Author: Patricia Elzie

This book takes place in the San Francisco Bay Area, and it starts with our hero, Ben Stephens, who is running late to work. Ben works for an ad agency, and they have a major project pitch to give to a tech company. He did a lot of work on the project and knows it backwards and forwards; however, this doesn’t really matter because Ben knows his bosses and the rest of the team will do the presentation and take the glory while Ben, the only Black person, will be present to show how “diverse” their team is. At least, that’s how it normally goes, and that is what Ben is expecting. The universe has other ideas, and he gets a call from the rest of his team, who are stuck in L.A., which is an hour flight but a good six-hour drive from where they need to be, so Ben is going to have to give the presentation alone.

He arrives at the company, about to start his presentation when the most beautiful woman he has ever seen walks in the door to the conference room. This woman is Oscar-nominated actress Anna Gardiner, and she is the talent for this ad campaign. No one expected her to show up to the pitch meetings, and she was counting on that. Of course, she was charmed by Ben, and he got the contract. At Anna’s request, he also oversaw the entire project, and they spent a lot of time together on set.

During one of the shoots, Anna gets a call. Her parents are down near Palm Springs on a trip, and her father has to get rushed to the hospital. Unbeknownst to everyone, Anna deals with severe anxiety. She knew it would be ridiculous to rush down to Southern California to check on her dad when it was likely just dehydration, but she really started to freak out a bit. She called her assistant to get her a flight, but there were none that could work with the schedule. Ben notices Anna’s barely controlled freakout; one thing leads to another, and there is suddenly an impromptu road trip to Palm Springs.

The attraction between the two of them is palpable, and they don’t even try to hide their flirting and chemistry. They get to Palm Springs, but the hotel they get to only has a single room. They keep their physical fun a secret, but Simon, Anna’s manager, catches on. Simon’s not mad; he actually thinks it’s good for Anna’s image, and Ben agrees to no strings and only fun, just how they both want it (this is totally not sustainable).

This book was so incredibly steamy while also being incredibly hilarious.

The overarching metaphor in this book is of capitalism as a toxic romantic partner who constantly puts you down, gaslights you, and is just using you. The author is unmasking this toxic person and making it clear that they’re just not that into you. The author also teaches us there is a healthier and supportive option available. While this metaphor isn’t necessarily everyone’s vibe, it does serve to make the content so much more accessible and relatable. This book is written in a way that clarifies how capitalism is at play right now in our own lives and not just some nebulous thing that we have nothing to do with.

This book introduces readers to so many people fighting against capitalism. There are dozens of quotes from anti-capitalists, past and present, like W. E. B. DuBois, Ella Baker, Evo Morales, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Kathleen Cleaver. The book repeatedly makes it clear that class struggle cannot be separated from racial equity. It’s been so helpful to learn about it in more detail to better my understanding of all the interconnections.

The author teaches readers about how capitalism tells us that if we just work harder, hustle more, and sacrifice more, we will get ahead. That is actually rarely the case because the system is designed to keep people in the middle class and the lower class in those classes. Capitalism depends on folks’ inability to move upward. There might be anecdotes of this happening, some people here and there, but it doesn’t help the nation as a whole.

This book gives really clear definitions of capitalism and socialism and spends most of the pages giving examples of these frameworks in action. After reading this book, I can confidently say, “Yes, I know what these things are and some of the ways they affect me and my communities.” I also want to mention that this book is packed with illustrations and infographics and graphs and charts and quotes that help make this information very present and relatable to readers.

This anthology has won a Locus Award, a World Fantasy Award, a British Fantasy Award, an Ignyte Award, and the Brave New Words Award. After reading it, I could see how it deserved each and every one. The introduction is by Levar Burton, and any book that has Levar Burton’s stamp of approval is an immediate addition to my TBR. There is an absolutely phenomenal line-up of talent in these pages. This book includes stories by Minsoo Kang, Jaymee Goh, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Rebecca Roanhorse, Darcie Little Badger, and so many more brilliant authors. I love the variety of stories in this anthology. Yes, it’s speculative fiction, but it covers a wide range, including science fiction, fantasy, and horror — often at the intersections of these subgenres and sometimes nestled comfortably in the spaces in between.

