Thursday, February 27, 2025

Review: Where Wolves Don't Die by Anton Treuer

Where Wolves Don't Die by Anton Treuer
Arthur A. Levine
Publication Date: June 10th, 2024
Hardcover. 256 pages.

About Where Wolves Don't Die:

"Ezra Cloud hates living in Northeast Minneapolis. His father is a professor of their language, Ojibwe, at a local college, so they have to be there. But Ezra hates the dirty, polluted snow around them. He hates being away from the rez at Nigigoonsiminikaaning First Nation. And he hates the local bully in his neighborhood, Matt Schroeder, who terrorizes Ezra and his friend Nora George.

Ezra gets into a terrible fight with Matt at school defending Nora, and that same night, Matt's house burns down. Instantly, Ezra becomes a prime suspect. Knowing he won't get a fair deal, and knowing his innocence, Ezra's family sends him away to run traplines with his grandfather in a remote part of Canada, while the investigation is ongoing. But the Schroeders are looking for him. . .

From acclaimed author Anton Treuer comes a novel that's both taut thriller and a raw, tender coming-of-age story, about one Ojibwe boy learning to love himself through the love of his family around him."

Where Wolves Don't Die follows Ezra Cloud, an Ojibwe teen living in Northeast Minneapolis who hates living in Northeast Minneapolis. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your perspective), events at home prompt his father to take him to his grandparents home on the reservation, where he is to spend the rest of the school year laying traplines with his grandfather out on remote First Nations land in Canada.

I actually hadn't realized this was considered YA until I got into the story, and after finishing it, I think it's a great read for both YA and adult readers. The author, Dr. Anton Treuer, is an Ojibwe language professor and was able to bring so much of the Ojibwe cultural traditions into this story, which I think makes for a compelling read for anyone. (Also, just as a side note--if you're like me and wondered if Anton Treuer is related to David Treuer, the answer is that yes, apparently they are brothers! I've read David Treuer's The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee, an incredible nonfiction Native American history, and his book Rez Life, a nonfiction book about life on reservations, and I'd highly recommend both to read as well.)

I thought Ezra was depicted incredibly well. He's depicted as exactly what he is: a teenager just trying to make it through this rough age and come to terms with many different struggles and things going on in his life. He struggles wit the the loss of his mother, his relationship with his father, his family history, and of course, a crush on a sweet local girl. I thought Treuer really captured that angsty feeling we all are familiar with from teen years, and I think he also did a good job with capturing Ezra's grief and the many ways it manifests itself in a teen--through anger, sadness, and struggling to communicate how you feel.

I loved the history and cultural aspects of this book where Ezra learns more and more about his family's history and some deeper Native American history that he wasn't aware of. He learns about not only some of the terrible things that have been done to his people, but also how these have directly affected his family and how he can learn and incorporate and grow with that knowledge. I also actually found learning about how the traplines worked really interesting, and I also appreciated the amount of respect they teach with regard to the nature around them and every living thing within it.

This is described as thriller, but I have to say that there wasn't too much about this book that felt like a thriller. There's the general premise for why Ezra is sent to stay with his grandparents on the First Nation reservation involving him being a suspect in the burning of his high school bully's house (the same day he got into a fight with said bully at school), but I didn't think this really took a heavy focus as there was so much else to focus on throughout the story. The pacing is consistent and thoughtful, rather than fast-paced and intense, and I think that pacing worked perfectly for this story. I never found myself losing interest or struggling to get through any parts of it.

Lastly, I want to note that I listened to the audiobook version of Where Wolves Don't Die and liked that it was narrated by the author. He did a great job with the narration, and I also appreciated hearing the story as he meant it to be heard, as well as being able to hear pronunciations for so many of the words that I was unfamiliar with. He has a very calm, easy to understand voice that flowed well with the story.

Where Wolves Don't Die is a story that will keep you reading because of its characters and because of the tradition it shares. There are some great things to learn about the Ojibwe culture and their history and how everything winds together into a story that transcends time periods and age.

