Alice Cary

Mystery & SuspenseMystery

The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia

Review by Alice Cary

“Too bad I never went to detective school,” Francesca Loftfield muses near the end of The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia. On a mission for an international aid group, the 27-year-old arrives in the titular Italian town in 1960, charged with starting a nursery school in the isolated mountain village. Life here couldn’t be more different than her native Philadelphia: There’s abundant poverty, minimal electricity and no roads, doctor or police force. The big surprise, however, is a skeleton that’s just turned up; it’s been buried under the post office for years but resurfaced during a flood. Several women beg Francesca to investigate, each sure the bones belong to a missing relative. Francesca’s volatile, opinionated landlord, Cicca, claims that “Fate has brought us together,” and before long, they are calling themselves Watson and Holmes as they investigate the mystery.

Fans of Juliet Grames’ debut, The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna, will welcome more of the author’s immersive descriptions of Calabrian culture and scenery. Francesca is charged with interviewing families to determine who should be enrolled in the nursery school, which gives her the perfect excuse to snoop around. A likable, intelligent narrator, she begins to piece together many of the village’s secrets, while observing its economy, customs, victimization of women, patriarchal and religious domination, politics, emigration and more. The author has called herself “a lifelong student of the Italian-American immigrant experience,” and her expertise, eye for detail and verisimilitude shine on every page. There are lovely moments of human connection, humor and a romance with a handsome man named Ugo, who even Francesca declares to be “a cliché of a romantic hero.” Grames makes excellent use of the area’s dramatic landscape: As the suspense heats up, Francesca finds herself in increasingly dangerous situations.

Just like a big Italian family, the novel contains a multitude of characters and plot threads, many of which require careful attention, causing confusion for Francesca and perhaps readers as well. There’s a big, abrupt twist at the very end, which makes one wonder if a sequel might be in store. With The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia, Grames has created a village teeming with life, and, as it turns out, danger and death.

Juliet Grames’ expertise in Calabrian culture and eye for detail shine on every page of The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia, a historical mystery set in 1960 Italy.
Children's & YAPicture BookChildren's

The First Week of School

Review by Alice Cary

Drew Beckmeyer’s The First Week of School is a game changer, an exceptionally creative back-to-school book that practically turns the genre on its head. It’s full of droll humor that will appeal to readers young and old. As the title suggests, it chronicles a first week inside an elementary school classroom, offering a bird’s-eye view of a variety of perspectives. In a clever, understated nod to the way people tend to pigeonhole both themselves and others, the students are given simple monikers such as the Artist, the Inventor and the Sports Kings, “who usually spend all Recess arguing about teams and never get to actually playing.” But at one point, readers learn that “The Artist is actually the fastest runner in the grade.” Beckmeyer even shares the perspective of Pat, the class’s pet bearded dragon; as well as the teacher (“the teacher gets her eighth cup of coffee before lunch”).

The plot thickens on Tuesday, when an alien called Nobody is beamed down from a spaceship, although everyone at school simply assumes this is the new student who was supposed to arrive next week. All sorts of unexpected, imaginative interactions occur: Nobody and Pat have a slumber party; the Inventor finds mysterious machine parts under his desk; Nobody takes an interest in the shy Artist’s drawings and even mounts an exhibition.

The First Week of School is a sophisticated picture book that packs an amazing punch, brimming with atmosphere and personality—and a wide range of activities, including a STEM lab, gym, show and tell, and recess. It overflows with wry comments, such as an escalating exchange about reading levels during storytime that ends with one student announcing, “I actually memorized this whole book. I read at a twentieth-grade level.”

Beckmeyer’s art style carries a childlike feel, adding authenticity to his narrative voice. Rendered in crayon, his many aerial perspectives take the reader from outer space and zoom in on the sun setting over the ocean and hilly terrain surrounding the school, then on the schoolyard and parking lot, eventually beaming readers—as well as the visiting alien—right into the classroom. In addition to being chock-full of pure entertainment, the diverse perspectives offered in The First Week of School remind readers of all ages that there are many ways to approach a classroom and the many unique, surprising personalities inside.

