Reviewed by Warren Maxwell

Melding poetic forms, candid conversations, and calls against injustice, these poems are confessional, communal, rage-filled, compassionate, and above all, kind.

Melding poetic forms, candid conversations, and calls against injustice, these poems are confessional, communal, rage-filled, compassionate, and above all, kind.

“Dustin’s instinct is to argue against the compliment—that’s life with a narcissist parent. He (begrudgingly ) writes thank you.”

Zooming into the experiences, frustrations, and joys of modern life with a magnifying glass, the slim volume of poetry, Repeat As Needed, offers validation, commiseration, and critique of the way we live our lives.

In a fingerprint-like poetic voice that captures the unique cadences and peculiarities of the author, poems like “Things That Definitely Suck” list the myriad awfulnesses that one encounters on a day-to-day basis, or once in a lifetime, in one foreboding block of text .

“Stuck on a Ferris wheel with a full bladder. Missing buttons. Chipping a tooth. A dust allergy. Misogyny.”

Elsewhere, poems are minimalistic haikus, elegant villanelles, literal conversations traded back and forth with other poets, and quixotic repartees against the cliched comments that heterosexual people make about homosexuality. The diversity of form is thrilling, but it’s the poetic voice winding through each piece that makes this an enthralling read.

“Sob.
Sob until God fears
you’ll one up His flood.”

Each poem in Repeat As Needed is accompanied by a subheading that name-checks an inspiration or literary jumping off point. This in itself creates a beautiful sense of poetic lineage and history—it is a collection very much in touch with contemporaries and forbearers.

When viewed in combination with the two explicit conversation poems (“Dustin Wants To Write A Poem With Caridad” and “Dustin Wants To Write A Poem With Nicole”) that trade block paragraphs between Brookshire and another poet—each poet writing about themselves in the third person—this collection takes on the aspect of a community. Many voices are drawn into contact with Brookshire’s. The lively chatter between poets and thinkers actively performs some of the values that become apparent in the collection’s denunciations of homophobia, misogyny, and discrimination of all stripes.

“When I was straight,
my father would say,
I’d rather one of my sons
blow my brains out
than tell me he’s gay.”

Among the real pleasures of reading these poems is discovering the way poetic form and the uses of concrete space inflect a voice. Brookshire’s voice doesn’t falter in navigating brutalist blocks of text, slim lines of repetition, and meandering, minor epic stories of being frightened by religious tales as a child. Yet, each new structure on the page brings out another aspect of Brookshire’s language. There is the heavy potency of a poem that can simply declare “All we had was lust” and let those lines resonate alone on the page. Then there’s the prolix excitement of a voice that loves speaking and free associating as we see in “Things That Definitely Suck” and the conversation poems. Through different forms, the different faces of the poet come into beautiful relief.

A passionate, richly articulated snapshot of life, poetic community, and the many identities that are wrapped up in a single individual, Repeat As Needed is a gorgeous poetry collection.

Thank you for reading Warren Maxwell’s book review of Repeat As Needed by Dustin Brookshire! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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by Nick Gardner

Indie lit has always been counterculture.

It would honestly be nuts for a small press to open their door to submissions without the desire to fight the status quo. The very idea of indie lit is anticapitalist (small presses probably won’t get you rich), anti-establishment (the “Big Five” can eat it), and, for the most part, small presses like fiction that breaks the rules. But what makes a book punk-as-fuck goes beyond the author’s antiauthoritarian leanings. It must have some other pull. It needs music.

While this list is far from exhaustive, it focuses on books of literary fiction that don’t just have that punk fierceness, that blatant challenging of authority, but those that also have the music.

Think Bad Brains, Buzzcocks, Pere Ubu. You can get behind the lyrics, the message, the ethos, the power, but a punk group is nothing if the sound doesn’t make you want to mosh. That’s what makes these specific literary fiction authors stand out: not only the shared goal of challenging the way the reader sees the world, but also an understanding of the aesthetic necessary to keep a reader glued to the page. 

Here are 7 literary fiction books that challenge the status quo.

(Book lists on Independent Book Review are chosen by very picky people. As affiliates, we earn a commission on books you purchase through our links.)

1. Someone Who Isn’t Me

Author: Geoff Rickly

Publisher: Rose Books (2023)

Print Length: 258 pages

ISBN: 9798987581827

Asterism

Amazon

Okay, some can argue that he’s more post-hardcore than punk, but Geoff Rickly’s debut novel, Someone Who Isn’t Me, hums with musical prose that rivals the best lyrical writers of literary fiction.

A heroin addict and lead singer, the protagonist, Geoff, seeks sobriety through the psychedelic drug Ibogaine. His trip sends him on a psychic spiral through his guilt-laden past, forcing him to contend with the person he has become. Rickly depicts Geoff’s wild tour across the United States, not holding back on the bickering or the drugs. It’s a dirty novel in the way that addiction can be dirty. But it also breaks the trend of stories about addiction. Refusing to pause on the fallout, Rickly writes beyond into recovery and hope. 

2. No Names

Author: Greg Hewett

Publisher: Coffee House Press (April 2025)

Print Length: 352 pages

ISBN: 9781566897259

Bookshop

Amazon

Greg Hewett’s No Names is by far the slowest moving of the works of literary fiction in this list. Think Sleep’s Dopesmoker. Okay, maybe it’s doom metal. Whatever the case, punk is the root.

As Hewett skips around from POV to POV, a large focus is a punk band called, of course, The No Names, and the sketchy European tour that ended the band. But there’s also quite a bit of classical music in the background, as well as a long exploration of friendships entangled with sexual experimentation. Maybe the end drags on a bit longer than expected, but the prose holds up, a song that slowly diminishes rather than ending with a crash. 

