing mother must be doing so because the daughter knows Major Secrets rather than because...she misses her mother. There's an assumption that if someone rings your doorbell when you aren't expecting them, you should burn it all down. (You think I am exaggerating. I am not.) I'm also a little puzzled by the timeline—why have fourteen years passed, and not, say, four? Seems sort of odd that the baddies would hang out and do nothing for so long, or that Isi wouldn't have noticed oddities in her mother's home sooner; seems very, very, very odd that Isi's mother somehow still has a desk at the university where she taught (she wouldn't after four years of disappearance either, mind, but still).

Even getting past all that, I don't understand how Isi and Lou don't end up dead. I just don't. They head into the woods woefully unprepared—plastic ballet flats and rations totalling half a protein bar per person per day. (Again: you think I am exaggerating. I am not. The author has clearly never tried hiking on insufficient food, because I can tell you that it doesn't work in real life the way it works out for Isi and Louise.) They're fleeing from danger, but they never make it far before heading back into danger's camp, or stopping to have a heart-to-heart, or turning on a flashlight or building a fire that would immediately alert anyone around them to their location. We're told that it can get down to thirty at night (that's below freezing!), but they never hesitate to wade into whatever water they come across, often fully clothed—thus sending their chances of hypothermia sky-high. At one point there's a fall, and Louise spends a few moments wondering whether Isi is dead or critically injured before getting distracted by...glowworms. Because priorities. Neither of them is particularly troubled by one woman ending up barefoot, or making out when neither of them has seen a toothbrush in days (romance novel logic)...okay, the latter isn't really a survival thing, but it stretched the bounds of my imagination. (How do their libidos continue to rage unchecked when they should be tired and hungry and cold and in pain and scared?) At one point Louise insists that the only way they will survive is if Isi immediately destroys one of her few pieces of clothing and uses the last of their matches to make a torch, now, there's no time to waste, because it's...crucial that that happen before Louise joins Isi in a space that might not have an exit? I don't know. I read that section three times to try to figure out the thought process, and I still don't understand. There's a situation that puts everyone but Isi in extreme danger, for reasons, and when reinforcements arrive...Isi and Louise do exactly nothing to warn said reinforcements about that danger. (Oh boy.)

This feels like a great draft that still needs a couple of big rounds of edits. I was thrilled that it was an into-the-woods book (I'm always thrilled when it's an into-the-woods book), but I would have found it so much more believable if Isi and Louise had taken the time to go home, dig out their outdoors gear, pack their bags full of rations, and then go into the woods to race against time to beat the baddies at their own game. (And—at one point a snake is described as "wet and slimy" (loc. 2339), which is not how snakes work—they're quite smooth and dry. I don't think either the author or the editor is an outdoorsy person? Which is fine, obviously, but Isi's wet and slimy rattlesnake highlights the importance of books that take place in the woods getting a read by an outdoorsy person during the editing process.)

It's still a cute romance, and if you like your relationships high on angst and aren't really an into-the-woods person yourself, you'll probably struggle with this less than I did. I might pick up another of the author's books in the future—I just won't take Isi or Louise's lead in planning for my next backpacking trip.

Thanks to the author and publisher for inviting me to read a review copy through NetGalley.

*This was according to the bio that came with my ARC, but it sounds like it has since come out that this is not the case after all. I wrote this review in blissful ignorance and am leaving the review intact, but I'm...disappointed, let's say, and doubt I'll be picking up future books.

**Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Review: "Saltwater" by Katy Hays

Saltwater by Katy Hays
Published March 2025 via Ballantine Books
★★★★

Three decades ago, Sarah Wingate fell to her death in Capri. Since then, the family has moved on—continued to build their empire and image and cultivate status. They do not let a little thing like death stop them. This year, Sarah's daughter Helen is back in Capri with her father and uncle. But this year, things will be change.

It's clear early on that this will not be a pretty story. The family has brought their employee Lorna along—officially as a vacation for her too, but it is clear as day to Lorna that in this family, she will never not be working, never be able to relax—and Lorna clocks the things that the wealthy don't: the secrets simmering under the surface, how little the family cares about people who are not in their circle, in their family. My family always liked that he had a secret of his own, a weakness. It gave him something to lose. (loc. 1236*)

Those secrets will come to a saltwater boil this summer. Lorna is sure of it.