The First Week of School is a sophisticated picture book that packs an amazing punch, brimming with atmosphere and personality
NonfictionTrue Crime

The Devil Behind the Badge

Review by Alice Cary

District Attorney Isidro R. Alaniz believes that when taking a case to a jury, “The most effective structure for any argument will always be a story.” The 49th Judicial District of Texas, which he serves, is home to Laredo, where Alaniz led the prosecution of Juan David Ortiz, a married father of three and a 10-year member of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency who in September 2018 murdered four sex workers. In The Devil Behind the Badge: The Horrifying Twelve Days of the Border Patrol Serial Killer, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Rick Jervis delivers the tragic, headline-grabbing story with staccato precision and emotional depth. 

Jervis takes readers right into the heart of the San Bernardo Avenue district of sex workers, drug dealers and people with substance abuse disorders who live within a stone’s throw of the U.S.-Mexico border. Ortiz’s victims—Melissa Ramirez, Claudine Anne Luera, Guiselda Alicia Cantu and Janelle Ortiz—are painted vividly, thanks to Jervis’ many interviews with their families and friends. He carefully sets the stage for how each of these women’s lives intersected with one other and with Ortiz, who grew up as a Bible-toting Pentecostal Christian, served as a Navy medical corpsman in Iraq and eventually became a supervisor at the Border Patrol. Ortiz  refused Jervis’ interview requests and has given scant clues to what may have sparked his spree, but the author notes that the agency “tolerated an environment of misogyny and impunity within its ranks during Ortiz’s tenure there.”

One victim’s sister addressed Ortiz in the courtroom, saying, “You gave your word to protect the border, yet you failed. You betrayed your badge.” Jervis excels at conveying the frenzy of Ortiz’s crimes and his dramatic capture. The Devil Behind the Badge is an unsettling account of a serial killer leading a double life: one masquerading as an upright citizen, and the other mercilessly preying on society’s most vulnerable.

 

The Devil Behind the Badge is an unsettling true crime account of a U.S. Border Patrol officer who mercilessly preyed on society’s most vulnerable.
Children's & YAPicture BookChildren's

That Always Happens Sometimes

Review by Alice Cary

Get ready to fall in love with Max, the irrepressible elementary school narrator of That Always Happens Sometimes. He’s full of energy and enthusiasm that constantly erupts like a volcano.

In Kiley Frank’s clever text, Max poses a series of questions that reveal his personality, such as “Have your electric pencil sharpener privileges ever been revoked because of an unfortunate incident with a crayon?”  On each spread, K-Fai Steele’s illustrations beautifully capture Max’s gusto and the path of debris—not to mention consequences—that follow. His parents and teachers try to rein him in with multiple checklists (items include “keep hands to myself”) and interventions (tennis balls on the legs of his chair to squelch his noisy movements).

Both Frank and Steele excel at conveying much with small, powerful flourishes. For instance, in the chaotic aftermath of Max’s parents trying to get him to school on time, Frank writes, “The car ride to school was very quiet,” while a full-page spread uses just a few strokes to show Max in the back seat clutching his backpack and his father gripping the steering wheel, fury flashing in his eyes and tight-lipped mouth.

Frank uses Max’s questions to reveal life at home and at school, and poses variations on his answers to move the story along in creative ways. Max repeatedly notes, “That always happens sometimes,” or “I always feel that way.”  One day, however, he says, “This has never happened before,” as he participates in an intriguing team-building exercise that produces surprising and affirming results for all.

Young and old readers alike will recognize themselves or someone they know in Max. That Always Happens Sometimes is a delightful book guaranteed to bring on both laughs and greater understanding of the many Maxs in the world.