Looking for more literary fiction recommendations? Check out our best books of 2024!

3. Earth Angel

Author: Madeline Cash

Publisher: CLASH Books (April 18, 2023)

Print Length: 152 pages

ISBN: 9781955904698

Bookshop

Amazon

Easy to read cover-to-cover in a single sitting, Earth Angel is all power chords, heavy and fast. Cash’s sentences are short and piercing and her endings cut to nothing rather than attempting a summation or even a meaning. Because everything is meaningless, right? 

Think Biblical plagues, Isis recruits, childless millennials and millennials with children that they’re not quite sure what to do with. Think designer drugs, broke city dwellers, homicidal fantasies, porn. Maybe Earth Angel is too modern to hold to the ‘80s DIY ethos, but it’s still counterculture AF. It still questions authority, culture, and god. It’s a witty collection for confused kids who definitely don’t want to grow up.

4. Scumbag Summer

Author: Jillian Luft

Publisher: House of Vlad Press (June 2024)

Print Length: 192 pages

ISBN: 9798320644059

Bookshop

Amazon

More sex, more drugs, more blood and fallout, Scumbag Summer explores smoky bowling alleys and dive bars, the crass scenery of Orlando. Though she’s a college grad, the protagonist seems intent on continuing her nihilistic young-adulthood, refusing to settle into any kind of square, middle class grind.

Orlando for her is No Doz and 7 layer burritos, and as she lodges herself more deeply into the dumpster fire, she spots the pages with social commentary, a distrust of wealth and power and an understanding of  “trash culture,” of those stuck in on the lower rungs of the social hierarchy who sometimes can’t even imagine the climb. Scumbag Summer also contains one of the most punk lines I’ve ever read: “Love is a friendly butcher.”

5. Ghosts of East Baltimore

Author: David Simmons

Publisher: Broken River Books (2022)

Print Length: 202 pages

ISBN: 9781940885544

Amazon

A Baltimore native with a deep understanding of the underground, David Simmons shrugs off the rules in his debut literary crime thriller. As with the other books on this list, there’s a unique and manic music behind Simmons’ prose. It’s rough music, blasted loud. I mean what’s more punk than a protagonist named Worm who gets out of prison to find that he’s the only one who can take out a drug ring smuggling dangerous chemicals into his community?

Simmons raises the bar for punk AF literature with his cutting social commentary, including “crack epidemic” history lessons and a deep understanding of Baltimore’s crime and corruption-ridden past. 

6. Hellions

Author: Julia Elliott

Publisher: Tin House Books (April 15, 2025)

Print Length: 272 pages

ISBN: 9781963108064

Bookshop

Amazon

Witches, Cryptids, Ghosts, and other supernatural entities plague the pages of Julia Elliott’s strange collection of longer short fiction. No flash stories here. But just like when you enter a DIY venue and feel surrounded by like minds, the pages of Hellions is a comforting place for those who have normalized the weird.

In “The Maiden,” a community trampoline allows a witchy girl to show up the popular kids with her otherworldly acrobatics before disappearing to her woodland squat. And in “Hellion,” a tough twelve-year-old tames an alligator. Elliott’s stories are filled with loners and weirdos outperforming their normative peers and youngsters challenging their parents’ conservative ideals. What’s more punk than that?

7. Hey You Assholes

Author: Kyle Seibel

Publisher: CLASH Books (March 25, 2025)

Print Length: 272 pages

ISBN: 9781960988393

Bookshop

Amazon

Seibel’s story of trying to publish this debut book of short literary fiction, Hey You Assholes is filled with almost as many bizarre twists as the book itself. It reminds me of a 21st century reenactment of ‘80s punk bands banging down doors to book a studio or distro a record. He couldn’t have found a better home for his book than Clash Books, a publisher of some of the strangest and most energetic fiction on the market. Energetic is the word, because even the longer stories don’t stop driving. ThinkLandowner Plays Dopesmoker 666% Faster and with No Distortion.

Hey You Assholes is a deep dive into the lives of unpopular people: soft-hearted alcoholics, wiley factory workers, and Navy veterans who feel forever lost at sea. None of Seibel’s characters have money or power and they definitely don’t have any respect for The Man. 

Want some thrills in your bookshelf? Check out the best indie thrillers!

About the Author

Nick Gardner is a writer, teacher, and critic who has worked as a winemaker, chef, painter, shoe salesman, and addiction counselor. His latest collection of stories from the Rust Belt, Delinquents And Other Escape Attempts, is out now from Madrona Books. He lives in Ohio and Washington, DC and works as a beer and wine monger in Maryland.

Thank you for reading Nick Gardner’s “Literary Fiction Books That Are Punk AF!” If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Andrea Marks-Joseph

Queer Black women float, grieve, steal, sweat, and fight back in this thrilling connection of stories that put us first.

“Daisy’s mother tells her ways to stay safe, but they all come off as futile superstitions… Don’t go anywhere silent and gentle; leave marks, bite marks, claw marks, anything that can be evidence later.” In the first and titular tale of this short story collection, we meet Daisy, a young woman who can’t shake the disturbing truth of being a potential victim of violence every day of her life simply by existing. She “thinks of every pair of eyes that could have ever possibly raked across her body,” and does everything she can think of to make herself undesirable, to make people turn away from her. She stops washing and begins avoiding eye-contact, attempting to inspire disgust and disinterest as a means of self defense. It’s a desire every woman faced with these truths has considered, incorporating preventative tactics into our lives—knowing that nothing will ever be enough to protect ourselves from the ever-present threat of gender-based violence, but desperately needing to do something to try. 

