All Reviews

Children's & YAPicture BookChildren's

Dive, Dive into the Night Sea

Review by Jill Lorenzini

A tiny figure stands on the prow of a dark ship, against a backdrop of blues and grays. The moon and stars dot the sky and shimmer in reflections upon the surface of the water. This is the very first—and perhaps the most captivating—image we see in Thea Lu’s Dive, Dive into the Night Sea, which takes readers on an adventure to a place most of us will never visit.

Lu’s first-person narration makes the reader part of the story, sharing the inner thoughts of its unnamed diver protagonist.The writing is very simple and straightforward, with only one detailed inset with facts about plankton. While this makes the book linguistically accessible to even very early readers, it may leave readers who are looking for more factual information about the ocean wanting. 

The standout of Dive, Dive into the Night Sea is Lu’s artwork, which uses unique perspectives to bring us under the water. We look up at the boat floating on the surface, we peek into a reef, get very cozy with a parrotfish and feel tiny swimming beside enormous whales. The story is told in blue-gray and muted shadowy tones, with a few colors revealed by the diver’s flashlight beam, highlighting the vibrant life in the depths. But even outside the light, manta rays feed, octopuses hide behind rocks and a pod of whales rests. Lu’s art is calm and detailed, making the dive feel safe and interesting, rather than full of adrenaline. That said, keep your eyes peeled for the very last image, which features an extremely large, lurking creature, leaving the story on a bit of a cliffhanger. 

While some of Lu’s fish are bizarre or toothy, nobody is overly scary or dangerous (minus potentially the lurking creature—readers will have to decide). Tranquil colors, relaxed narration and an unhurried feel give Dive, Dive into the Night Sea—as well as the ocean itself—an inviting and dreamlike quality.

Tranquil colors, relaxed narration and an unhurried feel give Dive, Dive into the Night Sea—as well as the ocean itself—an inviting and dreamlike quality.
Children's & YAMiddle GradeChildren's

Bye Forever, I Guess

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

As bestselling fantasy romance author Jodi Meadows’ smart, funny, perfectly paced Bye Forever, I Guess, opens, 13-year-old Ingrid is in the waning moments of her so-called friendship with Rachel, a master manipulator who loves to make Ingrid feel less-than.

Rachel has certainly succeeded—but much less often lately, perhaps because Ingrid is going online, where she enjoys a cyber-life that offers a welcome contrast to Rachel’s lunch table drama. Ingrid runs an anonymous Scrollr account, Bye Forever, I Guess, a fun compendium of wrong-number texts that boasts hundreds of thousands of followers. And she’s made a dear friend, Lorren, via hours of enthusiastically playing the MMORPG Ancient Tomes Online and sharing their devotion to a book series called the Essa Lightborne Chronicles. 

Now, eighth grade’s beginning in the small town of Deer Hill, Virginia, and Ingrid’s ready to bring some of her online mojo IRL. She has a supportive, communicative relationship with her grandma (who runs a popular YouTube channel, Yarn Star), but she’s still lonely at school and Lorren lives 500 long miles away. New kids Alyx and Oliver seem promising, but Rachel’s meanness and Ingrid’s awkwardness add up to lunchtime in the library for the latter, where she despairs of finding the in-person connections she craves. 

Then, a misdirected text from a boy who goes by Traveler pops up, and thanks to lots of ensuing witty text exchanges, a new online friendship—and a crush!—blossoms. But something nags at Ingrid: Traveler’s original text was directed to a “Rachel.” It couldn’t be Ingrid’s Rachel . . . could it? As she strives to find the answer to that nauseating question, Ingrid excitedly prepares for an Essa Lightborne event and ponders the vagaries of longing to be closer to someone she might not truly know: “I’d fastened my heart to a boy I could only half have, and I wanted more.”

Bye Forever, I Guess makes an excellent case for wanting more for ourselves in all areas of our lives, and for insisting on being seen, even if it’s awkward or scary at first. Meadows’ middle grade debut is a well-written, winning coming-of-age tale with loads of hilarity, empathy and heart.