But no one knows girls[...] like me. We are an afterimage, a shadow, a disposable body. Girls like us, we are all the same. We are substitutes. (loc. 4905)

I don't want to say too much here, because layer upon layer is exposed as the book goes on, and that's part of the fun. It's a good summer read, and a meaty one. Don't pick this up when you're in the mood for a lighthearted beach romance; save it for a rainy afternoon when you want to dive in and not come up for air for a while.

Thanks to the author and publisher for inviting me to read a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Review: "Just Come Clean" by Ria Wyland

Just Come Clean by Ria Wyland
Published March 2025 via Ylva Publishing
★★★

Alden has her routine down—work just hard enough to shine at her job, paint a lot, try and give up new hobbies, limit her romances to one-night stands in which she can sneak out in the morning, before the other woman wakes up. But her office's requirement that she work two days in-office each month throws a wrench in this—not least because of an intriguing new colleague.

Sometimes a girl just needs a bread-and-butter romance, so, you know, here we are. This is marketed at least in part as a small-town romance, but I'd argue that it's more accurate to call it a workplace romance. Alden and Rebecka are both software developers, and a lot of their early interactions take place at or around work. (If you're a techie yourself, I expect you'll be able to tell right away whether Wyland knows their stuff or is making it up as they go—I am not a techie, so I'm just going to assume that it all makes sense.) There's also a fair amount of soccer, which makes me happy, but I think the only real "small town" element is that the characters' friends tend to be up in their business. So...a better sell for those who like the workplace romance trope than those who like a small-town setting. (A side note: though pains are taken to make clear that Rebecka isn't in Alden's chain of command—and thus that there isn't actually a question of power balance—Alden comes on strong, which I don't really love when she's also fecking terrible about communicating her intentions. It is 100% fine to be looking for something casual, but why spend the night only to sneak out and block your one-time paramour's number? Why not leave when the night is over?)

At any rate, it's a cute story that flies by. The bedroom part of things isn't really to my tastes (I can't take romance seriously when characters go to bed together and immediately have, like, eleven screaming orgasms in a row), but there's a lot of it, so readers who are in it for the banging will have, ah, a banging good time. I'm more in it for the way the Other Woman storyline plays out—I won't spoil it, but it didn't go as I expected, and with Other Woman storylines that's almost always a good thing.

A final aside: The acknowledgements at the beginning of the book note that I'm not fully out in real life, and since all my writing is queer, that means that not many know I write (loc. 23*). Here's hoping that the author will someday be in a position to share their writing with whomever they like. I'm glad that, until then, that's not stopping them from writing.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Review: "Behind the Red Velvet Curtain" by Joy Womack, as told by Elizabeth Shockman

Behind the Red Velvet Curtain by Joy Womack, as told by Elizabeth Shockman
Published March 2025 via Rowman & Littlefield
★★★

I had no idea what I was getting into. What fifteen-year-old ever knows anything about what their decisions mean, what future disasters they're signing themselves up for? I was too busy thinking about how this felt like the beginning of a fairy tale. (loc. 350*)

In 2009, when Womack was fifteen, she took a leap: she moved across an ocean to Russia to train at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy, the affiliate (and feeder) school of the Bolshoi Ballet and a world away from what Womack knew in the States, not least—but also not only—because she had left her family behind and didn't speak Russian. Already, though, she had a dream: to not just graduate from the Bolshoi Ballet Academy but to be accepted by the Bolshoi Ballet itself. And she was, eventually...but of course it wasn't exactly that simple.

Womack got a fair amount of press as a dance student and later Bolshoi dancer because, although she was not the only American to study ballet in Russia, the numbers are low, and for an undetermined reason Womack was placed not in the program for foreigners but in the standard Russian track. (Her teacher's verdict: she could stay, but only if she learned Russian.) And the book is unique just for the scenario: I've read my fair share of ballet memoirs (and then some), but they've almost all been by people studying and then working in the West; a large part of this book is shadowed by the culture shock of moving across the world, alone, at a young age, and a further part is shadowed by the culture shock of moving back.

I don't know much (and by much I mean anything) about Womack as a dancer, but it's impossible not to feel her sheer ambition here, the determination to make it to the top, whatever that means—and perhaps (though I might be extrapolating too much here) to make the move and the training and all the attendant challenges worth it.