As I write this review, there’s a collective sense of fear and hopelessness settling over women of color in South Africa, where I live, because of a recent murder of a young woman. But we still have to go to work, buy groceries, make our parents proud, fall in love. This is a reality for Black women: the reality of dating, the reality of being a mother, a daughter, a wife, a teenager who has a crush, the reality of living life day to day against the already crushing backdrop of classism, racism, and the infuriatingly familiar “quirks” of being noticed in public as Black and queer and whatever specific quality is all your own. 

Author Demree McGhee said “society’s violence against us is hell, but we deserve great fiction”—and gives us twisted, twisting tales that pull us in and take us on a ride we couldn’t possibly see coming. These stories are all so soaked in queerness and Blackness that the identity of our protagonist is always undeniable while they’re on myriad fictional rollercoasters.

Sympathy for Wild Girls explores class consciousness in young people; the tormenting shades of toxic masculinity; the delicate folds of female friendship; and the concept of desire as danger, as a road to death (threaded firmly and fiercely into many of the stories but also captured brilliantly by this line: “I didn’t know what to do with my body when it wanted. I only knew how to smother and scream in place of desire.”) 

Demree McGhee captures the elusive truth behind conversations between teenage girls, both filled with awe and simmering with heavy notes of comparison. She conveys the visceral sensuality of another woman applying your makeup while unpacking the difficulty in seeing the true shape of your body and face after years of avoiding yourself. She also writes about the sense of wonder in seeing women who seem completely unburdened by such concepts: “She sat in her body as if she was the only one who ever had to look at it.”

Sympathy for Wild Girls does a great job on the politics of smell too, introducing us to realistic women who do everything they can to avoid their own bodily odor and those who go to extreme lengths so that the women around them will never know they sweat. There’s a dissection of femininity and wealth inequality in every mention of odor, the author exposing the sick influence of generations of impossible, nonsensical hygiene standards on Black women in particular. McGhee also writes insightfully (and disturbingly) about memory, dreams, and the role of scent in building our futures. “I had worked retail jobs since I was thirteen, and most of them left me with some new fear or sense of disgust. I associated the smell of sizzling meat with scraping spit-logged gum off the bottom of tables in my parents’ restaurant. I was a vegetarian until my freshman year of college.”

While occasionally leaning into the speculative, these stories are deeply rooted in reality, introducing us to women whose lives are as complex as our own, women who could very easily be our neighbor, our co-worker, the woman we recognize from the coffee shop every weekday morning, or the daughter of the family who suddenly stopped coming to church last year. 

In Sympathy for Wild Girls, runaways meet religious groups with a strong social media following and a strict idea of cleanliness in the eyes of the Lord. The author writes all of this so beautifully, offering up moments of contemplation on something otherworldly before turning the volume on real life all the way up again—I’m talking about lines that felt like a sledgehammer to my solar plexus: “My mother always wanted me to be grateful for things she didn’t do to me.” And phrasing like a mother describing the idea of her baby looking just like her with the words “She felt like a mirror I pulled from my body.”

In “She Is Waiting,” we meet Ava, who began to float (needing to constantly weigh herself down with rocks to stay on the ground) after she was kidnapped from the park and held captive for a week. She was rescued, but the kidnapper was never identified or caught. Ava, who “woke up in the air, the bedsheet draping her body like a tablecloth, haunting her own bed.” Ava, who is so lonely while grappling with the complexity of surviving the kidnapping, enduring flashbacks and feeling like she’s back in that moment years after everyone’s moved on around her. 

One of my favorite stories, “Butterfruit,” weaves together the stigma and societal shifts in the acceptable frequency of hair washing, depending on whether you’re white or Black, rich or poor. Demree McGhee brilliantly incorporates threads of the main character’s compulsive coping methods—which involves both cleanliness and inhaling cleaning products (“I didn’t have real faith in anything that didn’t have the power to physically change what it was touched, the way bleach made a room simmer with absence” “I sprayed my sheets until they were wet with Lysol. I drenched my windowsill in Fabuloso, wiped my fingerprints off every surface, and got dizzy off the scent of being washed away”)— and contrasts it against her counterpart, who is part of the church’s social media team, branded ‘clean’ in all the visible forums, but messy in her secrets that begin to spill over. This story should be taught in schools! I can’t help imagining the lively discussions that the many vibrant and vital topics this story touches on will inspire in students. There are many twists in this one, and there’s a reveal that made me gasp out loud.

I’ll be thinking about “Throwing Up in a Gated Community,” the devastating story about two girls of very different social and economic classes, who fall into an intimate friendship the way many teenage girls (and many, many queer girls) do, for a long time.

Sometimes McGhee hits these poetic and thought-provoking endings that feel wholly satisfying, while other stories are concluded midway through their unraveling—when things are about to turn inside out and collapse. It’s like someone closing the door on us right as the conversation we’re eavesdropping on gets really juicy. They are not necessarily abrupt endings that leave the stories feeling unfinished but ones that leave the reader with meaning instead of resolution. Even this is testament to McGhee’s immersive writing, because each time this happens, I sat for a few minutes with all the possibilities I was sure would happen next, imagining all the ways the protagonist would mess it up or get into trouble. I always wanted more.

One of the stories that provides a reflective yet mysterious conclusion, and certainly one of my favorites of the book, is “Exchange,” following a young couple who shoplifts regularly while grocery shopping. They fall into a sweet but blurry-edged domestic polyamorous relationship with a store employee who approached them to say she’s watched them steal for a full year and wants to learn their ways, wants to get to know them. Her presence reinvigorates their relationship with each other, and for a moment in time they are thriving as a trio. But then the temptation of stealing a big-screen TV comes between them and everything they were once sure of changes in a blink.

