Category Archives: Uncategorized

From a distance, Paul G. Tremblay’s The Cabin At The End of The World might be mistaken for a simple thriller. However, closer examination reveals it to be a powerful meditation on love, faith, madness, power, and sacrifice. A young girl and her fathers find their vacation interrupted by a group of bizarre strangers whoContinue reading “The Cabin At The End of The World”

The Chronicles of Alice book series is many things. It is an acid trip, a nightmare, a battle cry against sex trafficking, a powerful saga about battling trauma and mental illness, a brilliant parody of Lewis Caroll, a fantasy-horror epic. In all of its forms, however, it is absolutely magnificent. Christina Henry pens the taleContinue reading “The Chronicles of Alice”

Alison Brechdel’s Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic may be a graphic novel, but that doesn’t make it any less erudite or insightful. The author draws and write the story of her childhood, which she is forced to view in a very different light after a) coming out as lesbian in college, b) discovering that herContinue reading “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic”

James McBride’s The Color of Water is the tale of Ruth McBride, the author’s mother, a white woman raising a black family during the racially divided sixties. The story switches between McBride’s childhood and Ruth’s, as the author sets down his memories of his mother while investigating the events that shaped her. We discover thatContinue reading “The Color of Water”

Snow White Learns Witchcraft is Theodora Goss’ tribute to the raw power of fairy tales, recast with the open-mindedness and finesse of modern stories and poems. Each new story, no matter its form, comes across as a small, bright piece of a world almost, but not quite our own. In these worlds, the ice talks,Continue reading “Snow White Learns Witchcraft”

A History of the World In 10(1/2) Chapters by Julian Barnes opens with an insect spilling the dirt secrets of life on Noah’s ark. It only gets stranger, funnier, and more subversive from there. Barnes’ web of engrossing stories reveals the searing impact of faith, for better or worse, on the human imagination. His carefulContinue reading “A History of the World In 10(1/2) Chapters”

In a genre dominated by admittedly pleasant explosion and skintight latex, Kelly Sue DeCommick’s Bitch Planet pushes the limits of what comics do for us. DeCommick has been built a grim world where all the problems facing modern women–racism, transphobia, homophobia, condescension, double standards, stereotyping, victim blaming, assault–have been sanctified by the government. Women whoContinue reading “Bitch Planet”

When I started reading Max Porter’s Lanny I knew that it was nothing like anything that I’d ever read before. It starts with a god assembling himself out of the forest’s bits and pieces, and only grows more fantastic from there. The titular character, Lanny, is a strange, talented boy who is adored by theContinue reading “Lanny”

This science fiction I’ve read in the past has worked to horrify me, thrill me, shock me, or bend my mind. That’s all well and good, but it’s nothing like what Kim Stanley Robinson wants to do over the course of New York 2140. He is more focused on building a clear picture of theContinue reading “New York 2140”

Andre Aciman wrote Out of Egypt to tell the story of his family, three generations of wealthy Jews living in Alexandria, Egypt. For decades, the Acimans would navigate the knotted cultures of their adopted homeland, before being steadily driven out by a revolutionary government. This memoir contains many stories, all interwoven in a richly embroideredContinue reading “Out of Egypt”