Category: In The Club

Mailhot tells a poetic and lyrical story of her experiences with child abuse and neglect, being bipolar, and an Indian. I almost felt at times like I was experiencing things as one of her friends or even as her. This is a result of her somewhat stream-of-conscious style of writing and how honest she was about everything. She could be cruel and selfish and contradicted herself at times. She could also be forgiving and vulnerable, and really just seemed to be in search of validation. I felt as though I was finding things out with her, including the huge revelation towards the end. This is a short read, but has so much packed into it.

Book Club Bonus: In the book, Mailhot is almost apologetic for merely existing as a poor child. What are some other seemingly unusual ways poverty influences children? Also, how may conflicting cultural views of the world (for instance, Indigenous views versus European views on things such as property and ownership) dictate one’s sense of self and place in the world when you belong to more than one culture?

With this collection of essays, Wang chronicles her experiences with having late-stage Lyme disease, PTSD, and schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type. We follow Wang as she details her experiences with audible and visual hallucinations, her stay in mental hospitals, how she experienced PTSD following an abusive relationship, and more. There’s even a chapter that she wrote while experiencing a particular kind of psychosis known as Cotard’s delusion, which is a rare condition that causes someone to believe they are dead. She’s very honest about being ashamed of her mental illness when she confesses things like “I’m uncomfortable because I don’t want to be lumped in with the screaming man on the bus, or the woman who claims that she’s the reincarnation of God.”

Book Club Bonus: The criteria for having mental illness has changed through the years. How should we reconcile cultural differences in terms of spirituality, etc. with what is considered mental illness? Who dictates what is considered mental illness and what is not?

Echo’s life as a wizard on the East Side is rife with substance abuse, child abuse, depression, racism, classism, and sexism. Despite this, there is magic everywhere. This YA coming-of-age story is a mix of surrealism and metaphor that shows how Black women’s resilience manifests as magic. This can be hard to read, but is so necessary.

Book Club Bonus: How can the idea of Black women being resilient actually be damaging? Also, how does this book explore intergenerational trauma?

Bonus Bonus: All of the books mentioned here focus on women/girls of color dealing with mental health issues. All of the books also have sexual assault. Discuss the intersection of mental health concerns with the prevalence of assault.

The last we hear of nine-year-old Levi King is when he takes a small boat into Caddo Lake– a huge swampy lake that crosses the border from East Texas into Louisiana– and his boat’s motor just died. Texas Ranger Darren Mathews sets out to look for Levi, although it’s the white supremacists the boy is related to that really interest him. This is the second installation of a series following Darren Matthews after he forgoes a career as an attorney to protect and serve an area that wants him to do neither. He battles a faction of the Aryan Brotherhood all while racing against the clock to find a little boy who is being exposed to the harshest of elements. These elements are why I have grouped this book with the others. At times, Caddo Lake felt like its own living, breathing thing whose darkness could swallow you forever with no one the wiser.

Book Club Bonus: This brings about a great opportunity to talk about being a Black policeman or other authority figure. What challenges do officers of color face from their own community as well as from the white community?

Five women go into the Australian wilderness for a work retreat. When the group makes it out of the forest, one of the women– Alice Russell– is missing. It turns out that Alice was also a whistleblower. Detective Aaron Falk investigates what might have happened to Alice and the story is told in the present as well as with well-timed flashbacks. As pieces of each woman’s past are revealed, it becomes clear that they’re not telling the whole truth. The setting– the Giralang Ranges, a fictional place meant to embody many aspects of the Australian bushland– may be what’s either keeping Alice or what has killed her. Harper’s description of the Australian wilderness is both beautiful and frightening. There’s a constant sense of dread as you feel the characters being watched by someone (or some thing) from the densely packed trees. The Ranges also offer danger in the form of intense weather and the threat of dangerous animals.

Book Club Bonus: This novel makes a bit of a statement on what we’re really like if you remove the mocha frappé lattes and what not (no shade). Do you feel this is an accurate portrayal of our inherent nature? Also, do you feel like the ending is believable?