The first story in the book had me absolutely hooked. It’s “The Galactic Tourist Industrial Complex” by Tobias S. Buckell. Imagine Earth in the future with hovercars and the like, but it’s a complete dump that is actually an intergalactic tourist trap. Alien tourists come from all over the universe to Manhattan because the laws and safety regulations are incredibly lax. Maybe too lax. Another interesting story is about how the fate of an empire is in the hands of two translators, which makes readers think about how we never truly know how close we may be to utter destruction. The story “Come Home to Atropos” was incredibly dark, incredibly disturbing, and also made me giggle. I didn’t know I could both cringe and laugh at the same time, yet here we are. I’m a sucker for a story that involves a human making a deal with a non-human, whether it be a god or a demon or the fae or otherwise. “The Fine Print” by Chinelo Onwualu hit so many right notes. It’s the one story that I went back and read again after finishing the book.

This book has so many things: ghosts, witches, monsters that eat little children, terrifying yet lovely mermaid-type creatures, aliens, human colonies on distant planets, technology to take away all bad feelings and replace them only with pleasant ones, Smart Houses of the Future, and so much more. The title of this book stems from an Octavia E. Butler quote, “There’s nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.” This anthology lives up to its name, for sure.

Schuyler Bailar is a speaker, educator, and author who was also the first transgender athlete to compete in any sport on an NCAA Division 1 men’s team. His public transition to the Harvard Men’s Swim Team made headlines, and he is an important voice in trans advocacy. He/She/They is primarily for readers who consider themselves or would like to be allies to transgender folks. It’s also a really great read for folks who have someone transgender in their lives but don’t know the first thing about being trans. The tone of Bailar’s writing mirrors his online content, which is accessible, compassionate, and remarkably patient. He weaves in personal stories about his own experience of his gender and transition, as well as some of the tough conversations he has had, sometimes with family. He strives to teach readers how to approach these conversations ourselves.

He goes over the basics of definitions of terms like “sex,” “gender,” and “the gender binary,” which are all complicated, and he does an excellent job of conveying the complications without getting too far into the weeds for the sake of the book. He goes over what gender-affirming care is, detailing that it can be very different for a child than for an adult and that many people have wild ideas about what gender-affirming care for a child is when it’s really usually maybe some different clothes, a haircut, and maybe using a different name and pronouns.

He answers so many questions that people use to try to debate transgender folks’ right to care and have a peaceful existence. Throughout the book, the information he teaches readers is based on science, research, history, and basic human decency. He teaches readers about the importance of pronouns (in the English language) and the myth of being transgender as a mental illness. His chapter on transgender athletes was particularly poignant, given that he was himself a nationally ranked trans athlete.

While I mentioned the primary audience for this book seems to be folks who are not in the trans community themselves, he does speak to folks who are at some points through this book. He answers questions like, “Does it get better?” and offers his own stories about coming out and telling his family and teammates. He also takes some time to talk about the intersections of his gender and race.

This was such a wonderful and informative read. Content warnings for transphobia and discussions of gender dysphoria and eating disorders.

Georgina Lawton grew up in the suburban outskirts of London. Her father was British, her mother Irish, and both parents were white, which is an interesting fact when you learn that Georgina is Black. When Georgina was born to her white mother, she was clearly a Black baby. Georgina’s father, however, said nothing and so the mother said nothing. The nurse or midwife threw them a lifeline and said something to the effect of, “It must be those recessive genes of yours from Western Ireland,” and Georgina’s mom and dad took that story and ran with it for over two decades. Yes, for two decades, they insisted that they were both Georgina’s biological parents and everyone around them, including family and friends, were too polite to say anything so they just went along with the lie. This includes things like filling out that she was white on official school paperwork.

I want to reiterate here that Georgina obviously looked different from her parents and yes, I realize there are some complications with judging the race of people solely on looks, especially when some people are multiracial, such as myself. That being said, Georgina really did not look like the biological child of two white parents.

Of course, Georgina went along with it for a long time because why would her parents lie to her about something like this? Why would everyone else lie to her about it? If it weren’t true, surely someone would have said something, wouldn’t they? As Georgina got older, she tried asking both her parents. She brought it up multiple times, and they both just doubled down on the lie. As Georgina worked on discovering who she is and contemplating the meaning of family, she explored many locales. She goes to places like New York and Nicaragua to immerse herself in Blackness. She does some investigative reporting on where hair extensions come from, and yes, there is a lot of hair talk in this book, and for good reason.