There are some surprising intersections of some of my more specific reading interests here, including that Womack grew up in what sounds like a hyperconservative church; at one point she references umbrellas of authority, which is something I mostly hear about in the context of the IBLP (think the Duggar family). I wished she had gone into some more detail, especially when she says things like this:

I learned a way of thinking at [the church] that felt like fitting fastened wheels into an iron rail. [...] Critical thinking skills were not necessary to keep moving on this sort of track. Neither was compassion or questioning. Questioning, in fact, was something that could get you in trouble. It was wrong and an affront. Good kids, faithful kids, patriotic kids, kids who were going somewhere didn't ask questions.

This was a rail that helped me fit in at all sorts of ballet companies, as it turned out. It helped me fit in in Russia. (loc. 250)

That's fascinating to me, and it makes a ton of sense, but gosh I would have liked it explored further—I was hoping to come to a point in the book where she started realizing how the one experience fed into the other, but instead she remains largely uncritical of that aspect of ballet in Russia. (Not about everything: She and her husband were out of the country when Russia invaded Ukraine, and she writes that they intentionally have not been back since.) In general I think I could have used some more connections between...experience and emotion, I guess, and perhaps some more interrogation of her own reactions to various events (e.g., much of what happened in Boston).

Not a standout as far as writing goes, but I'm glad Womack worked with a ghostwriter (or cowriter) on this—I genuinely appreciate it when memoir writers know that it will be helpful to work with a trained writer. This will probably be most interesting to ballet enthusiasts, but there's plenty of complication for more general memoir readers.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "13 Ways to Say Goodbye" by Kate Fussner

13 Ways to Say Goodbye by Kate Fussner
Published March 2025 via HarperCollins
★★★★

When Nina's older sister Lily died, Nina's world fell apart. Her parents have retreated into grief, and without Lily, Nina has no road map—just the to-do lists Lily left behind. But although the last list has taken her to Paris for the summer, she knows that from here on out she'll be flying without a map. What she doesn't expect, though, is that this last list has a few surprises in store for her...

Like Fussner's first book, this is written in verse: She would hate / that I decided / my best path forward / was to follow hers / but I didn't know / what else to do. (loc. 547*) My favorite chapters/poems are the ones in which the form gets less conventional, because they force me to work a bit more for it, but as a whole they're cleanly put together. I'm not a huge fan of romance in middle grade (largely because I was not ready to be thinking about romance when I was that age, and I'm a fan of kids getting to be kids for longer), but I love the way the mini-romance is treated here: Nina and Sylvie are so tentative, so cautious—and what's more, they know that summer can't last forever. (Again: have read too many books where this is solved by "Surprise! I got a scholarship to study in Paris! Now we can be together forever!" and I just think it's valuable to let these shorter relationships, where the characters are figuring out what they want and what a healthy relationship looks like, play out.)

There's a mild supernatural element to the book. That's not generally my thing, but I think in this case it could have been explored just a wee bit more—Nina accepts it so easily (which actually makes a certain amount of sense, because it gives her a new way to process her grief, which is something she's desperate for), but it also slides back out of the story with barely a whisper, and she accepts that easily too. Perhaps an instance where some explanations were trialed and nothing quite fit.

Grief, first romance, and Paris—ingredients for an excellent sophomore book, as it turns out.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Review: "The Cult of CrossFit" by Katie Rose Hejtmanek

The Cult of CrossFit by Katie Rose Hejtmanek
Published March 2025 via NYU Press
★★★★

Here's an association most of us wouldn't think to make: The fitness company CrossFit and white Evangelical American Christianity. But in The Cult of CrossFit, Hejtmanek makes a compelling argument for just that association, connecting CrossFit with theme after theme that at first glance looks unremarkable, and at second glance is yet another thread tying it to cultural Christianity broadly and to salvation, militarism, and embedded -isms more specifically.

Hejtmanek got involved with CrossFit through research; in her two years of direct research, she went from a newcomer to completing the basic training to be a CrossFit coach. She learned the lingo; she learned the movements; she got stronger. My body went from specializing in sprinting to being generally fit, the CrossFit way. (10*) It's clear that she got value out of the program. It's also clear that, well, she didn't drink the Kool-Aid.