Okay, so the title is literal. This girl’s sister, Ayoola, is literally a serial killer. Ummm… and she protects her. Yeah, couldn’t be me, but this is darkly funny and describes what life would be like if your sister was a vapid serial killer who called you to clean up her messes. Things become more complicated when Ayooola sets her sights on a doctor her sister fancies. Braithwaite makes the city of Lagos, Nigeria come alive. I felt like I was plopped right in the middle of the hustle and bustle to witness Ayoola’s murderous shenanigans.

Book Club Bonus: There’s a lot to explore here as far as familial loyalty is concerned. Also, how do female beauty standards in a patriarchal society play a role here?

This one is a little different from the others in that it’s not dealing so much with murder as it is with family secrets and horrors. It also takes place in a small town in Queensland, Australia. Bettina, a reserved girl whose mother has become the center of her world, has her life upended when she sees a message written on a white fence in her neighborhood. This message makes her question everything she knows about her family. Jennings’ mix of Australian lore, family dysfunction, and nuanced prose all combine in a setting that unnerves and is just as affected by the magical elements in the story as the characters are.

Book Club Bonus: What does this say about the element of control in families?

I love mythology! Couple that with an intriguing setting like Mexico City in the 20s, and I’m good to go. I essentially finished this one in a day and a half with a combination of the physical copy as well as the audiobook (which I highly recommend!).

Here, we follow Casiopea Tun as she carries out her life as little more than a servant in her grandfather’s house. She discovers a curious box in his room and opens it, accidentally freeing the Mayan God of Death, Hun-Kamé. The romance that manifests during the journey they take to return Hun-Kamé to his rightful throne is juxtaposed against vivid descriptions of the Mayan underworld and skirmishes with those that oppose his return.

Book Club Bonus: There’s a good opportunity here to discuss how Mayan mythology compares with other religions, mythology, and lore. What similarities are there? What differences? Also, how do colorism and colonialism play a role in the social hierarchy here? Why did Casiopea have the status she did in her grandfather’s house?

Louise Lloyd is a young, queer Black woman living in Harlem in the 1920s. As a teenager, someone tried to violently kidnap her. Although she got away, this ever-present threat of violence finds her again as Black girls are murdered in her neighborhood. After being arrested following an episode of police brutality, she’s given the option to help solve the murders in exchange for her freedom. This is maybe what the show Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries would be with the addition of 20s-era racism+sexism. It’s also the first in a series called the Harlem Renaissance Mysteries, so there’s more to look forward to.

Book Club Bonus: Discuss the prevalence of violence in women’s lives, and the compounding effect of otherness (being queer, a person of color, and/or disabled). What may be some of the lasting effects of these kind of experiences? Also, how did you like the structure of the mystery (how the killer was revealed) compared to other murder mysteries?

This gives a rare glimpse into Zora Neale Hurston’s and Langston Hughes’ intense friendship that shaped the Harlem Renaissance. Their friendship was such that they wrote intimate letters to each other, traveled the rural South in Hurston’s car collecting Black lore (that would later be used in plays and books like Barracoon), and collaborated on creative projects (Mulebone). Their intimacy also meant they shared a patron in the form of a controlling white woman named Charlotte Osgood Mason, who went by “Godmother.” Despite such intimacy, their friendship would be forever damaged in the early 30s.

Book Club Bonus: Discuss what the cost of patronage was as a Black artist. What were the different stances on respectability and how did Zora and Langston fit within them? Why did Zora die in obscurity while Langston remained a well respected literary figure?

I love this book so much (I know, I know: Vanessa likes a book about mythology. Shocking!). This cultural analysis dedicates one chapter to each of 11 mythological female monsters to illustrate how women have been labeled as monstrous throughout history. She examines the lore surrounding creatures like Scylla, Medusa, and the Sphinx to show how women’s anger, sexuality, and even ugliness have been used to turn us into villains. You’ll find yourself looking at these “monsters” in whole new light.

What do the words “magical steampunk Egypt,” matcha, floral cocktails, and cheese have in common? Putting any one of those on a string is easy bait to lure me. In alternative Cairo in 1912, djinn and humans exist alongside one another. Special Investigator Fatma el Sha-arawi is the youngest woman working for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities and she’s just been tasked with investigating the killing of a brotherhood dedicated to a famed Sudanese mystic. That man, known as al-Jahiz, is said to have torn a hole in the veil between the magical and mundane worlds decades ago before disappearing, and the man claiming responsibility for the killings claims to be al-Jahiz returned. Together with her new partner and her mysterious lover, Fatma sets out to solve the case and uncover the truth about this self-professed prophet.