That Always Happens Sometimes is a delightful book guaranteed to bring on both laughs and greater understanding of the many Maxs in the world.
Children's & YAPicture BookChildren's

Ladybugs Do Not Go to Preschool

Review by Alice Cary

On the first morning of preschool, Ravi comes downstairs wearing ladybug wings and antennae. When he refuses cornflakes for breakfast, his mother tells him that it’s actually a bowl full of “aphids,” leading him to slurp it down. Later, when she suggests that Ravi brush his teeth, he replies, “Ladybugs don’t have teeth . . . but my mandibles could do with a clean—they’re full of aphid guts.” Such is the delightful back-and-forth between a mother and her imaginative son in Ali Rutstein’s Ladybugs Do Not Go to Preschool, a familiar tale of first day of school jitters with a creative twist.

Despite his reluctance, Ravi is a “curious sort of ladybug,” somewhat tempted by his mother’s promise of new friends and art projects. There’s a perfectly balanced interplay between Ravi’s worries and his mother’s support and encouragement. Kids will enjoy the exchange of ladybug details, although additional educational facts about these insects would have been a nice addition for eager learners.

Niña Nill’s cheerful art adds just the right touch, transforming Ravi and his bowl haircut into a ladybug look-alike, and adding subtle details such as an “Aphids” label to the cereal box. Nill puts elements like this on every page—Ravi’s red cheeks look like ladybug spots, and the house’s bright floral dining room rug, seen from an overhead perspective, makes readers feel as though they’re gazing into a garden scene.

Ravi’s worried expressions readily transmit his fears, which evaporate when he sees a helpful omen once at school, as well as other students’ imaginative costumes on the final spread. Ladybugs Do Not Go to Preschool overflows with imagination and humor, making it an excellent choice for young new students.

Ladybugs Do Not Go to Preschool overflows with imagination and humor, making it an excellent choice for young new students.
FictionPopular FictionDystopian Fiction

Burn

Review by Alice Cary

After their annual two-week hunting trip in northern Maine, lifelong friends Jess and Storey emerge from the wilderness to a bewildering new world. Bridges have been blown up, houses burned and villages abandoned—and there’s no internet connection to turn to for an explanation. Before their trip, there had been rumblings about militant groups that wanted Maine to secede, but the pair hadn’t been worried. Now, however, they find themselves “in the wake of a rolling catastrophe, moving behind some malign harvest whose shape and intention they could only guess.”

Peter Heller’s seventh novel, Burn, is one of his best: It’s full of heart and soul amid the bleak landscape (be forewarned, there are numerous bodies). In fact, even those who don’t normally turn to dystopian novels are likely to be completely captivated. Heller excels at writing about the wilderness, showcasing its might and beauty amid deadly situations, as he’s done before in books like The Last Ranger, The Guide and The River. Here, humans present the greatest danger as Jess and Storey attempt to make their way to safety, combining their intellects and survival skills in a way that brings to mind HBO’s The Last of Us, minus the fungus-infested zombies. Before long, these two men make a discovery that changes the calculus of their each and every move.

In addition to being a survival thriller and insurrectionist nightmare, this is also a story centered on friendship, how it is tested and how it perseveres. Burn interweaves the friends’ past and present lives with admirable flair, making each thread equally riveting. Some readers may find one surprising past relationship hard to buy, but even that doesn’t distract from the tight, authentic bond that forms the basis of this novel. “Love is attention,” Jess’s ex-wife once told him. “That is all you know on earth.” Over the course of the novel, Jess finally comes to understand what she means, making his emotional journey just as charged as the perilous landscape that he and Storey are forced to traverse. Burn is a propulsive tale that will keep readers on the edge of their seats from beginning to end.

Peter Heller’s seventh novel, Burn, is one of his best: It’s full of heart and soul amid the bleak landscape, and even those who don’t normally turn to dystopian novels are likely to be completely captivated.
NonfictionTrue Crime

A Devil Went Down to Georgia

Review by Alice Cary

On January 16, 1987, a vibrant, beloved Black woman, 35-year-old Lita McClinton Sullivan, opened the door of her townhouse in a wealthy Atlanta neighborhood to a man who seemed to be delivering flowers. Instead, he gunned her down, killing her with one shot to the head. Later that day, a judge had been scheduled to announce the division of assets in her divorce after 10 years of marriage to white millionaire Jim Sullivan. Nineteen years later, in 2006, Sullivan was convicted of hiring a hit man to kill Lita; his conviction was based largely on the testimony of that hit man, who in 2003 received a 20-year prison sentence for his role in the murder.

