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.

Review: "Beta Vulgaris" by Margie Sarsfield

Beta Vulgaris by Margie Sarsfield
Published February 2025 via W.W. Norton and Company
★★★★

Elise is broke and up for an adventure—and a summer harvesting sugar beets with her boyfriend seems like just the thing to put her in the black and get her out of her rut. But she hasn't accounted for the pulsing of beets in the pile, for the pressing need to return the dirt, for other seasonal workers disappearing.

This is a little weirdo of a book (not a criticism), and it's definitely one to be read when you're in the mood for, well, a little weirdo of a book. Having finished the book, I'm still thinking about how much of the events I can take as fact and how much of them I need to take as Elise spiralling; without spoiling anything, I'll say that she's not in a great headspace for much of the book. I don't think this is quite body horror, but at times it leans in that direction.

I'm not sure of Sarsfield's background, but if she didn't study MFA-level creative writing I'll eat my hat.* The plot is tight and specific—can feel a bit random in places, but in a way that tells you that the author knows where she's taking you. I wasn't always a fan of the way Elise's backstory was woven in (a little too much exposition), but she's very self-aware in that way that tells you—well, it's one of the things that tells you this—that she really doesn't like herself very much.

One to pick up if you can't always get out of your head and would like to be in somebody else's head for a while, perhaps...if only to remind you that your own isn't so bad. Won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I expect the book will be very very relatable to a certain demographic. Would read more.

*I don't have a hat, so this is an empty threat; go with it anyway

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

Review: "Say a Little Prayer" by Jenna Voris

Say a Little Prayer by Jenna Voris
Published March 2025 via Viking Books for Young Readers
★★★★

Church used to be a comfortable place for Riley—until she realized that her queerness would never be accepted, and until the pastor threw her sister Hannah out for getting an abortion. She doesn't regret leaving and not going back...except that she's been quietly in love with the pastor's daughter for years. And except that the pastor isn't happy that she left without his say-so. And except that after an altercation at school, she's been banished to church camp in Kentucky for a week...and now things are just a little bit awkward.

This is so far up my alley it's basically in my backyard. I love that although Riley feels rejected by the church, she isn't rejected by the people she loves most; her family has zero problem with sexuality, and neither does Julia, her best-friend-slash-crush. Better, the deeper into the book we get, the more complicated she finds her relationship with the teenagers who have been making her life, and her sister's life, difficult since they found out about Hannah's abortion. Riley is very much a teenager (her rantings in her notebook are ever so slightly cringe, which fortunately I think is the point), but on the whole things feel balanced.

Readers who have read Voris's Every Time You Hear That Song will be pleased to find a few easter eggs (though this is not a sequel and can be read 100% independently of Every Time). I read Say a Little Prayer partly on the strength of Every Time, and I'm pleased to report that Prayer lives up to the standard set by its predecessor.

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

Review: "Superhoe" by Nicôle Lecky

Superhoe by Nicôle Lecky
Published January 2019 via Nick Hern Books
★★★

At 24, Sasha is convinced that her big break is just around the corner, as soon as she drops her EP—but in the meantime, she spends most of her time in her childhood bedroom, whiling time away and feeling isolated from her all-white household. But when she picks one too many fights with her family, she's out a place to stay...and that's when things start to change.

This must be an absolute beast to perform—it's a one-woman show, and gosh but Sasha can talk. Rather stream-of-consciousness in some places, with Sasha either recapping conversations or relating both (or all) sides of whatever dialogue took place. The play also gets quite dark. I won't get into the details, but the play demonstrates how easy it can be to slide from a tolerable situation into an entirely intolerable one without entirely noticing it.

There's a big reveal at the end, which I didn't love; it felt like it was supposed to give context for the rest of the play (which, to be fair: it did), but it also opens up an enormous new can of worms. It would be hard to explore both that reveal and the events that take up the bulk of the play without, you know, doubling it in length, so I can see why it's not explored in any detail, but...I guess I'm not a huge fan of that kind of targeted shock at the end.

Probably not my thing to watch as a play, but I bet it would be fascinating for actors with an interest in solo performances.

Review: "Over the Hill at Fourteen" by Jamie Callan

Over the Hill at Fourteen by Jamie Callan
Published 1982
★★★

Sylvia is fourteen, a model—and, at the grand old age of fourteen, heading over the hill. Her friends and parents might not think her modelling career is all that, but Sylvia is proud of it and convinced that it makes her special...and if she's about to age out of modelling because fourteen is too old to be sexy(!!!), she wants to get her acting career going instead.

This is ridiculous and outdated but also kind of wildly entertaining. Like, you can't criticize Sylvia for lack of self-awareness:

Camille, my best and only true friend, says that I'm really getting conceited over this whole modeling thing and that as soon as I grow a little pair of breasts, I'll be out of a job. Camille just doesn't realize how wrong she is, because you see, I'm not getting conceited. I am conceited. (2)

There's quite a lot of this (Sylvia being kind of awful but also okay with it), which ends up making for quite a fun read here. I love that the people around her are really pretty meh about Sylvia's modelling—they'd really kind of rather that she get her head out of her bum a bit and be a normal teenager. Meanwhile, Sylvia is terrified of becoming a teenager because she'll lose out on jobs that go to younger, 'sexier' models (parts of this do not age well); she's not ready for hormones and dating, and she's certainly not ready for the way everyone in the fashion world, to say nothing of her good friend who is a boy, seems ready to sexualize her.

There's a batty side plot involving Sylvia's father (spoiler, but also this was written in the 80s and not exactly become a classic: he's fired for spending too much time on his own products, then immediately develops a better type of lipstick...which goes into production and so on pretty much instantly, with no little hiccups like safety testing or FDA approval—the latter isn't always necessary for makeup, but because in this case it's a matter of colorant, it might be); that side plot is low-key useless, but I suppose it adds a side of drama and also gives Sylvia a chance to show that she doesn't care that much about the money she's making (the vast majority of it is in a trust until she's older, and the only time we really see her wanting to access it is when her family is in financial difficulties).

I don't know that I can in good conscience recommend this, but it did end up being quite a bit funnier—and willing to take risks with Sylvia's character—than I would have expected.