Jodi Meadows’ middle grade debut, Bye Forever, I Guess, is a well-written, winning coming-of-age tale with loads of hilarity, empathy and heart.
Children's & YAMiddle GradeChildren's

Still Sal

Review by Alice Cary

Sal Miller has “been ready for first grade for years.” The big day has finally arrived in Still Sal, Kevin Henkes’ latest chapter book about the Miller Family. Just as Beverly Cleary explored the Quimby family with beloved books about sisters Beezus and Ramona, Henkes has written with extraordinary perception and depth about the lives of 6-year-old Sal (Oh, Sal) and her older brother, Billy (Billy Miller Makes a Wish and Newbery Honoree The Year of Billy Miller). Still Sal is yet another book that demonstrates the myriad reasons this multitalented author and illustrator received the Children’s Literature Legacy Award in 2020. 

“First grade isn’t as good as I thought it would be,” Sal soon discovers, especially when her best friend and neighbor, Griff, gets the lively, young, hip Ms. Flowers as a teacher, while Sal is assigned to dowdy Ms. McCormick, who wears shoes that “looked like loaves of underbaked bread,” has “streaky oatmeal-colored hair,” and seems to be all business and no fun. As Ms. Flowers becomes Sal’s new idol, she tries to do everything she can to be just like Ms. Flowers and be invited into her class. 

Like Ramona, Sal is a force of nature, a little girl with big feelings. For example, when passing her neighbor’s house—who has been dead for two years—Sal muses “that Mr. Tooley’s ghost was in the house. It wasn’t scary—just a presence she sensed, but couldn’t explain, and kept to herself.” Henkes’ exquisite prose plunges readers right into every corner of Sal’s mind and world as she deals with Billy, Griff and her sometimes annoying sister, Poppy, who is 2 and now sharing her room—yet another surprising assault on Sal’s psyche. She is gently guided by Mama, a high school English teacher, and Papa, a sculptor who works out of the garage. 

This chapter book is suitable for young listeners as a read-aloud or early readers as independent reading, while also being filled with emotionally complex characters and riveting, poignant moments—along with plenty of humor. Still Sal is not to be missed, and will leave readers eagerly awaiting the next Miller family installment. 

Filled with emotionally complex characters and riveting, poignant moments, along with plenty of humor, Still Sal is not to be missed.
Audio

The Modern Fairies

Review by Tami Orendain

Clare Pollard’s The Modern Fairies (8 hours) transports listeners to a high-class Paris salon where socialites gather to do what they do best: tell stories. A work of historical fiction that features real famous writers Marie D’Aulnoy and Charles Perrault, The Modern Fairies is a sensual, clever reimagining of France during the reign of Louis XIV.

Narrator Kathryn Drysdale takes on the complex challenge of not only voicing a cast of dynamic characters, but also performing the fairy tales that they recite for one another. Energetic and enthusiastic, Drysdale expertly captures the bawdiness of these salons—as well as the darkness that dwells underneath.

Witty and sly, the audiobook edition of The Modern Fairies asks listeners to lean in to scandal, debauchery and deception, inviting us to be part of the gossip and in on the joke. Listening will make you feel like you’re in the salon yourself, allowing you to be a wary observer of the upper class, and giving you a front-row seat to the glittering origins of the fairy tale genre.

Read our starred review of the print version of The Modern Fairies.

Listening to Kathryn Drysdale read The Modern Fairies will make you feel like you’re in a 17th-century Paris salon yourself, with a front-row seat to the glittering origins of the fairy tale genre.
Children's & YAChildren's

Griso

Review by Callie Ann Starkey

Griso the unicorn is the last of his kind. Unhappy with his lonely life, he goes in search of another like him. As he travels across the plains, he encounters many animals in his search: antelope, buffalo and even “sea-unicorns.” But no matter where he goes, he finds “not a single unicorn—apart from Griso.” Suddenly, a person appears—a knight with a lance! But as Griso comes closer, the knight lifts his weapon to try and make a trophy out of the unicorn! Griso flees to safety and disappears into the fog. As it clears, Griso sees a shadow following him. Could it be a friend? 