The collection of nine stories explores “the raw and tender places where Black women and girls dare to follow their desires and pursue a momentary reprieve from being good.” It does it so perfectly, painfully, and poignantly, the kind of read you need to stop and savor. My favorite stories include one about two 40-year-old lifelong friends whose relationship turned sexual years ago; when the narrator drops suggest to her friend that they could be more than occasional lovers, the friend stills dream of life as a “good Christian woman” and recoils in horrified disgust. Another favorite is one about two women who fled their hometown in the South to live freely and safely as a same-sex couple. But one of the women grapples with the concept of home, of belonging, of community, of longing for people and places that made you but may no longer serve you (this passage KILLED ME). The collection is a slim one but packs such a punch. The stories are so vulnerable and revelatory. It almost feels like an invasion of privacy to witness this beautiful if sometimes heart-breaking intimacy, these slices of life that often go unseen.

Eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine is a biracial, unenrolled tribal member with dreams of studying medicine. She defers enrollment to stay local and care for her mother and grandmother, then witnesses the murder of her best friend. When the killing is followed by a strings of other suspicious deaths, the murders appear to be linked to a new lethal cocktail of meth wreaking havoc on the res. Daunis gets pulled into an undercover investigation into the source of the meth, one that brings her into close contact with a new boy in town who might be hiding something about himself. She also pursues her own secret investigation, using her knowledge of chemistry and Ojibwe traditional medicine to uncover buried secrets in her community. 

All of the books in the Perveen Mistry series are fun, smart historical mysteries with a feminist message, but this one also has something to say about colonial rule. In 1920s Bombay, Perveen Mistry is India’s first female lawyer. The Bombay Prince opens in November 1921 as the Prince of Wales is getting ready to come to India on a four month tour. There’s major unrest in India and a lot of tension surrounding the visit; people are getting tired of British rule and they’re pushing back against it. When a young Parsi student falls from a second story window just as the Prince Edward’s grand procession is passing by her college, the death rattles Perveen. That very young woman had come to her for a legal consultation just days before her death, asked about the legality of skipping classes on the day Edward would be visiting Bombay. Plagued with guilt and a sneaking suspicion that this death wasn’t accidental, Perveen promises to get justice for the woman. Can Perveen help a suffering family when her own is in danger, and in the middle of so much turmoil?

The story takes place in Cairo and nearby Egyptian towns during the Arab Spring. Struggling journalist and magazine writer Seif is grief-stricken after his girlfriend, Alya is killed during a protest. He been assigned to accompany a former exile on excursions to unfamiliar places, a man who possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of Egypt’s obscure, magical places. Together they embark on a very surreal journey to see the elusive corners of the world the Arab Spring left behind: a place where giant corpse flowers fall from the sky, another where it’s said you can walk on the water of the Nile. The further they go and the more stories Bahr tells, the more reality starts to blur for Seif as memories of past trauma begin to surface.

Book Club Bonus: The very structure of the book is a huge discussion point; Bahr’s anecdotes are woven into the story in alternating chapters, which if you don’t know right away may leave you hella confused. But keep going: you’ll see how the stories are linked as you get further in. Discuss, also, the lasting effects of trauma and how it alters our perceptions of reality.

A woman travels to Havana, Cuba to attend a Latin film festival, one her husband, a horror scholar, was supposed to attend. Then she sees him standing outside a museum in a white linen suit she’s never seen before, but that can’t be–because he’s super dead. She trails him throughout the crowded city, always seemingly a few steps behind him, as the line between delusion and reality is distorted further and further. Through flashbacks to her childhood in Florida and moments in her marriage, the truth of her role in her husband’s death and reappearance is revealed. I recommended this book a lot as a bookseller, and my shelf talker for the title just said, “What the f*ck did I just read?”

Book Club Bonus: Book Riot Editor Kelly Jensen is always telling readers that horror is not a genre, but a feeling. This is the kind of book that makes that statement make sense for me. There’s no gore or ghosts or big giant scares of the kind many might associate with horror, but there’s a sense of dread and unease that just sort of looms on the page from beginning to end. The fog of grief is almost a character all on its own. Discuss!