Journalist Deb Miller Landau writes a sweeping account of this crime and prolonged road to justice in A Devil Went Down to Georgia: Race, Power, Privilege, and the Murder of Lita McClinton. Landau first covered the case for Atlanta magazine in 2004. She writes of that story, “what really climbed under my skin was the humanity and depravity of it all. What makes people become who they are? What leads us to the choices we make?” The case continued to haunt her, and after George Floyd’s murder in May 2020, Landau, who is white, wondered, “How clearly had I seen Lita the first time I wrote this story?”

She revisited McClinton’s parents, now in their late 80s: Her mother, the “still glamorous” Jo Ann, is a former Georgia General Assembly representative; her father, Emory, is a retired engineer who has cancer and dementia. Neither parent approved of Sullivan, a divorced father of four who was 10 years older than their debutante daughter. As one source told Landau, “He was a real sociopath. He could be charming, but he could turn on you like a cobra.”

Landau excels at laying out decades of details, deftly weaving her recent investigations, including her meeting with the hit man, into the long timeline. While she does try to focus on Lita’s perspective, the victim’s long-silenced voice is hard to capture. In contrast, Sullivan’s misdeeds and bizarre behaviors reverberate, including his womanizing and lavish spending that alternated with extreme miserliness, despite the fact that he and Lita had been living in a 17,000 square foot mansion, a historic landmark called Casa Eleda in opulent Palm Beach, Florida.

A Devil Went Down to Georgia chronicles a collision course of race, power, class and, most of all, Sullivan’s narcissism and endless greed. It’s a page-turning saga, as well as a testament to Lita, her devastated family and the determined investigators and lawyers who sought justice for them.

 

A Devil Went Down to Georgia is a page-turning true crime saga about a calculating white millionaire, the vibrant Black wife he murdered and her family’s long pursuit of justice.
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Trust Her

Review by Alice Cary

Set aside some time once you start reading Trust Her, because after a page of what seems like an idyllic summer outing on the Irish coast, Tessa Daly is plunged into a nightmare: held hostage and forced back into a life she thought she had left behind forever. Flynn Berry fans will recognize Tessa as the heroine of Berry’s bestselling novel Northern Spy. In that book, Tessa’s sister, Marian, was an IRA member who was secretly feeding information to MI5 in hopes of fostering peace talks, and she recruited Tessa to help carry out this task. 

Berry’s crisp prose, artful plotting and short chapters make for another thrilling read. Trust Her takes place three years after Northern Spy’s explosive finale, with the sisters now living in Dublin and focusing on their young children. Narrator Tessa notes early on, “I’d stopped being scared of the IRA in the daylight. Stupid, unbelievable logic. . . . We should have seen this coming.” While the two mothers have been immersed in strep throat, croup and pickup times, Tessa notes, “The IRA haven’t gone away, after all. We’d only stopped thinking about them.” 

Why Flynn Berry wrote a surprise sequel to ‘Northern Spy.’

Now the IRA demands that Tessa reconnect with her and Marian’s MI5 handler, Eamonn, to try to turn him into an informant. Tessa wants absolutely no part of this, but nonetheless, when she sees Eamonn again, their mutual attraction resurfaces. It’s a cat-and-mouse game of the best kind, interspersing plenty of high-octane, frightening moments with Tessa’s quotidian joys, concerns and exhaustion as a single mother to 4-year-old Finn. This juxtaposition is the rocket fuel of spy dramas, and Berry tackles both the mundane and the extraordinary equally well, with perfect pacing throughout. While this is a story full of long-held secrets and startling revelations, newcomers will have no trouble coming up to speed—even if they will likely want to read the book they’ve missed.