This is an academic work, not a memoir; while Hejtmanek is in the book, that's more for context and narrative structure than it is the point. I read this because it hits at two topics that interest me (certain types of fitness, and interrogation of religion), I love a twofer, and anyway my academic roots run deep, but it's worth noting that you should go in prepared for academic rather than, e.g., pop science.

Because I was reading this just for fun, my takeaways are admittedly less academic. I've never tried CrossFit and never really had any interest in it, and I came away more convinced than ever that that is just as well. There's so much sexism embedded in certain types of exercise already, and CrossFit in its previous form—the book doesn't go into depth in CrossFit in more recent years, presumably because the primary research had been long since completed by the time things changed—sounds like a double whammy of sexism and racism with a side of American exceptionalism. I'm particularly intrigued by the differences between the American boxes (CrossFit gyms) Hejtmanek visited and the international versions, though that wasn't the point of the book. I'm also intrigued by this obsession with functional fitness and what it actually means in practical terms: What differences are diligent CrossFitters seeing in their daily lives? Not the changes in physique, not the amount they're able to lift in the gym or the speed with which they can complete their WOD (the assigned workout du jour at CrossFit boxes), I mean; I don't really care whether they can row four kilometers on an erg on a whim, but it's interesting that CrossFit's focus on "functional fitness" that Hejtmanek observed seemed to be less about current function and more about a hypothetical future when you might need to scale a wall with your similarly fit friends in the zombie apocalypse (but not to help a stranger over, say, or someone with a disability...).

And finally: again not really the point of the book (though it's touched on), but now I really want to go dig up some papers on injury rates—and types of injury—in CrossFit vs. other fitness programs and types of exercise.

Again, this is one for people looking for something fairly specific, but I found it to be a pretty engrossing read.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Review: Short story: "The Knight and the Butcherbird" by Alix E. Harrow

The Knight and the Butcherbird by Alix E. Harrow
Published March 2025 via Amazon Original Stories

Things haven't been the same since the apocalypse happened, hundreds of years ago. Shrike knows this, but the outlands—and stories from the before times—are all she knows. Life is hard, and it's harder still when people keep turning into monsters. And when a famed monster hunter comes to town to destroy the latest victim, Shrike will do anything she has to to stop him...

I had to start this story twice (I wasn't in the mood for something kind of fairytale-esque the first time, so I took note of the vibe and came back to it), but once I got into it the story kept surprising me. It reminds me a bit of Lauren Groff's Matrix, not because the plots or even the settings are so similar (they're not) but because of the way Shrike has been fighting for years to survive, because of the way she is so determined to make things work despite the status quo.

This was delightfully twisty—although I'm not sure I ever fully understood the context of Iron Hollow, where Shrike lives, I'm also not sure I really needed to; it was enough to know that life is hard for her, and that she has loved and lost, and that she is so determined not to lose everything. (There's also a beautiful moment, late in the book, where she reflects on what it means to love enough to kill—and on who is willing to take that step for whom. I would read a dissertation on that moment.) This is not my style for a novel these days (I'm not one much for alternate universe, or fantasy, or whatever this would be classified as), but for a short story it was just the right amount of weird and wild.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "The Tell" by Amy Griffin

The Tell by Amy Griffin
Published March 2025 via The Dial Press
★★★★

For years, Griffin ran: she ran through rain and snow and dodgy parts of town, through injury and illness and uncertainty. What she didn't stop to ask herself was what she was running from. But you can't outrun your past forever, and eventually, Griffin knew it was time to face her past—and to figure out just what memories were hovering just out of reach.

How did I know that this was what I needed to do? Even now, I don't really understand it. I just knew that I had built up walls, and I did not know how to tear them down. I knew that I was tired of running. And I knew that I could not hide in the vastness of the life I had built any longer—a life so big that I'd disappeared in it. (loc. 994*)

Griffin's story ends up being an intersection of trauma, recovery, and the parts in between: psychedelic-assisted therapy, belated understanding of her own actions and reactions throughout earlier years of her life, the limitations of the justice system, and the damage done by a Texan purity culture that—implicitly and explicitly—encouraged girls to stay silent when what they experienced wasn't painless, wasn't pretty.