Sympathy for Wild Girls is a book about how “the men who seek girls’ bodies like flowers to yank from the ground” have shaped generations of women, young and old. These stories explore the systemic and inescapable violence Black women are born into and how it floods into every aspect of their lives, from their self-actualization to their friendships with other women. In addition to the difficult themes I’ve mentioned above, readers should note that many of these stories include descriptions of the both the actions and mindsets of characters who experience: suicidal ideation; child abuse and neglect; domestic violence; unwanted pregnancies; abortions; a kidnapping and time in captivity; and animals being killed and dismembered. 

Demree McGhee depicts the way grief climbs into your bones and reacts chemically with the core of who you are. There are multiple stories focused on compulsive behavior, exploring body dysmorphia and disordered eating, including anorexia, bulimia, and hypergymnasia: “I would excavate the weight from my body until the bones of my throat, my shoulders, my hips breached the surface of my skin. I would carve myself into something gorgeous from all angles.”

I highly recommend Sympathy for Wild Girls for readers of color and especially queer readers of color, who will find that reading it feels comfortable in a way that is so rare. It’s effective, electric storytelling that hits different because it’s you on the page. There’s a thrilling additional level of unsettling achieved in the way the author pulls at threads she knows will make us squirm. Sympathy for Wild Girls is a privilege, an honor, a gift to the community, and a captivating collection I’d be proud and excited to recommend to friends, family members, and fans of Dr. Ally Louks. 

Thank you for reading Dr. Ally Louks’s book review of Sympathy for Wild Girls by Demree McGhee! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Peter Hassebroek

Balanced storytelling and evocative descriptions elevate a seemingly implausible premise to a convincing, palpably absorbing adventure.

The stresses of entrepreneurialism are encroaching on Mark Forster’s home life. To assuage his wife and two daughters, Mark takes the family to Hawaii for a week of snorkeling and poolside relaxation. If on his own, Mark would spend the entire time scuba diving. He does pack his gear but promises to limit it to early morning trips to maximize family time.

Two days in, Mark rises early to join a scuba tour group. He isn’t enamored with its participants, particularly a younger man on a scooter with propellers. Once in the water, however, the tranquil sea life allows him to disregard the others. He shares his observations, enhanced by an almost encyclopedic level of knowledge about diving, the ocean, and its inhabitants. The real payoff comes with a tense, up-close encounter:

“Its rows of gills were fully open, giving me a ringside seat to gaze into its massive maw. Bloody hell, it was so silent. We watched with great interest as it turned and made a few passes before swimming onward.”

Only the great white doesn’t swim onward. Instead, Mark finds himself isolated, as if primed to become the shark’s prey. A disorientating hit from what he assumes is the shark, but could be the scooter, dislodges his equipment prior to losing consciousness.

When he comes to, he sees his tour boat ready to return, but it ignores him. In fact those divers are not the ones from his tour and they, along with others in the area, avoid Mark. He’s confused until realizing all they see a great white shark, but not the man inside looking out.

Abandoned, there’s nothing Mark can do but coordinate with his host. The first order of business is adapting to the complications of his new anatomy. For instance:

“My arms were now pectoral fins, which explained why I could not see them. I could control them, and they affected my orientation in the water, but I lost the fine dexterity I associated with individual finger movement. Now, it felt like I was wearing mittens all the time.”

He learns to rely on his host’s instincts for hunting and other basic survival while asserting his human will and wit to steer it to discover what’s going on, then what can be done about it. The detail in which all this is put forth earns the suspension of disbelief that makes his long passage through the Pacific Ocean, on a quest for answers and solutions, such an enjoyable read.

He struggles to ensure he and his host—with an instinctive will of its own—keep moving in his preferred direction while contending with threats along the way. Never mind the emotional toll of separation from his family. This odyssey mixes adventure and observational tour as Mark encounters sea life and sea vessels, with the episodes ranging from humorous to harrowing, from compelling to informative. Each whets one’s appetite for the next. 

Alas, there is always the fear of a letdown in how such a drama concludes, let alone is explained, especially with such a tough act to follow. But the resolutions are satisfying and, like everything else in the novel, clearly articulated.

An Ocean Life challenges one’s suspension of disbelief, then rewards it with an exciting firsthand experience that exceeds its humble title. Mark is a tour guide sharing an experience rather than merely imparting facts. The reader truly shares his wonder at seeing and experiencing things otherwise inaccessible to humans.

Thank you for reading Peter Hassebroek’s book review of An Ocean Life by T.R. Cotwell! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Andrea Marks-Joseph

In which a friendship overflows with yearning and love

“Officially a year since Nijah died. She took a deep breath and locked eyes with Kewa. “Okay. Book the taxi.”

Kewa is stalking her ex on their location-sharing app and trying to convince Tajudeen that they should go meet him. Kewa was dating this man when her sister (Nijah) died, a relationship that turned into a year of emotionally and then physically ghosting him as she retreated into her grief. In fact, she did not say a word for months.

But now she’s feeling ready—to apologize for all that time, to tell him she loves him, and to start getting remnants of her life back together. She just needs the support of her closest friend, who would do anything for her, and who can’t say no on the anniversary of Kewa’s sister—and Tajudeen’s best friend—dying. So they call a taxi… and nothing about that night goes according to plan. 

They get picked up by an “anti-bachelorette” party for a “bride-no-longer-to-be” whose groom cheated on her (and whose conversation keeps reminding Kewa and Tajudeen of things Nijah loved,) and then the cab driver messes up all their plans.