It would be so easy to hear of her situation and think that it’s unbelievable but also to judge her parents harshly. Lawton does an amazing job of telling her story and her family’s story with tender care and showing that there was a lot of love in her home growing up, and she truly loves her parents. This was a deeply engaging book. Content warning for the death of a parent from cancer.

I have read an increasing amount of books about various forms of activism and systems of oppression in the last few years, and I know I’m not alone in this. It’s pretty overwhelming. I’m overwhelmed by the amount of oppression, the varieties of oppression, and the sheer number of things that need to be done or ways that people can show up to fight. I become immobilized from trying to make a decision because I am one person, and there is just so much.

This new release has helped me take steps toward action. The first main idea of this book is narrowing your focus because you can’t do everything. Once you decide where you’re going to focus your activism energy, the book encourages you to take consistent and sustainable actions. It is very easy to get burnout, and this book aims to avoid that.

The author has created four activist archetypes to help readers figure out what kinds of activism they would thrive participating in. Are you someone who likes to work in the background or run the show? Or maybe you’re the headliner who makes the speeches? Williams makes it clear that not everyone can be the Beyoncé of the rally, and we need all types of folks to go up against oppression. As the author says, a lot of activism isn’t glamorous, and it shouldn’t be.

There is a lot of pressure for each of us to create our own unique thing and be the loudest out there, while what needs to be done is the opposite. Activism needs to be done in community because that is how it moves the needle, and this book not only has a chapter on finding community but also weaves the thread of community throughout. This book also includes short interviews with activists around the world interspersed throughout the chapters. They talk about what their specific activist focus is, what keeps them going, and how they practice self-care. In addition, each chapter also has reflection questions and key takeaways. Finally, the fantastic illustrations help tie the messages together while also adding to the impact of the writing.

This young adult anthology has 14 stories about mermaids (or rather, merfolk because they aren’t all maids), and there is such a wide range of stories: sweet, creepy, hilarious, vengeful, enraging, exhilarating, heartbreaking, and more. The variety keeps it super interesting, and the pacing and organization of the stories flow really well.

There are some stories, like “We’ll Always Have June” by Julian Winters, that are contemporary, and the merfolk in this world aren’t known by humans, in general. Other stories, like Preeti Chhibber’s “The Dark Calls,” don’t even bother with humans. This story keeps us with the merfolk under the water and dares to imagine going even deeper. Kalynn Bayron’s “Return to the Sea” will definitely squeeze your heart in a few different ways when you read it. In this story, merfolk are not only known to humans, but they live among each other, work together, and go to school together. Of course, there are humans who love to appropriate merfolk culture without actually having an ounce of respect for them or for the ocean. Two specific stories, “The Deepwater Vandal” by Darcie Little Badger and “The First and Last Kiss” by Julie Murphy, reminded me why I love the short story format so much. Both stories in themselves are as fulfilling a read as reading an entire novel, and they just hit all the right notes.

Some of the stories are historical fantasy, and I appreciate that not all the stories take place in the United States. It’s so refreshing to have merfolk from various cultural backgrounds and also just merfolk as their own culture and not just a Hans Christian Anderson mermaid “but make them brown.” The characters in these stories have real depth (pun intended). There were also stories that made me laugh out loud, like Maggie Tokuda-Hall’s “Shark Week” and others that brought tears to my eyes.

I enjoyed the wide exploration of how the humans react to mermaids: awe, fear, disrespect, adoration, etc. I had so much fun reading this anthology, and I hope you do, too.

This book is integral in bridging the gap between knowing many of us need rest and practical tips on how we can get that rest. How do we actually rest? What the heck is rest aside from napping? Divest from capitalism, sure, but what does that even look like in reality when we live in a capitalist society? Rest Easy by Ximena Vengoechea is the book I didn’t even know I needed, and now that I’ve read it, I need to share it with everyone.

Ximena Vengoechea wrote another book I love titled Listen Like You Mean It, which pulled from her knowledge as a User Experience Researcher at large tech companies. As one can imagine, she got really burned out from that job plus being an author plus being a new mom, so she decided to put on her researcher hat and look into what rest is because she really, really needed it. She experimented with so many types of rest, interviewed a ton of people, and read a bunch of writing about rest not only in the United States but elsewhere. In this book, she shares not only some of her research but also the actual activities (or non-activities) that she found were restful.