Each spread in Roger Mello’s Griso: The One and Only takes inspiration from a different period of art. From prehistoric cave drawings to ancient Grecian vase paintings to 20th century surrealism, the artwork takes a journey as compelling as that taken by the majestic unicorn himself. Back matter includes a list of all the styles represented, as well as a heartwarming note from Claudia de Moraes (with whom Mello has often talked about unicorns) imploring readers to seek out unicorns themselves “in books, in paintings, in quotations.”

Originally published in Portuguese and translated into English by award-winning writer and translator Daniel Hahn, Griso is a perfect introduction for children to the diversity to be found within art history. Readers will enjoy exploring the different styles and the colors, shapes and patterns of each unique illustration. It’s a delightful reminder that all art tells a story. 

Lovers of unicorns and other mythical creatures will certainly enjoy this picture book, as well as art appreciators of all ages. For anyone who has felt like an outsider, Griso reminds us that some of the best friendships bloom from our differences. Griso will leave readers feeling hopeful and optimistic, looking for unicorns in their own lives.

From prehistoric cave drawings to ancient Grecian vase paintings to 20th century surrealism, the artwork in Griso takes a journey as compelling as that taken by the titular unicorn himself.
Audio

Lo Fi

Review by Norah Piehl

In Liz Riggs’ Lo Fi (10.5 hours), Alison Hunter has put her dreams of musical stardom firmly behind her after a near-disastrous open mic night and subsequent (song)writer’s block, and for now she’s satisfied to check IDs and stamp wrists at The Venue, a landmark music club in Nashville, spending her 20s aimlessly hooking up with bartenders and snagging free drinks. But that’s before her old flame Nick comes back into town, and before an up-and-coming indie musician goes missing. Audiobook narrator Jesse Vilinsky effectively captures Alison’s voice, which alternates between dreamy lyricism and sharp observation of the Nashville music scene and its wannabes, and she also portrays Allison’s love interests with masculine huskiness. Although the lists of songs that bookend many chapters are initially confusing for a listener, once you understand the project, you’ll enjoy reminiscing over them. The only downside to the audio version of Lo Fi is that you can’t play these nostalgia-laced playlists at the same time as you listen.

Audiobook narrator Jesse Vilinsky captures dreamy lyricism and sharp observation of the Nashville music scene and its wannabes in the audiobook of Liz Riggs’ Lo Fi.
Audio

Somewhere Beyond the Sea

Review by Maya Fleischmann

Daniel Henning’s animated performance provides the perfect splash of drama and drollness in the audiobook of TJ Klune’s sequel to The House in the Cerulean Sea.

In Somewhere Beyond the Sea (16 hours), Arthur Parnassus and his boyfriend, Linus, have welcomed a 10-year-old yeti to their growing orphanage for magical children. But this endeavor of love is threatened by the interference of a social worker, who, believing the children’s abilities to be a threat to society, tries to wrangle enough proof of the danger they pose to remove them from the orphanage. Will Arthur be able to change the political climate in time to save his family?

An engaging storyteller, Henning masters a diverse range of character voices, especially his entertaining Scooby-Doo-esque voice for Chauncey, an adorable gelatinous creature who dreams of becoming a hotel bellhop. Though some plot elements can feel overly simplistic or didactic, Henning’s articulate, earnest narration winningly underscores Somewhere Beyond the Sea’s central themes of self-confidence, kindness, acceptance of others and the importance of working for sociopolitical reform.

Read our starred review of the print version of Somewhere Beyond the Sea.

Daniel Henning’s articulate, earnest narration winningly underscores Somewhere Beyond the Sea’s central themes of self-confidence, kindness and acceptance of others.
FictionLiterary FictionHistorical FictionDebut Fiction

What I Know About You

Review by Laura Sackton

In his beguiling debut novel, What I Know About You, Éric Chacour delicately explores the complicated circumstances that create distance between people, and the limits of what anyone can know about those they love.

In 1980s Cairo, Tarek, a doctor from a Levantine Christian family, begins a relationship with a young man. Up until this moment, Tarek’s life has been a series of expected events. He grew up to become a doctor like his father, and took over the family practice after his father died. He has played the roles his wealthy family expected him to: dutiful son, successful professional. 