Buy the book: Amazon | Bookshop.org

Wednesday, February 26, 2025

Can't-Wait Wednesday: The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami, Rose of Jericho by Alex Grecian, & The Mesopotamian Riddle by Joshua Hammer

 

Can't-Wait is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings that spotlights exciting upcoming releases that we can't wait to be released! 


The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami
Publication: March 4th, 2025

Pantheon
Hardcover. 336 pages.
Pre-order: Amazon | Bookshop.org

From Goodreads:
"From Laila Lalami—the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist and a “maestra of literary fiction” (NPR)—comes a riveting and utterly original novel about one woman’s fight for freedom, set in a near future where even dreams are under surveillance.

Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days. 

The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes. With every deviation from the strict and ever-shifting rules of the facility, their stay is extended. Months pass and Sara seems no closer to release. Then one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom.

Eerie, urgent, and ceaselessly clear-eyed, The Dream Hotel artfully explores the seductive nature of technology, which puts us in shackles even as it makes our lives easier. Lalami asks how much of ourselves must remain private if we are to remain free, and whether even the most invasive forms of surveillance can ever capture who we really are.
"

I feel like this book will either be hit or miss for me, but I'm really intrigued by the premise! Typically, I'm not huge on stories that focus on dreams, but I'm fascinated by our dreams and how we dream in general, so the idea of an agency that can monitor dreams and has an entire system around them sounds like something interesting to explore, so I'm in to check it out. 


Rose of Jericho by Alex Grecian
Publication: March 11th, 2025

Tor Nightfire
Hardcover. 352 pages.
Pre-order: Amazon | Bookshop.org

From Goodreads:
"From the New York Times bestselling author of Red Rabbit comes a supernatural horror where ghosts and ghouls are the least of a witch’s problems in nineteenth-century New England.

Something wicked is going on in the village of Ascension. A mother wasting away from cancer is suddenly up and about. A boy trampled by a milk cart walks away from the accident. A hanged man can still speak, broken neck and all.

The dead are not dying.

When Rabbit and Sadie Grace accompany their friend Rose to Ascension to help take care of her ailing cousin, they immediately notice that their new house, Bethany Hall, is occupied by dozens of ghosts. And something is waiting for them in the attic.

The villagers of Ascension are unwelcoming and wary of their weird visitors. As the three women attempt to find out what’s happening in the town, they must be careful not to be found out. But a much larger―and more dangerous―force is galloping straight for them….
"

I really enjoyed  Alex Grecian's Red Rabbit when it came out in 2023 and I've been hoping for something new from him for a while, so I'm excited for this one! I'm extra glad that it's set in the wild world of Red Rabbit and I'm so curious to see what else he does with this world. (I will admit, though, that I'm a little bummed they went in a different direction for the cover art because I really liked the original artwork for Red Rabbit.)


The Mesopotamian Riddle: An Archaeologist, a Soldier, a Clergyman, and the Race to Decipher the World's Oldest Writing by Joshua Hammer
Publication: March 18th, 2025

Simon & Schuster
Hardcover. 400 pages.
Pre-order: Amazon | Bookshop.org

From Goodreads:
"It was one of history’s great vanishing acts.

Around 3,400 BCE—as humans were gathering in complex urban settlements—a scribe in the mud-walled city-state of Uruk picked up a reed stylus to press tiny symbols into clay. For three millennia, wedge shape cuneiform script would record the military conquests, scientific discoveries, and epic literature of the great Mesopotamian kingdoms of Sumer, Assyria, and Babylon and of Persia’s mighty Achaemenid Empire, along with precious minutiae about everyday life in the cradle of civilization. And then…the meaning of the characters was lost.

London, 1857. In an era obsessed with human progress, mysterious palaces emerging from the desert sands had captured the Victorian public’s imagination. Yet Europe’s best philologists struggled to decipher the bizarre inscriptions excavators were digging up.

Enter a swashbuckling archaeologist, a suave British military officer turned diplomat, and a cloistered Irish rector, all vying for glory in a race to decipher this script that would enable them to peek farther back into human history than ever before.

