Ava has organized her work schedule at Not!IKEA to avoid any contact with her ex, Jules, and she is therefore deeply resentful of being called in to sub on a day she was supposed to have off. Of course, she’s sharing a shift with Jules, and it’s awkward as fuck. To make matters worse, a customer’s grandmother goes missing in the depths of the store, and it becomes pretty obvious that she’s disappeared into a wormhole. As the two newest employees, Ava and Jules are tapped to go chasing through the multiverse together to find the missing woman. My favorite…
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Lana has returned to New York after years away, hoping to pursue restaurant work after spending oodles of time learning to make noodles. (You see, I have done a little wordplay there.) Meanwhile, her ex-husband Simon is planning to leave behind his inherited, rent-controlled, teensy-weensy apartment in favor of something new. When they cross paths for the first time in years, they must unwillingly admit that splitting the rent on a beautiful railroad-style apartment in Harlem makes pretty good sense. And moving in together leads them to face the things about them that have changed, and the things that have…
Leave a CommentNote: Riot Baby is published by Tor, an imprint of Macmillan. Macmillan has established a policy of embargoing its ebooks to libraries. It’s a policy that hurts authors, libraries, and readers, and the American Library Association is sponsoring an initiative to promote fair library ebook policies. You can support that initiative here! Riot Baby is a primal scream of a novella, ranging through America’s racist history into a near-future version of the country that continues the climate emergency and militarization of the police. Our protagonists are siblings Ella and Kev, both of whom are gifted — Ella more noticeably than…
Leave a CommentOn the run from a dangerous father, Steph has never lived in one place long enough to make real friends; but her clowder (group chat) on CatNet supplies most of what she needs. But one day she complains to her clowder about a teacher bullying a classmate, Rachel (whom Steph has a crush on), and the next day, the teacher has left the school permanently. She chalks it up to confusing coincidence, but the reality is that one of the members of her clowder is a benevolent AI who likes her and wants to help improve her life. When one…
Leave a Comment2019 has been a no-good very-bad year, but the creativity and work of many brilliant people has gotten me through it. As this stupid thankless year draws to a close, I’m writing thank-you notes to some of the people who made things that brought me joy in a dark time. Dear Emma Southon, Thank you for writing Agrippina! My friend Alice of the For Real podcast recommended it to me by quoting small passage from it until I was charmed into acquiring it, and that’s in a year when my nonfiction consumption was heavily regulated (by myself) (I am a…
Leave a CommentDid I have the purest of intentions to read spooky books in honor of spooky season? YOU BETCHA. Did I end up just reading a shit-ton of romance novels in the month of October instead? INDEED I DID. I can always read spooky stuff in November, right? Here are the romances I’ve been putting in my brain, friends. How to Catch a Wicked Viscount, Amy Rose Bennett After an indiscretion at school that leaves Sophie and her three best friends with a reputation for scandal, she never expects to be accepted back into polite society. But when Charlotte discovers Sophie…
Leave a CommentEver since her father’s death, years ago, Casiopea Tun has been a poor relation to her mother’s wealthy family. She’s stuck doing drudge work for any member of the family who wants something from her — particularly her cousin Martin, who resents that she will never stop insisting on her personhood, no matter how much he tries to make her submit. (Not in a sexual way! I mention this because I kept worrying that there was going to be a sexual element to this relationship, but there’s not. So don’t worry.) Her wants are small, but completely out of reach:…
Leave a CommentRemember that series on The Toast, Children’s Stories Made Horrifying? Where you would be like, hmm, but that story is already kind of horrifying, and then you’d read the piece and be like, “Ah.” Bob Proehl’s sophomore novel, The Nobody People, is X-Men Made Horrifying. Journalist Avi Hirsch is our way in to this story: An adrenaline junkie who’s done his best to settle down for his wife and kid, Avi is pursuing two seemingly unrelated stories, a bombing at a mall and another at a local black church. He learns that the man responsible has special powers, that there…
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