This is clearly the product of years of work—first to put the pieces together for herself, then to share those pieces with the people around her and figure out what came next, and finally to turn this into a cohesive story. It's tightly told, and the psychedelic portion of the story is unusual; I appreciated the conversations with various experts worked into the memoir (probably included to forestall skepticism, but as someone who is more ignorant than skeptical, I found it useful too), but mostly I was just in it for the journey.

Sometimes, when I told people, they praised me for doing "the work," because, they said, it made me a better example to my children, a better wife to my husband, or a better friend to those closest to me. Women are always doing things so we can be better for other people. My relationships had changed for the better, but I didn't do it for anyone else. I did it for me. (loc. 3079)

Worth mentioning that the content warnings for sexual assault at the beginning of the book are warranted; I think the book is well worth reading, but know yourself and your limits.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Review: Short story: "The Fall Risk" by Abby Jiminez

The Fall Risk by Abby Jiminez
Published March 2025 via Amazon Original Stories

It should be the start to just another weekend—but then Charlotte and Seth step out of their respective apartments to find that the stairs are gone, and they're trapped (after a fashion) with only each other for extended company.

I've only read one of Jiminez's novels, but it was enough to know I'd be in for something lively here, even with the locked-room aspect. And that held true—in a few dozen pages, we get not one but two romances, a bevy of nosy senior citizens, a lot of context for Charlotte and Seth's respective perspectives, and some action to boot. I probably could have used a hair less evil ex plotline, though to be fair it was written to be quite over the top, so it bothered me less than it might have. (What did bother me: the neighbors repeating their transgression—vague to avoid spoilers—and Charlotte not minding the second time because circumstances had changed; if anything, their second overstep could trigger legal trouble for Charlotte, so...terrible neighbors all round, there.)

It's so short a story that I don't want to say much, but the characterization is nice—especially Seth's—and this made for a very speedy read on a day when I was very tired!

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "A Kiss Under the Northern Lights" by Susan Carlisle

A Kiss Under the Northern lights by Susan Carlisle
Published January 2025 via Harlequin Medical Romances
★★

In which a woman heads off to Iceland to find her past, and maybe her future...

She dipped an unpolished big toe of a slim, delicate foot into the water with a sigh. (14)

Read this in something of a whirlwind month during which I had very little time to spare, even less time to read, and even fewer brain cells available. So this was exactly what I was looking for, and I'm glad of it, but it was...pretty dodgy.

She voiced next to his ear, "I can get my suitcase later."

"I believe I can handle both of you at one time. Neither of you is very heavy." He threw the words over his shoulder without any exertion indicated in his voice. (19)

So we have a heroine who is a skinny Minnie (as are all Harlequin heroines who are not explicitly plus-sized) but unpretentious (we know that from her lack of toenail polish), and a hero who is a manly man who is a man (as demonstrated by his show of he-man strength). Heroine is, while she's in town, gung-ho on conducting some deeply unethical research:

"While I am here, it's the perfect opportunity to do research and write a paper. I would like to start by looking at files and then interviewing people." (35)

That is not how ethical research works! Honestly, this woman...whatever research she conducts throughout the course of the book would never be published by any journal worth the paper it's printed on, because it would never pass an ethics committee. While Trice explains the barest of bare bones of her research to her subjects, there's not so much as a discussion of informed consent, just a bunch of conversations that go "Hey, I heard you once had this illness, so can I have a blood sample?" And then, because she's a manic pixie dream doctor, she bats her eyelashes, the people fall in love with her, and she gets her blood and answers and goes on her merry way.

This is to say nothing of the rescuer in one of the book's two Big Drama moments who is fat-shamed and blamed for his injury ("On his way down, his large body caused a rockfall" (51)), or Trice's tragic backstory with unlikely connections in Iceland (skimmed over—there isn't time for a full resolution with everything else that goes on), or the insta-love between the hero and heroine. I'm not actually complaining about any of this (except the fat-shaming), because I was not looking for Pulitzer material here, but oh boy.

What's really weird, though: If we're going to run with the insta-love, and if they're in Iceland, and if there's a moment when they're about to boink under the Northern Lights...why on earth would you have them decide that it would be better to go home and go inside? (It's all fade-to-black sexytimes, for those who are concerned about that, but that's beside the point.) How many people can say they've boinked out under the Northern Lights? Well, probably higher than I'm imagining...but Trice and Drake aren't among them.