This alternate history novelette was recommended to me back in my bookseller days by a customer. I looked it up and saw it described as Radium Girls but with sentient elephants and I thought, “Sure, let’s do this!” In the early 1900s, a group of female factory workers in Newark, New Jersey slowly died of radiation poisoning. Around that same time, Topsy the elephant was deliberately put to death by electricity in Coney Island. Both of these things are true. In the book, elephants have inherited the earth and a mama elephant is telling her calf a lil story. How did we get here? You’ll have to read to find out.

Book Club Bonus: There’s a ton of symbolism in the use of an elephant as a narrator, an animal knows for its memory. Can we ever really forget the wrongs that have been done to us, especially if those wrongs weren’t mere slights but an attempt to eradicate? There’s also a lot of commentary here on our need to reckon with the long term effects of nuclear waste.

The title of this book is a reference to “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” a song still widely known as the “Negro national anthem.” It is a living history of the Reconstruction era, the period between the abolition of slavery at the end of the Civil War and the rise of Jim Crow. This isn’t your average history, though; Gates dissects and catalogues the visual culture of the era—postcards, photographs, newspaper cartoons, political broadsides, theater posters, playing cards, children’s books, and more—to paint a vivid portrait of white supremacy and its virulent backlash to the end of slavery.

I am a huge, huge fan of writer and poet Clint Smith’s wonderful work in The Atlantic. This is his debut work of nonfiction, a “deeply researched and transporting exploration of the legacy of slavery and its imprint on centuries of American history.” He starts with his hometown of New Orleans and takes readers on a tour of moments and landmarks that tell an intergenerational story of how slavery was central in shaping this nation from the ground up. Yeah, slavery ended in theory; but it was’t that long ago at all and other racist policies have just replaced it to disenfranchise Black Americans at every turn.

Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and Texas native Annette Gordon-Reed combines American history, family chronicles, and memoir to create a a historian’s view of the long road to Juneteenth, from its origins in Texas and the enormous hardships that African Americans have endured (and continue to endure) in the aftermath. Gordon-Reed, who is herself the descendant of enslaved people brought to Texas as early as the 1820s, “shows how, from the earliest presence of Black people in Texas to the day in Galveston on June 19, 1865, when Major General Gordon Granger announced the end of legalized slavery in the state, African-Americans played an integral role in the Texas story.”

Jordan Baker is as set up to win as can be in 1920s America: she has money, education, social clout, even a mean golf handicap. She’s also a queer Vietnamese adoptee who gets treated like an exotic pet by her peers and finds many doors aren’t open to her. Her world isn’t just money and parties though; it’s also full of ghosts, infernal pacts and dazzling illusions. This Gatsby reimagining is full of magic, mystery, and glittering excess—feels perfect not only for Pride, but for delicious summer reading.

A queer 20-something returns to her hometown after her homophobic mother dies in a tragic car accident. When she finds five letters to five men in her mother’s will—none of whom is her father—she skips the shiva and goes on a mission to deliver each letter in person. On a road trip that takes her over miles of California highways, she discovers how little she really knew about her mother’s life. She’s also forced to confront her own fears as she navigates a new relationship.

Sammie Lucas works from home in the close quarters of the Florida house she shares with her absent wife Monika where she keeps one eye on her son Samson at all times. He’s a sullen unknowable boy who grows from feral toddler to surly teenager, resisting Sammie’s every attempt at bonding. When Samson’s behavior goes from quiet hostility to physical aggression, their picture-perfect queer family begins to unravel. Sammie is forced to confront her role in the mess—and the chance it’ll never be clean again.

Bonus: I can’t mention Kristin Arnett and not remind everyone her first book Mostly Dead Things. Keywords: queerness, grief, lewd taxidermy.