When they do finally get to the party where Kewa’s ex is, a woman begins flirting with Tajudeen while Kewa talks to her ex. The whole time, the two friends can’t keep their eyes off each other or stop talking about the other person, or—adorably and endearingly—understand that they’re in love.

I have read (really good!) romance novels that had me swooning fewer times than this short novella. It is romantic on a level we don’t see in films anymore. It’s giving that late 90s-early 2000s romantic movie energy that had us all swooning out loud. If you’re not a regular reader of swoonworthy writing—or someone with an incredible love in their life!—but you’ll know exactly what I mean when you read this book. It’s a quiet, dizzying combination of butterflies and breathlessness and the warm feeling that all is right with the world in this moment.

I must include at least one of my favorite swoony moments for you to understand what I’m talking about: “It had started as faint bells, tolling gently when Tajudeen smiled at her from across the lunch table. Then violins when Tajudeen pushed a forkful of pasta into her mouth while making unflinching eye contact. Then a base that reverberated through her whole body when Tajudeen held her hand.”

Then, what begins as heart-fluttering gorgeousness, continues to the gloriously romantic: “Tajudeen hugged her goodbye, and while her head was buried in the crook of Kewa’s neck she whispered a soft goodbye that made the choir kick in.” 

I’m going to write a sentence no one has written here before, but: I feel like Bigolas Dickolas right now. Do you remember when that person tweeted about This Is How You Lose the Time War and said “just read it.” That’s how Seeri makes me feel. Like Time War, Seeri is a short book that’s filled with emotions that leave you feeling forever changed. I still see people devastated (positively—again, romance readers will get it) just seeing one sentence quoted from Time War. Seeri is filled with lines that evoke that same powerful reaction. No description could truly capture how breathless I felt when I read some of the lines these characters say to each other and about each other. 

Seeri is perfect for readers who want a short but immensely satisfying friends-to-lovers romance; it’s for those who love to read mutual queer yearning and for readers who enjoy a little ‘everyone but these idiots can see they’re in love’ energy.

It’s also genuinely funny; I laughed out loud multiple times, especially when the author reminds us that, though this love feels timeless and eternal, the setting is modern and fresh. (I had to take a moment to laugh for real after reading the relatable girls-night-out experience of “Hi, sorry, a girl in the bathroom hasn’t gotten a text back since Wednesday so I was dealing with that.”) Without giving away too much about the love story, Seeri is also an excellent read (and the ultimate gift!) for anyone who has fallen in love with the person helping them learn their lines for a stage performance. 

The thing about Seeri that I’m most in awe of is the way Chiamaka Okike brings us into a years-long friendship—the mundane, the memories, the moments of eye-contact caught in an instant—and captures all that those years built. We’re a part of it.

I laughed and groaned with the girls during their chaotic taxi ride, I understood the vast chasms of Kewa and Tajudeen’s loss without Nijah in their lives, and I felt my breath catch at each revelation of their yet-to-be-realized romance. I’m sure I’ll read this at different stages of my life and see new sides to the story and new sides of myself in it, like holding up a crystal to the light and seeing where the rainbow reflections scatter across the room.

“…Kewa’s face. Across it she could see the artifacts of Nijah. She and Kewa used to have the same dimple on their chin, but Kewa’s had filled out the older she got. Right then Tajudeen wanted to press her thumb into it, hoping it would leave a dent so that for a moment she would be staring at her best friend’s face again.”

The author writes grief so beautifully and so authentically that you’ll see it for the multifaceted, everchanging, living thing it is. The way Okike writes Tajudeen and Kewa’s relationship feels like you are in the room with the characters, like you could reach out and touch the glowing, emotional connection surrounding them. I can’t imagine going on with life after the loss these characters experienced, and I can’t begin to guess how I’d respond to having someone so close to the person remain in my life. Seeri offers a compassionate, complicated idea of what it’s like for Kewa and Tajudeen to live without Nijah, and to be falling in love with each other along the way.

Though they’re drunk or drinking to get drunk through most of this story, and Kewa admits to overcoming a period of suicidal ideation after losing Nijah, Seeri is not a tale of two grieving people clinging to each other in a rush of pain and tangled, aching emotions that come out looking like lust. Okike shows us the love between Tajudeen and Kewa as something tender, precious, and undeniable. We see it through the eyes of those around them, and we see that it’s been blossoming for so long—each of their blooming petals reaching out toward the sun (the other person), neither of them looking up and away from their best friend for long enough to notice they’re in love. It’s really very sweet, and it’s rooted in realness. 

I loved how explicit and casual Kewa and Tajudeen’s Nigerianness is. I loved that their love exists in this liminal space of a night out, making itself known amongst the random conversations and rush of unexpected emotions. I loved that Seeri is this hopeful, messy, utterly romantic story between two people who lost the most important person in their lives, realized they’re not alone in this, and began to see what everyone else saw in their next most important relationship. 

This will be someone’s comfort read, and it will be the book someone holds onto in the hope of being loved this way. Seeri is a love story that understands how much heartache comes with being human and knows precisely how—despite everything, and sometimes because of everything—love makes our days feel sweeter. Delicately heartwrenching, and blessed with the gift of somehow making the process of giving a eulogy romantic, I’ll be thinking about author Chiamaka Okike’s writing for a long, long time.

Thank you for reading Andrea Marks-Joseph’s book review of Seeri by Chiamaka Okike! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Erica Ball

Secrets, scars, and stories—a fascinating historical novel of cultural & personal significance

Mei feels the weight of her family’s long legacy on her shoulders. Growing up hearing her beloved grandfather’s stories—a mix of family lore and traditional Chinese tales—she has come to realize she may be last person who remembers them the way he told them. This burden is hard to bear, especially as her half-Chinese, half-Italian children are dismissive of her attempts to draw them into their parents’ cultures.  