On top of her love-hate relationship with Eamonn, Tessa harbors complicated feelings toward Marian for drawing her into this web in the first place. Trust Her is brilliantly titled, gesturing towards “the long chain reaction” of personal ties and vendettas that led to political turmoil and splintered lives for so many families. As Tessa notes, “I know, in my bones, that the conflict won’t end in my lifetime. We’re all trapped in it, caught in lockstep.” Perhaps, at least, this might mean readers will be hearing more from Tessa and Marian Daly.

Set aside some time once you start reading Trust Her, because Flynn Berry’s return to the world of Northern Spy is nothing short of thrilling.
Children's & YAMiddle GradeChildren's

The Tenth Mistake of Hank Hooperman

Review by Alice Cary

Gennifer Choldenko’s The Tenth Mistake of Hank Hooperman is a moving story about an 11-year-old abandoned by his single mom and left to care for his 3-year-old sister, Boo, inspired by Choldenko’s own childhood experiences of having undependable parents and a caring older brother who acted as a surrogate parent. Fans of the Newbery Honor author’s Tales from Alcatraz series won’t be disappointed. Hank is an engaging narrator, and his desperate plight, as well as the caring community of characters he encounters, are reminiscent of Kate DiCamilo’s Beverly, Right Here.

After about a week alone in their apartment, facing eviction with no money, food, or electricity, Hank, who has no idea who his father is, realizes that his mother isn’t coming back anytime soon. Hank loves his mom, but he knows  that sometimes she “will drive to Mexico in the middle of the night or invite strange people to our apartment or not come home at all.”

A dreamer, but also smart and responsible, Hank wonders how he and Boo will survive, musing that at least the kids in From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler had money for tickets to the museum they found themselves living in. Instead, he lands on the doorstep of Lou Ann Adler, a friend of his late, beloved grandmother. This hard-nosed, 60-ish daycare provider welcomes Boo with open arms, but peers sharply at preteen Hank, announcing, “I’m not wild about teenagers.”

Hank does an excellent job coping with the endless uncertainties in his life, which are expertly channeled via Choldenko’s succinctly effective prose. Despite Hank’s grim situation, this is an upbeat, hopeful book that shows how supportive communities can rise up out of seemingly nowhere. Hank befriends Lou Ann’s kindhearted neighbor Ray Delgado, as well as Ray’s large, extended family. He attends a new school, where he finds an inspiring basketball coach as well as a lively, diverse group of friends. His relationship with Boo, who equally adores him, forms the heart of this novel: “Without Boo I feel like a shoe in a sock drawer,” Hank explains. Their journey features diligent social workers and a dangerous and dramatic appearance by Hank and Boo’s mother that forces Hank to make a gut-wrenching choice.

Readers will immediately be drawn into the world of The Tenth Mistake of Hank Hooperman, whose endearing and memorable characters will inspire repeated readings. This book tackles a tricky subject with grace, showing readers that even seemingly hopeless situations can offer happy endings.

Hank Hooperman does an excellent job coping with the endless uncertainties in his life, which are expertly channeled via Gennifer Choldenko’s succinctly effective prose.
FictionPopular FictionHistorical Fiction

The Lion Women of Tehran

Review by Alice Cary

“Writing about Iranian women has been a central theme of my life,” Marjan Kamali says in the author’s note to The Lion Women of Tehran. On the heels of The Stationery Shop and Together Tea, Kamali continues this pursuit with the riveting saga of the friendship between Ellie and Homa, which begins in 1950 in Tehran, when the girls are 7, and continues through 2022. The events of their lives are interwoven with Iran’s recent history, including the rule of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the 1979 Revolution and the violence and brutality of the following fundamentalist regime. Prepare to lose yourself in a historical drama that evokes the sights and sounds of Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, with its maze of stalls and bartering merchants, while artfully exploring the labyrinthine complexities of deep friendship—especially jealousy, betrayal and forgiveness.