At the beginning of the book, she addresses the social, racial, political, economical, etc. reasons why rest may not be accessible to some folks or why some folks look at rest in different ways depending on their situation and background. She digs into not only how others get in our way but also how we get in our own way of rest. The way a lot of us “rest” now, by shoving all our rest into our days off of work, is not sustainable and not actually helpful, according to Vengoechea’s research.

The author writes about why it is important to rest for resting’s sake and not only so that we can do more, even though rest can promote creativity. She also explains how rest doesn’t only mean being still and how things like exercise, knitting, baking, and other hobbies can be rest. The hallmark of rest is that we generally feel better after we do it, which is why she says that mindlessly scrolling the internet doesn’t usually count as rest.

As soon as I finished this book, I felt I needed to give it a reread. There is just so much in it that I want to absorb and try to implement in my every day.

Marion Shaw has grown up in the South of Prane in the slums. In this fictional world, the South and the North are at odds in almost every way. Marion’s parents died when she was younger, leaving her with her abusive older brother, Raul, who depends on his maudlum addiction to numb him of his physical and emotional pain. Marion is a maid in town, and she’s pretty much the only source of money to be coming into her and Raul’s home.

Marion dreams of so much more, and she knows there is money to be made in the North. The nobles of the North have peculiar tastes, which is to say, they drink blood. If a person is lucky enough to be chosen and brought on as a bloodmaid, they would be set for life after their few years of service. They live in the great noble houses of the North, existing in opulence and luxury, and they would regularly be bled for their masters and mistresses. It is understood that after their tenure, bloodmaids are given a large pension to remain in luxury for the rest of their days. There are 24 great houses in the North, and Marion dreams of leaving Prane and becoming a bloodmaid, which is super frowned upon in the South. Southerners think it’s disgusting and depraved, but Marion sees it as a way to a better life.

Marion spots an ad in the paper for a bloodmaid. She sneaks out on her brother to go be “interviewed” and meets a taster who bleeds her and offers her a place in one of the great houses. Marion agrees and leaves Prane, not without a lot of difficulty and violence. But when Marion arrives at the House of Hunger, that’s when the real story begins. The house employs a number of bloodmaids, all of whom serve the Countess Lisavet Bathory. Countess Bathory has an exceptional need for blood, which is why she employs so many bloodmaids. Of course, things are not what they seem, and the bloodmaids vie for rank and attention.

Content warning: there is a lot of blood and gore in this book, as well as taxidermy. Humans aren’t the only beings harmed in these pages.

Our protagonist and narrator is Shay Johnson, a biracial Black superstar student at TK Anderson Magical Magnet School. Shay’s parents aren’t wealthy, so they’ve sent her to this well-resourced high school in order for her to have a better chance at success. The specific success they hope for would be winning the Brockton Scholarship. The Brockton Scholarship guarantees a full ride to her top university of choice, a university that her family could not afford to send her to otherwise.

The scholarship is not only based on GPA but on extracurriculars both at school and outside of school and magic levels, which are tested regularly by blood tests. There is a giant leader board at school that broadcasts who is in the top spot for the scholarship, mostly based on GPA and magic levels. Shay’s fiercest competition is Ana Alvarez, her nemesis. Shay and Ana use every opportunity to drag each other, and the competition is fierce.

Shay is an absolute genius when it comes to potion work, and the whole school knows it. She is the head of the potions club, and she has a part-time job at a potion shop with her best friend Lex. Lex is in that time between high school and college, where she is trying to get into the college of her choice, or really, any college at this point. Shay’s mom thinks that Shay and Lex are dating ever since Shay came out to her parents as a lesbian, so it’s always awkward to mention Lex at home.

To add to the drama, there is a teacher. The drama teacher, actually, Mr. Brockton, as in the head of the scholarship committee for the Brockton Scholarship, which his very wealthy family gave a lot of money to create. This year, Mr. B has chosen an aggressively diverse musical for the drama club to put on. There aren’t many students of color, and Mr. B not-so-subtly lets Shay know that her eligibility to win the scholarship would increase if she did the musical. He may have told Shay’s enemy, Ana, the same thing. Shay is really weirded out by how comfortable Mr. B seems to be with being physically up in her space. She thinks she might be overreacting, and she definitely doesn’t want to ruin her chances to win the scholarship.

I had fun reading this book! I like that it’s set in Florida. Not all stories featuring witches or prestigious schools need to be in New England, and I found this refreshing. Content warnings for racism, homophobia, and abusive adults, including grooming.