I just finished this chaotic, funny, and heartwarming road trip romance in a day and can’t stop raving about it! Four years ago, Addie and Dylan spent the summer falling in love under the Provence sun. He was a wealthy Oxford student and she a wild-child working as a caretaker at their friend Cherry’s enormous villa, and they were a perfect match…until they weren’t. Now their lives have collided most comically: while on their way to Cherry’s wedding, Dylan and Addie’s cars crash at the start of the journey. With one car wrecked and time a’ticking, Addie and her sister Deb find themselves agreeing—albeit begrudgingly—to drive Dylan and his best friend Marcus to the rural Scotland wedding. Things so super smoothly…not! (tw: sexual assault, non-graphic)

Book Club Bonus: How do you cut ties with a relationship that perhaps no longer serves you, even if doing so would crush the other person? What is there are other factors to consider: age? mental illness? Do you stick around out of obligation, or loyalty? Also: would you have forgiven Marcus? Why or why not? DISCUSS (I have feelings).

A nameless mother and father set out on a cross-country trip from New York City to Arizona in the heat of summer. They’re both documentarians; he’s recording sounds at Apacheria, the place the Apaches once called home, and she hopes to return to New York after the journey is complete to finish up a project involving missing child refugees. The road trip brings the couple and their two young children face to face with the immigration crisis at the southwestern border in an intimate, low-key hilarious, and urgent examination of marriage and parenthood.

Book Club Bonus: Who immediately comes to mind when you read “lost children” in the book title? What are the sources of conflict between the husband and wife? And why do the characters go mostly unnamed? Discuss the role of a documentarian and how it serves to further the message of the book.

Charles Wang is a lovable business man with a giant cosmetics empire to his name, until the financial crisis takes everything from him. Broke and out of options, he pulls his kids—aspiring comedian Andrew and fashionista Grace—from the schools he can no longer afford in the one family car that hasn’t been repossessed. Together with their wealth-addicted stepmom Barbra, they embark on one helluva road trip from Bel Air to upstate New York where the Wangs will hide away in their eldest daughter’s home before their next move. I’ve had this on my TBR forever and reading the premise again just now gave me major Schitts Creek vibes mixed with some Little Miss Sunshine.

Book Club Bonus: How does this story differ from other immigrant stories you may have read? How is it also the same?

Welcome to The Dead Djinn universe, a fantastic series in an alternative, steampunk Cairo in 1912 where djinn and humans exist alongside one another. Special Investigator Fatma el Sha-arawi is the youngest woman working for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities and she’s just been tasked with investigating the killing of an entire brotherhood. That brotherhood was dedicated to al-Jahiz, the famed Sudanese mystic who tore a hole in the veil between the magical and mundane worlds decades ago before disappearing, and the man claiming responsibility for the killings claims to be al-Jahiz returned. Together with her new partner—a partner she didn’t ask for and isn’t sure she wants—and her lover, Fatma sets out to solve the case and uncover the truth about this self-professed prophet.

Book Club Bonus: Holy shiitake mushrooms, friends. This book is one of the most searing indictments of colonialism I have read in awhile. Discuss the symbolism of magic and the djinn as they correlate to discussions about white supremacy.

In this suspenseful, atmospheric mystery set in Joseon, Korea, Min Hwani and her sister disappeared as children. They were later found unconscious in a nearby forest next to what looked like a grizzly murder scene, but their family hasn’t been the same ever since. Years later in the mid 1400s, their detective father learns that 13 other girls have disappeared in that same forest and travels to their hometown on the island of Jeju—and now he’s gone missing too. Min Hwani sets out find her father and get to the bottom of these mysterious disappearances, but the secrets she unburies suggest the answer could lie within her own buried memories.

Book Club Bonus: There is a good convo to be had here on the constraints of filial piety. Also discuss women’s lack of bodily agency at the time and the dangerous mix that is obsessive protection and misogyny.

Constellation magic on the Underground Railroad! In this speculative historical fantasy set after the end of the Civil War, Hetty Rhodes is a former conductor on the Underground Railroad who used both wits and magic to shepherd dozens of people north to safety. She and her husband Benjy have settled in Philadelphia where they dedicate themselves to solving murders and mysteries that white authorities won’t investigate. When Hetty and Benjy find one of their own slain in an alley, they bury the body, head off in search of answers, and soon find that the secrets and lives of Philadelphia’s Black elite leave them with more questions instead. To solve this mystery, they’ll need to confront some ugly truths, including ones about their friends—and each other. This is the first in a series!

Book Club Bonus: Discuss the importance of community in this book, and also in communities of color in present day and throughout history. Examine the idea of community as protection, as survival, as care, as companionship, and as combatting the injustice of a system that was never meant to serve you.