After Ellie’s father dies suddenly, Ellie and her mother are forced to move to a new neighborhood, where she meets Homa. Ellie’s mother likes to constantly remind her daughter that they are descendants of royalty and is horrified by their new surroundings, as well as Ellie’s new friend: Homa comes from a poor family, and her father is in jail for opposing the monarchy. Ellie, however, loves Homa’s warm, welcoming household, and wishes Homa’s family was her own. Their class difference, along with Ellie’s mom’s disapproval, drives a wedge into the girls’ friendship. At one point, Ellie muses that Homa “would always see me as too privileged, too shallow, too rich.”

Kamali closely examines how the country’s changing regimes have affected women’s rights, bringing the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini in police custody (after allegedly violating the mandatory hijab law) into the novel’s conclusion. From an early age, Homa hopes to become a lawyer who crusades for change and women’s freedom, but the government as well as an accidental betrayal by Ellie cruelly sidetrack those plans. Homa notes, “That’s how losses of rights build. They start small. And then soon, the rights are stripped in droves.” Kamali writes deftly of the intersection between personal and political issues. She also excels at exploring the bonds of female friendship, as well as the changing and complex nature of mother-daughter relationships, especially in terms of heritage, family shame and secrets.

Reminiscent of The Kite Runner and My Brilliant Friend, The Lion Women of Tehran is a mesmerizing tale featuring endearing characters who will linger in readers’ hearts. 

Prepare to lose yourself in Marjan Kamali’s The Lion Women of Tehran, a historical drama that evokes the sights and sounds of Tehran’s Grand Bazaar while artfully exploring the labyrinthian complexities of deep friendship.
NonfictionHistoryBlack HistoryAmerican History

Night Flyer

Review by Alice Cary

National Book Award-winning author Tiya Miles has tackled a variety of tough, intriguing subjects in books like Wild Girls and All That She Carried. She felt stymied, however, as she approached the life of the legendary Harriett Tubman. As one friend told her, “No one could catch her then. It’s going to be hard to catch her now.” 

And yet that is exactly what Miles so beautifully achieves in Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People. One of the biggest hurdles Miles faced was Tubman’s illiteracy, which meant her life experiences were all documented by others—“typically white, middle-class, antislavery women who recorded her speech and told her story.” Despite the roadblock of such “swamped sources,” often “submerged in the perspectives and biases of others,” Miles applauds a number of existing traditional biographies. As she explains, her goal was not to replicate these, but rather to explore Tubman’s eco-spiritual worldview. 

In her trademark deeply researched, thoughtful and exquisite prose, Miles successfully avoids popular depictions of Tubman as a superwoman “prepackaged in a box of stock stories and folksy sayings” among other “abolitionist avengers.” Instead, she places her firmly within the realm of Black female faith culture, noting that she was “one of a kind—singularly special and part of a cultural collective.” To illuminate Tubman’s spiritual purview, Miles delves into several memoirs written or dictated by Black women evangelists of Tubman’s time, writing that their relationships with the divine mandated “challenging entrenched social systems of racial and gender subjugation at the risk of [their] own safety, health, and social acceptance”

Calling her “arguably the most famous Black woman ecologist in U.S. history,” Miles also brings to life the haunting sights, sounds and dark, bewildering moments that Tubman experienced as she led herself and others to safety through the night wilderness. Tubman studied the plants, animals and stars as a matter of necessity for survival, believing that these god-given guides were proof of the need for spiritual and political liberation. 

Often, when Tubman told her story to biographers, she touched the writer, as if “by laying her hand on this person, her feelings may be transmitted.” With Night Flyer, Tiya Miles seems to transmit the weight of her subject’s hand and heart.

With the exquisite Night Flyer, Tiya Miles looks at Harriet Tubman from an entirely new perspective: her spirituality.
Children's & YAMiddle GradeChildren's

Pizza Face

Review by Alice Cary

“The big ‘P’ is the worst,” according to Rex Ogle’s Pizza Face, a spot-on graphic novel featuring the talented, prolific author as a scrawny 12-year-old suffering through the onset of puberty in seventh grade puberty. It’s a welcome sequel to Four Eyes, which chronicled Rex’s sixth grade year.