The young man, Ali, comes from a poor neighborhood, and enlists Tarek’s help when his mother becomes ill. As their relationship evolves, Tarek is not prepared for all the ways his love for Ali changes him. He doesn’t know how to navigate a relationship that he must hide from his community. Ali upends Tarek’s neat, ordered life, and the turmoil affects Tarek’s entire family.

Despite several dramatic plot elements, this is a quiet, internal novel. Its brilliance is in the way Chacour plays with point of view. The opening section is written in the second person, and while at first it reads like it is addressing the reader, it soon becomes clear that something more complex is going on. Who is the narrator? Who are they speaking to? How do they know such intimate details about Tarek’s life, his doubts, fears, desires and joys?

In sparse but beautiful prose, Chacour invites readers into the secret world that exists between the mysterious narrator and Tarek. On the surface, What I Know About You is an emotional family story, a queer awakening, a tumultuous romance. It’s a richly textured portrait of Cairo from the 1960s through the 2000s, and a nuanced exploration of queer relationships in Egypt during a time of intense governmental and societal homophobia. But even more compelling than all that is the story underneath: the why and the how of the narrative itself. As the narrator muses at one point, “there’s no way to stay outside your own story.” 

Éric Chacour’s debut is an emotional family story, a tumultuous queer romance and a richly textured portrait of ’80s and ’90s Cairo—with an intriguing narrative twist.
Mystery & SuspenseMysteryCozy Mystery

We Solve Murders

Review by Jamie Orsini

Fans of The Thursday Murder Club mysteries will devour the first book in Richard Osman’s newest series, We Solve Murders.

Amy Wheeler is a bodyguard for Maximum Impact Solutions, a British private security company. Her latest assignment has her protecting Rosie D’Antonio, a brash, bestselling author who offended a Russian oligarch with her latest book. As the women hide out on a private island, Amy realizes she may be in trouble: Three of her previous clients have been killed, all while she was nearby. Is someone targeting Maximum Impact Solutions? Or Amy herself?

After Amy narrowly survives an attack, the women go on the run, and Amy contacts the only person she trusts: her father-in-law, Steve. The former London cop is mostly retired, though he takes on private investigator jobs to stay sharp. Steve is a homebody at heart, preferring to spend his time with his cat, Trouble, though he never misses the weekly pub quiz with his friends. Still, when Amy needs him, Steve hops on a plane to help figure out who’s setting up Amy and why.

We Solve Murders is an outstanding mystery novel, rife with red herrings and numerous suspects, as well as Osman’s signature humor and heart. It’s a pitch-perfect blend of the cozy mystery and thriller genres: The sleuths are working out the intricately plotted mystery on their own, without the help of law enforcement; the overall tone of the book is breezy and fun, despite the body count; and the mystery takes the main characters all over the world, exposing them to danger and some unsavory individuals. There’s a little violence—Amy is a bodyguard and someone is trying to kill them, after all—but little to no gore. Steve is the quintessential cozy mystery sleuth, while Amy is a perfect choice to lead a thriller novel. In combining the two, Osman gives readers the best of both genres.

While the central puzzle is excellent and well-crafted, the heart of the novel lies with Amy, Steve and Rosie. Amy and Steve share a sweet bond, and both are battling trauma and loss in their own ways. And Rosie is in a league of her own: The older author is fabulous, brave and hilarious in equal measure. She helps Amy and Steve become better versions of themselves, and steals just about every scene she’s in. Another standout character is the mysterious “Francois Loubet,” the mastermind behind the killings. The novel is interspersed with messages from Loubet, who uses ChatGPT to further disguise his true identity. Readers will enjoy following Osman’s clues to figure out who Loubet is and why he’s targeting Amy and Maximum Impact Solutions.

Mystery fans have been richly rewarded with We Solve Murders, and will be happy to know that Osman has more in store for these characters.

In We Solve Murders, Richard Osman accomplishes the seemingly impossible: a cozy mystery-thriller mashup.
NonfictionMemoir

We Will Be Jaguars

Review by Anne Bartlett

Nemonte Nenquimo and her family lived within nature, with food from the river, the rainforest and their gardens. A monkey was her childhood pet. According to family lore, she knew she would become a spirit jaguar when she died. But things were changing fast: A huge metal tube had descended from the sky not too many years before she was born. The missionaries who emerged from it didn’t speak her language, but they persuaded her community’s leaders to put a mark on a paper in return for clothing and other gifts.