From the ruins of Persepolis to lawless outposts of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, The Mesopotamian Riddle whisks you on a wild adventure through the golden age of archaeology in an epic quest to understand our past.
"

As a big fan of languages and as a history nerd-especially an ancient history nerd-this book sounds like it'll be a ton of fun to explore. I can't wait to have a chance to check it out!

Saturday, February 22, 2025

Review: Something in the Walls by Daisy Pearce

Upon a Starlit Tide by Kell Woods
Minotaur Books
Publication Date: February 25th, 2024
Hardcover. 304 pages.

About Something in the Walls:

"Newly minted child psychologist Mina has little experience. In a field where the first people called are experts, she’s been unable to get her feet wet. Instead she aimlessly spends her days stuck in the stifling heat wave sweeping across Britain and anxiously contemplates her upcoming marriage to careful, precise researcher Oscar. The only reprieve from her small, close world is attending the local bereavement group to mourn her brother’s death from years ago.

Then she meets journalist Sam Hunter at the grief group one day, and he has a proposition for her: Thirteen-year-old Alice Webber claims a witch is haunting her. Living with her family in the remote village of Banathel, Alice finds her symptoms are getting increasingly disturbing. Taking this job will give Mina some experience and much-needed money; Sam will get the scoop of a lifetime; and Alice will get better—Mina is sure of it.

But instead of improving, Alice’s behavior becomes inexplicable and intense. The town of Banathel has a deep history of superstition and witchcraft. They believe there is evil in the world. They believe there are ways of…dealing with it. And they don’t expect outsiders to understand."

Mina is a brand new child psychologist and is ready to get started in her field. She finally gets a promising lead when journalist Sam Hunter enlists her help with a young girl named Alice Webber who claims she is being haunted by a witch. Mina wants experience in her field and Sam really wants a sensational story, so the two take a trip to Banathel, a town with a dark history relating to witchcraft, where things end up taking much more sinister turns the more they investigate.

The town of Banathel is a bit of a character in its own right. It’s an odd place with an atmosphere of eeriness that matches the townspeople’s history with witchcraft. While Mina is in Banathel, it has a curfew in place due to a heatwave, which I felt really added to the uneasy feelings and almost isolation of a sort. I really appreciated how Pearce incorporated these elements, as I felt they really contributed to setting the tone for all of the supernatural elements that take center stage of the story. There’s a nice sense of dread that pops up at various moments in the story, and I thought all of this together did create a more classic supernatural horror element.

Something in the Walls has a very promising premise and start, and I was pretty hooked from the start. Who doesn’t love a good horror that focuses on a creepy kid who may or may not be possessed? However, as the story progressed, I really felt as thought the pacing struggled to maintain a sense of consistency and I found myself losing interest at various points as the plot dragged on a bit. There were some areas that felt a bit disjointed, as well, and also a bit of repetitiveness with regard to Mina’s experiences there.

While I was initially quite intrigued with Mina’s character, I found myself feeling almost a bit annoyed with her as the story progressed. As a child psychologist, Mina plays a very important role in getting to know and assessing Alice, and I think there were times when she did a really good job with this. However, there were some times when I felt her behavior ended up feeling a bit off and unprofessional--which I do understand could be fitting given some of the things that were happening--and it did end up throwing me off a bit throughout the book.

Despite a promising premise and a well-executed setting, my biggest issue with this book was simply that I’m finding it a bit forgettable, unfortunately. It’s been a couple weeks now since I finished the book and my initial draft of my review, and I’m finding that I’ve already forgotten so many of the details of what happened and that I just don’t have that many strong feelings about it either way. I’m sure many people will be a great fit for this book and really love all of the great aspects of it, but sadly I don’t think it was the book for me. However, if you really enjoy some supernatural horror and think it sounds like an interesting plot, then I’d encourage you to check it out because I do still think it’s a solid book with a lot of promise.