When Mei is called home to Nanjing on urgent family business, she hopes it’s a chance to introduce her skeptical teens to the sprawling Hong family and show them first-hand the deep traditions they are now bearers of.  

Traveling ahead of them, she is immediately faced with a complex family situation. Her journey to Nanjing evokes an overwhelming rush of long-repressed memories, and she is pulled into a torrent of emotions and forced to process them with the new information she has gathered with age. The family has been keeping some extremely large secrets from her, and they all to come to light now that she is there in person.

Under both the pressure to preserve her family and to reconcile her own memories and secrets, Mei must prepare for the arrival of her husband and kids too. But her texts and phone calls go unanswered and unreturned—first for one day, then more, spiking anxieties of a totally different kind. By the time she finally gets an answer, it’s clear that something is up.

Mei is a scientist with keen insight and dry humor. She recounts her memories and stories with a loving tone, though she becomes melancholy when the subject turns to people who have passed or to ways in which she is feeling inadequate, especially as her generation’s keeper of the family’s stories. 

The author does a stellar job of bringing Shanghai and Nanjing (as well as the landscape between those two cities) to life. The smells, sights, and sounds of these places are evocatively related and trigger her flood of memories with sense associations. The novel not only has a terrific sense of place, but it deftly interweaves ancient legend, myth, and folktale with the real historical events that shaped China (and the Hong family) throughout the twentieth century. It’s a fascinating way to learn or revisit historical events like the Japanese invasion of Nanjing or the massacre at Tiananmen square, especially as it is told from the viewpoint of a person or people we have gotten to know.

It’s a timely read as well. The historical upheavals include protests and revolutions of different kinds and with different promises, and rarely, if ever, do they deliver on those promises.  

The Moon Goddess’s Smile is a remarkable story that encompasses generations and carries thousands of years of tradition. There is a complex interplay of culture and identity at many levels here: from the household to the extended family, to the town or city, then country and effects of a government’s ideology. What happens when a beloved home country becomes something unrecognizable? This book is a meditation on the role of country and culture—of one family’s traditions, secrets, and fate.

Thank you for reading Erica Ball’s book review of The Moon Goddess’s Smile by Catherine C. Wu! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Erica Ball

A feverish historical novel on the hubris of the exploitation of the natural world

Told through the doomed expedition of a fictional whaling ship in the 1870s, North Sun: Or, The Voyage of the Whaleship Esther is about those who believe the world is theirs for the taking and those considered disposable enough to be sent to do the dirty work.

The expedition in question has two main missions: One is to retrieve the wayward son-in-law to the head of a whaling empire, a man who had refused to return after losing his own whaling ship in the crushing ice of the Arctic’s Chukchi Sea. The other mission is to fill the ship’s hold with as much as possible, despite the rumor and fear swirling in the whaling industry that the whales have already vanished, that they had already been hunted to extinction. 

Recruited to lead this expedition is the already traumatized Captain Arnold Lovejoy, himself newly returned from a disastrous voyage of his own. It’s a long and hazardous journey around the South American continent and north again through the Pacific all the way through the Bering Sea, but the Esther is a special ship, designed for just such dangers, and confidence begins high. On his successful return, Lovejoy is promised a life of riches and luxury. It’s an opportunity he can’t pass up, especially after he meets the lovely daughter of the empire, the one whose husband is missing. 

At various times horrifying, poetic, and heart-wrenching, it’s told with spare and often brutal turns of phrase in the form of short passages that bring to mind old sea captains’ logs. The details of the days, weeks, and months spent at sea by the crew of the Esther reflect on the unfeeling and unsympathetic forces of the natural world: How the ship is at the mercy of the wind; how the sky and sea can turn menacing in a heartbeat, or torture with sameness for unending days of blistering heat; how storms can create mountainous waves that make the ship a gut-roiling prison no one can escape.

Throughout it all, the tense watch for whales is as constant as the dangers. But all the watching and willing can’t make the whales appear, and for a long time the voyage is fruitless. When the hunts do finally occur, the brutality of this business becomes clear, and the vivid descriptions of the butchering of the great beasts is unflinchingly told, gory, and gruesome. It is exploitative and wasteful and not for readers sensitive to such scenes. Just as brutal are the many horrors that can and do meet the human body, as well, in such dangerous circumstances. Death comes unexpectedly, quickly, and without mercy.

In addition, the physical and psychological torture of such voyages cannot be overstated. The crew is reminded again and again that they are helpless when it comes to the elements, to accident, to illness, their confined quarters, and at times to each other. Any number of things can drive them human to their breaking point. 

With its strong foundation in the tradition of dramatic sea quests, this book is highly recommended for readers of adventure and survival fiction. Those interested in the American whaling industry of the late 1800s or its technologies and techniques will appreciate the detailed descriptions of the Esthers’s special design and specialized equipment and weapons. At the same time, the constant tension, exploration of human morality, insight into the psychology of its characters, and at times outright gore means it will also be at home on the shelves of thriller enthusiasts. The bird of the front cover offers an especially memorable, mythic feel to the novel too, so even fans of literary speculative fiction will be satisfied as well.

Sometimes descending into the stuff of a feverish nightmare, North Sun is a meditation on the reality of both the monsters within and the monsters without; both real and imagined. After all, when you’re floating untethered to the human world long enough, there is no line between truth and story and barely any between life and death.