Within a couple of decades later, her river was black with pollution, much of her forest was cut down, her community’s men had been coerced into laboring for oil companies in exchange for pieces of paper their way of life had no use for. White people said Nenquimo and her community must worship their god. She and other children were herded into schools that forced them to put aside their traditions.

A Waorani woman from Ecuador’s Amazon region, Nenquimo co-founded the Indigenous-led Ceibo Alliance that scored a major legal victory in 2019, protecting half a million acres of rainforest from oil drilling. Nenquimo has been lauded internationally for her activism; now, with husband Mitch Anderson, an American environmentalist, she is telling her story in the inspired and rare We Will Be Jaguars: A Memoir of My People.

In this lyrically written memoir, Nenquimo takes us inside her world, with its tensions between her family’s shamanistic traditions and the initial allure of the Christian missionaries, who taught her to read and write in Spanish, allowing her to communicate more widely. But this education came at a cost that traumatized Nenquimo for years. She describes her emotional journey through a deeply spiritual perspective, including one remarkable scene in which drinking ayahuasca brings her a revelatory vision. 

Nenquimo sharply conveys the sheer confusion and terror of colonialism for the Waorani and other Indigenous peoples. Missionaries, oil executives and government officials used underhanded methods to wrest control of the region from families like Nenquimo’s. Ironically, the missionary education gave Nenquimo and others the tools they needed to fight back. Her story is one of fierce determination to claim a heritage that was nearly stolen from her. 

Climate activist Nemonte Nenquimo tells the story of her Waorani people in the inspired, beautifully written We Will Be Jaguars.
NonfictionSocial ScienceEssays

Want

Review by Laura Hutson Hunter

As Gillian Anderson prepared for her role as a sex therapist in the British TV show Sex Education (which this writer quickly added to her Netflix queue), she read the 1973 cult classic My Secret Garden, a compendium of fantasies collected by novelist Nancy Friday. In Friday’s book, Anderson writes, it was revealed that “. . . for some of us, the sex we have in our head may be more stimulating than the physical nuts and bolts of any coupling, no matter how hot. Unconstrained by assumed social conventions, self-consciousness, or perhaps the fear of making our partner uncomfortable, in our imagination we can indulge in our deepest, most transgressive desires.”

Inspired by Friday, Anderson put out an invitation for women and genderqueer people to write down their own fantasies and send them to her. She soon began amassing a “torrent of unbridled passion from around the world.” The result is Want: Sexual Fantasies by Anonymous, an extensive series of writings—some less than a page long, but most a page or two—detailing a multitude of diverse fantasies. What began as a platform for women to anonymously share fantasies has turned into something like a calling.

The polyvocality of Want means there’s something for everyone, but it also means that you’ll probably come across a fantasy you’ve never considered, as with Anderson, who writes that she was fascinated by the number of women with dreams of being milked like a cow. “The human imagination has few limits and our sexual desires and fantasies are no different, yet are still treated as taboo,” she writes in the book’s introduction. “Is everyone ashamed and pretending not to be?”

Anderson herself is among the anonymous writers here. There’s no hint at which of the many fantasies is hers; the only identity markers at the end of every essay are nationality, income, religion, sexual orientation, relationship status and whether the writer has children. “I was terrified of putting my fantasy down on paper,” she writes, “lest someone was able to discern which was mine.” But after reading more than 1,000 others, she finds that “sexual liberation must mean freedom to enjoy sex on our terms, to say what we want, not what we are pressured or believe we are expected to want.”

With luck, this provocative, original volume will help women and genderqueer people feel more empowered and less ashamed.

Gillian Anderson asked women to send her their sexual fantasies. The result is a provocative, original volume that will help women and genderqueer people feel more empowered and less ashamed.
Science Fiction & FantasyFantasy

We Love the Nightlife

Review by Matthew Jackson

Quite often in fiction, the figure of the vampire has represented loneliness; readers are very accustomed to the particular kind of yearning that immortality and blood thirst can bring. We’ve seen it in the work of Anne Rice, Stephenie Meyer and many more, but we’ve arguably never seen that sense of yearning quite the way Rachel Koller Croft portrays it in her new novel, We Love the Nightlife.