Middle grade readers will readily identify with Rex, whose acne erupts like a “volcano on my forehead” on the first day of seventh grade. “I’m a mutant, but without any cool superpowers,” he laments, his angst readily transmitted through Dave Valeza’s emotion-filled illustrations, which showcase Rex’s ongoing mortification via facial expressions, body language and onomatopoeia—especially the dreaded early morning beep of Rex’s alarm clock, and Rex’s frequent foot stomping.

Ogle and Valeza effectively spotlight brief scenes from Rex’s unfolding school year, including the horrors of first-period gym, where Rex, the smallest and least sporty, is often picked last. “You’re like our wittle baby,” one girl tells him. Things get worse day after day, week after week, as friendships unravel and misunderstandings multiply, especially with his best friends Scott and Kennedy (who is also sort of his girlfriend). Rex faces several bullies, and starts hanging out with a troublemaker when his friends desert him, ratcheting up the action. Each heartfelt scene draws readers into Rex’s misery as he longs for a growth spurt and a deep voice like the other boys.

Rex’s supportive but exhausted, constantly working parents can’t afford acne cream or deodorant, adding to Rex’s frustrations. His Abuela comes to the rescue, sending Zit-Zapper cream, offering helpful advice and taking Rex to a dermatologist.

This book has broad appeal, showing a variety of characters with different challenges. A boy named Brody, for instance, has the opposite problem of Rex, confessing, “Look at me. I’m a hairy, oversized monster. I’m thirteen and look like I’m almost twenty.” Meanwhile, female characters are teased and feel self-conscious, while both a wealthy and a popular boy grapple with their own issues. As Rex concludes, “It took all year to realize most kids are going through the same things as me.” Pizza Face is a fresh take on an age-old crisis and will help adolescents feel more empathetic and less alone while navigating their own physical and emotional changes. Here’s hoping Rex’s misadventures continue in future installments.

Pizza Face is a fresh take on the age-old crisis of puberty that will help adolescents feel more empathetic and less alone while navigating their own physical and emotional changes.
NonfictionMemoir

Bird Milk & Mosquito Bones

Review by Alice Cary

As a child in Kashmir, India, Priyanka Mattoo cherished time spent at her maternal grandparents’ family compound, its several buildings full of her “outspoken and uproarious” relatives. “Imagine an empty cup under a gushing faucet,” she writes. “It fills up, it tips over, the faucet keeps gushing, and the cup thinks, I really don’t need any more water, but, okay, this feels nice. That’s the adoration I felt from my family.”

That luxurious, gushing feeling is exactly what readers of Bird Milk & Mosquito Bones will experience while reading this memoir in essays. Stylistically, it’s The Secret Garden meets Nora Ephron: Mattoo serves up memories with both fairy tale-like charm and thoroughly modern, riotously funny observations.

The book’s title comes from a Kashmiri phrase used to describe “things so rare and precious that the listener should question their very existence.” That sentiment has defined Mattoo’s life since political upheaval prevented her family from returning to their beloved homeland. Luckily, Mattoo’s father was an internationally renowned pediatric nephrologist, and his career took them around the world to London, Saudi Arabia and, finally, America. This expat life blessed Mattoo with intriguing experiences, but also left her longing for Kashmir with “a deep well of sadness that follows me around.”

But Mattoo keeps her sense of humor, as when describing the day she taught her 9-year-old son how to microwave a hot dog (“I briefly drifted into a vision of reading magazines while my child makes dinner.”). The essays can be read separately, but are roughly chronological, explaining how she veered away from her “life plan” and married an American Jew instead of “a nice Kashmiri boy,” didn’t become a doctor and instead followed her creative spirit, forging a life as a writer, filmmaker and talent agent.

In “How to Be Alone,” she writes of her middle school years, enduring painful prejudices that turned her into a loner, until she eventually realized, “I could make anyone my friend, and I would make anyone my friend.” She does just that with Bird Milk & Mosquito Bones—a book of enormous heart, humor and insight that will leave readers wanting more of Priyanka Mattoo’s company.

The Secret Garden meets Nora Ephron in Priyanka Mattoo’s riotously funny memoir in essays, Bird Milk & Mosquito Bones.

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