Thank you for reading Erica Ball’s book review of North Sun by Ethan Rutherford! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Erin Britton

An engrossing, fast-paced story of legacy and self-discovery

The Fleet Admiral’s Daughter by J.A. Gaudio, the first book in The Black Hole Saga, is a richly detailed, atmospheric, and action-packed space opera. Set in the likely not too distant future, it introduces a cast of compelling characters who face all the personal challenges of the contemporary world along with political intrigue in the vast and unforgiving expanse of space. 

Through the experiences of a troubled Marine Corps officer who unexpectedly finds herself responsible for the prestigious Crown Space Station, the book explores issues of duty, identity, and resilience.

Lieutenant Commander Sarah Miller is thrust into an undeniably vital but decidedly unwanted new role when her father, the legendary Fleet Admiral Douglas Miller, is forced to retire on ill-health grounds, leaving her with no choice but to step into his role. “No one knows the mission, the ships, the station, the regulations better than you. We need your leadership.” 

This sudden change in her life, forcing her to shift from navigating the war-torn streets of Earth—“Her hometown outside the base was one of the very last places in the country untouched by Earth’s wars”—to leading the team aboard a state-of-the-art space station, brings a host of challenges. 

Although she doesn’t have to do so alone—given that she will be working alongside her twin brother Max, a happy-go-lucky but gifted engineer—Sarah must face the responsibilities of leadership while also engaging in a deeper internal struggle. Indeed, those who task her with authority seem blissfully ignorant of the fact she is haunted by past trauma, suffering from PTSD following an explosion that left her with “mottled scarring on her upper shoulder and back,” and a fear of space that adds to the tension regarding her new assignment—“The vastness of the open space in front   of her stole her breath.”

Gaudio imbues Sarah’s character with emotional complexity. A flawed individual with more than her fair share of self-doubt, Sarah is certainly not a conventionally heroic space marine, but her vulnerability makes her approachable and human. The doubts and fears she experiences concerning both the practicalities of life in space and her own responsibilities in that regard are definitely understandable. “The quietude was suffocating, an eternal void that swallowed every sound except the rush of blood in her ears.” Her undeniably human responses to everything she is faced with really enhance the realism of the story and render the fantastical elements all the more possible.

As Sarah navigates the space station’s layered and shifting political landscape, she grapples with her own sense of inadequacy, particularly the weight of living up to her father’s reputation. “He’d released the reins of his dream and they were waiting to be seized. By her.” Her relationship with her brother is refreshingly realistic, marked by moments of affection but also tension. “Max knew exactly what he was giving her. It wasn’t just a piece of home. It was an anchor; it kept her grounded.” These family dynamics add depth to Sarah’s character, showcasing the multifaceted relationships that she must navigate while addressing the pressures of family.

A standout element of the story is its exploration of the intersection between personal desires and the harsh demands and realities of duty. Sarah is caught in a constant struggle between the role she must play as a leader and the woman she wishes to become. Her tenacity, determination, and honesty, which she knows to be mirrored in her father, earn her both respect and scorn. This duality—her desire to be a competent leader while yearning to escape the shadow cast by her father’s reputation—lies at the heart of her character development throughout her time on the space station.

Moreover, while Sarah’s personal growth is central, The Fleet Admiral’s Daughter also delves into her evolving relationship with Lieutenant Commander Annie Jones. Their romance is a touching subplot, providing Sarah with an emotional grounding amid the chaos. The way Gaudio develops their connection, allowing it to evolve naturally, lends the romance a realistic and heartfelt quality. The passion between them also contrasts nicely with the sterile environment of space, providing both women with a chance to experience tenderness and support despite the otherwise cold and isolating nature of their surroundings.

To complement the rich characterization, Gaudio has created a complex and immersive universe. The Crown Space Station is not just a setting but a character in and of itself, full of scientific intrigue and political tension. “Her father’s diagrams and plans come to life; the Crown was certainly something to behold.” It’s a melting pot where various factions cooperate in an effort to ensure the survival of humanity. This unity makes a nice change and gives the story an idealistic but hopeful tone. Rather than focusing on conflicts between spacefaring nations or alien adversaries, it presents a future where humanity’s greatest challenge is not surviving outer space but succeeding in working together.

While the political drama and action aboard the space station are gripping, the slower-paced moments offer valuable insights into the characters’ inner lives. These sections deepen the emotional resonance of the story. Gaudio’s focus on the characters’ interaction and introspection, paired with the occasional bursts of high-stakes events, creates a narrative that is both thought-provoking and exciting. Though some of the technical aspects of space travel and military life may prove a bit dry for some, they are well integrated into the story and contribute to its authenticity.

Sarah’s struggle with her father’s legacy is one many can relate to, even outside the context of military life or space exploration. Her attempts to reconcile her personal desires with her duty to her family and humanity more generally make for a compelling and nuanced story. In this way, Gaudio doesn’t simply focus on the physical challenges of life in space but also examines the emotional and psychological toll faced by those who venture into the unknown.

Overall, Gaudio skillfully blends deep emotional arcs with immersive spacefaring adventures. The detailed worldbuilding, strong character development, and exploration of weighty yet universal themes such as identity, legacy, and unity come together to create a captivating story that will enthrall lovers of space fiction.

Thank you for reading Erin Britton’s book review of The Fleet Admiral’s Daughter by J.A. Gaudio! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Timothy Thomas

Unique magic, deep worldbuilding, and an amusing first person narrator—Cicero James, Miracle Worker is the complete package.

This urban fantasy, set in a version of San Francisco, is more than just a magical savior story. It’s refreshingly original and loads of fun, and it builds off of a simple, important premise: what you believe matters. 