In Croft’s follow-up to her debut, the thriller Stone Cold Fox, the vampires of Nightlife are draped in yearning even as their never-ending revels mask what they really want. Croft’s protagonist, Amber, is frozen in her party girl prime, turned in the waning days of the 1970s by her maker, the beautiful and manipulative Nicola. Decades later, despite the comfortable life they share in a Victorian mansion, and Nicola’s ambition to open a new nightclub to be their personal playground, the old ways of doing things start to chafe at Amber. She begins to imagine what life might be like without Nicola, and considers what an escape plan might look like. But Nicola’s influence is powerful, her ambitions are vast and her appetite for control deeper than Amber ever imagined.

When we meet her, Amber is not physically alone, but she is lonely, trapped in a domineering friendship she’d rather leave, desperate for a way to change her circumstances and yearning for a different life. It’s a place most of us have been at some point or another, and despite her vampiric nature, Amber feels like one of us. This is mainly due to Croft’s skill; her conversational, warm and relatable prose depicts Amber not as a lonely monster, but as a person longing for freedom in a savage world covered in glitter and awash with pulsing music.

The real magic trick of the novel, though, is how Croft fleshes out the world beyond Amber’s view. Nicola’s perspective is also laced throughout the narrative, from her childhood more than a century earlier to her very particular desires in the present day. We get to see not just Nicola’s side of the story, but her own brand of yearning, giving the book an antagonist who’s not just remarkably well-developed, but human in her own twisted way. These dueling perspectives, coupled with memorable side characters and a beautifully paced plot, make We Love the Nightlife an engrossing, darkly funny, twisted breakup story that’s perfect for vampire fiction fans and fans of relationship drama alike.

We Love the Nightlife is an engrossing, darkly funny and twisted story about a friendship breakup—between two vampires.
Children's & YAPicture BookChildren's

Up, Up, Ever Up!

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

After reluctantly turning the final page of the beautifully illustrated Up, Up, Ever Up! Junko Tabei: A Life in the Mountains, readers will want to run outside and start hiking, pausing only to spread the word about the impressive woman at the heart of Anita Yasuda’s inspiring and poetic biography for young readers.

As a young child, Junko Tabei was enchanted by the natural world, especially the peaks that provided a dramatic backdrop to her home in Japan. As Yasuda writes, “Stories of mountains drifted all around her until silvery domes and icy peaks unfurled as far as she could see.” 

Tabei took the first step of her big mountain dreams at age 10 by climbing Mount Chausu (elevation: 4,643 feet) with friends. As she grew, so did her desire to ascend ever higher: She set her sights on becoming the first woman to summit Mount Everest (elevation: 29,032 feet). Naysayers emerged all around, from mountaineering clubs that excluded women, to sponsors who said mothers should stay home with their children. But Tabei found kindred spirits in her climbing aficionado husband and two children, as well as other adventurous women who shared her determination. Together, they felt unstoppable. 

Despite dizzying heights, gear that fit badly  because it was made for men, and even an avalanche, Tabei and her compatriots persisted. This exciting story of scaling great heights and blazing trails captures their trials and triumphs for those who will come after. Yuko Shimizu’s gorgeous, often fantastical illustrations—finely detailed via Japanese calligraphy brush, vibrantly colored, and rife with movement and texture—combine with Yasuda’s compelling, uplifting words to vividly convey Tabei’s indomitable spirit.

In the book’s back matter, Yasuda notes the numerous high points of Tabei’s life and expands on her environmental advocacy, a pursuit she engaged in until her death in 2016 at age 77. Readers of Up, Up, Ever Up! will surely agree that “Junko’s remarkable life inspires others to pursue their dreams, step by step, up, up, and ever up!”

Yuko Shimizu’s gorgeous, fantastical illustrations combine with Anita Yasuda’s compelling, uplifting words to vividly convey the indomitable spirit of trailblazing mountaineer Junko Tabei in Up, Up, Ever Up!

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