Our beliefs affect the world in ways that the Blissful are unaware of. But the Miracle Workers (usually just called Workers) know how it happens. See, all Workers are a tad bit unhinged, and their madness lets them “see cracks in reality and play with them,” changing reality itself by forcing their beliefs onto the world. 

In Cicero’s case…well, he chooses not to talk about what trauma brought him into the world of Working, but now he specializes in fixing cracks in reality where Terrors, Wrathfuls, and the Envious have broken through into the world from the Space Between Spaces, usually generated by the intense beliefs and fears of the Blissful. 

He is killed responding to an urgent assignment concerning a Terror manifestation, but he wakes up in the morgue just before his autopsy. Noticing his death wound is fully healed, questions and terror fill his mind: self-resurrection is illegal, and the consequences of it are extremely severe. 

Though he’s certain he did nothing to bring himself back from the dead, that doesn’t stop him from being hunted and investigated by John McMillin, a guild-sanctioned enforcer, and the terrifying Mallory Shrike, an alleged Workers of America (WA) consultant. 

Turning to his old mentor, Marlowe Frost, for answers, Cicero finds himself unwittingly embroiled in an ages-old drama with him at the center of it all. Will Marlowe be able to provide the answers he seeks, or will Shrike’s hunt conclude their search before the truth can fully be revealed?

This is already a captivating story worth paying attention to, but it’s made all the more compelling by its narrator. Cicero’s first person retelling of the events is brutally honest, in large part because it’s intended to bring awareness to the coming conflict that he considers himself on the right side of. His personality is what really steals the show, as his blunt, sarcastic wit makes for an entertaining recollection that makes buoyant a narrative that could just as easily sink in its heavy subject matter and high stakes. 

Also praiseworthy is the story’s particular brand of what may be generally considered magic. Hal Emerson has crafted a fully fleshed-out system that is, as best as this reviewer can tell, altogether its own. Adopting an explain-as-I-go approach, Cicero’s explanations of how things Work (pun intended) are integrated into the story as needed. This approach is successful because, though some things mentioned earlier in the story aren’t fully explained until much later, they don’t detract from the reader’s ability to understand what’s happening. When all is said and done, the system makes sense even if it does take some getting used to. 

Cicero James, Miracle Worker is an utter delight. With so much potential and so many possible paths for the series to take, I eagerly await returning to this version of San Francisco to continue the fascinating story of Cicero James.

Thank you for reading Timothy Thomas’s book review of Cicero James, Miracle Worker by Hal Emerson! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Erica Ball

An emotionally charged, beauty-filled memoir of emotion and identity at a time of massive change

One day, Carolyn Dawn Flynn’s life fell apart. She saw it coming—well, some of it. 

The single mother of teenage twins, she knows their last year of high school will be challenging. And she knows that she needs to prepare for the reality of an empty nest. With her career as a journalist insufficient for financing the education of the twins’ dreams, Flynn decides to chase a new life of her own, accepting a high-paying job across the country. 

This means that, in the same span of time that Flynn is helping her kids choose their college and future and navigate their transition to adulthood, she is also repairing and packing up their family home and juggling the logistics of all three relocations. She understands all this going in. What she doesn’t know is that her decision to move sets off a series of events that will unravel her sense of self and push her to the brink. 

It sets her off on a quest the size of which she could never have anticipated. Not long after arriving in what is supposed to be her new home, Flynn finds herself embroiled in a toxic situation not of her own making. Despite valiant efforts on her part, she is set adrift, cut loose from the only tether tying her to a particular place. 

With unpacked boxes and a scattered family, living for the first time in decades without children or a job to fill her days, Flynn’s questions of identity, place, and future spiral out of control. The sheer number of decisions facing her is overwhelming. When nowhere is home, where do you go? The terrifying limitlessness of the future stops her in her tracks. 

Such disruptive times inevitably force us to look back, so Flynn also must contend with memories and feelings she’d long held in check. She remembers the traumatic day her twins almost died and after which she was acutely aware of the delicate balance that keeps life moving forward. She remembers the beginning of the verbal abuse of her now ex-husband, which he continues to inflict on her and which she knows she needs to address. She remembers her beloved mother, whose dining room set they had to part with for Flynn to make this move—one that might be for nothing. 

Luckily, she has tools to draw on. A long-time practitioner of mindful meditation, she relies on those teachings as well as her explorations of faith to direct her search for answers on the priorities of living and where to focus energies. She also draws on long and deep conversations from her support system of friends and family to sort out her thoughts. And she writes. 

With poetic phrasing featuring vivid descriptions of the sights, sounds, and smells of the places she finds herself in, Flynn criss-crosses the country from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Saratoga Springs, New York, dealing with the many unresolved items still on her to-do list. As vivid is the author’s inner life as she is forced to face her darkest emotions and desperate moments.  

With the author’s immense skill at exploring these deep inner worlds, this memoir is highly recommended for those who have found themselves at a crossroads in their identity, living situation, career, family, or relationships, which will likely be almost everybody. It will especially resonate with caretakers and parents who have automatically given their all to others and maybe lost a little of themselves in the process. 

Boundless is not just a story of a life in transition. It is also a hero’s journey out of the everyday world into one that questions everything from the necessity of material goods to the purpose of human life itself. With only her relationships to guide her through this transience and to transcendence, Flynn journeys into the darkness of the unknown and back to life again. But, of course, even when back again, everything has changed. In the end, it is about how we need never stop reinventing ourselves. And that a coming of age can happen at any point in the long years of a life.  

Thank you for reading Erica Ball’s book review of Boundless by Carolyn Dawn Flynn! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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