*I received a copy of Something in the Walls in exchange for an honest review. This has no affect on my opinions.*

Buy the book: Amazon | Bookshop.org

Friday, February 21, 2025

Anticipated March 2025 Releases

  

March is just around the corner, and that means a whole slew of new releases! I am looking forward to so many of these, though I am of course most excited for Stephen Graham Jones' The Buffalo Hunter Hunter. I've been fortunate enough to read a couple of these (The Third Rule of Time Travel by Philip Fracassi was fascinating!) so far and it's looking like a great month; I also have ARCs of Let Only Red Flowers Bloom and When the Moon Hits Your Eye that I'm hoping to get started on soon and I can't wait
What March releases are you most looking forward? Let me know below, and be sure to let me know if I missed any of your most anticipated releases on this list as well.
Happy reading!


The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones || March 18th -- Amazon | Bookshop.org

The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica || March 4th -- Amazon | Bookshop.org

Luminous by Silvia Park || March 11th -- Amazon | Bookshop.org

The House No One Sees by Adina King || March 18th -- Amazon | Bookshop.org

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy || March 4th -- Amazon | Bookshop.org

The Third Rule of Time Travel by Philip Fracassi || March 18th -- Amazon | Bookshop.org

Twist by Colum McCann || March 25th -- Amazon | Bookshop.org

The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami || March 4th -- Amazon | Bookshop.org

Rose of Jericho by Alex Grecian || March 11th -- Amazon | Bookshop.org

Let Only Red Flowers Bloom by Emily Feng || March 18th -- Amazon | Bookshop.org

The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar || March 4th -- Amazon | Bookshop.org

Stag Dance by Torrey Peters || March 11th -- Amazon | Bookshop.org

Guatemalan Rhapsody by Jared Lemus || March 4th -- Amazon | Bookshop.org

Death is Our Business by John Lechner || March 4th -- Amazon | Bookshop.org

The Prince Without Sorrow by Maithree Wijesekara || March 18th -- Amazon | Bookshop.org

The Mesopotamian Riddle: An Archaeologist, a Soldier, a Clergyman, and the Race to Decipher the World's Oldest Writing by Joshua Hammer || March 18th -- Amazon | Bookshop.org

Universality by Natasha Brown || March 4th -- Amazon | Bookshop.org

A History of the World in Six Plagues by Edna Bonhomme || March 11th -- Amazon | Bookshop.org

White Line Fever by KC Jones || March 18th -- Amazon | Bookshop.org

When the Moon Hits Your Eyeby John Scalzi || March 25th -- Amazon | Bookshop.org

They Bloom at Night by Trang Thanh Tran || March 4th -- Amazon | Bookshop.org

Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie || March 4th -- Amazon | Bookshop.org

Strange Bedfellows by Ariel Slamet Ries || March 4th -- AmazonBookshop.org

I Am Made of Death by Kelly Andrew || March 4th -- AmazonBookshop.org

A Greek Tragedy: One Deadly Shipwreck, and the Human Cost of the Refugee Crisis by Jeanne Carstensen || March 25th -- AmazonBookshop.org

What are your anticipated March releases?

Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Can't-Wait Wednesday: Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy & The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar

  

Can't-Wait is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings that spotlights upcoming releases that we can't wait to read. 


Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy
Publication: March 4th, 2025

Flatiron Books
Hardcover. 320 pages.
Pre-order: Amazon | Bookshop.org

From Goodreads:
"Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers. But with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants, packing up the seeds before they are transported to safer ground. Despite the wild beauty of life here, isolation has taken its toll on the Salts. Raff, eighteen and suffering his first heartbreak, can only find relief at his punching bag; Fen, seventeen, has started spending her nights on the beach among the seals; nine-year-old Orly, obsessed with botany, fears the loss of his beloved natural world; and Dominic can’t stop turning back toward the past, and the loss that drove the family to Shearwater in the first place.

Then, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman washes up on shore. As the Salts nurse the woman, Rowan, back to life, their suspicion gives way to affection, and they finally begin to feel like a family again. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting her heart, begins to fall for the Salts, too. But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers the sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own dark secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, the characters must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it’s too late—and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together.
"

I feel like I've been seeing this book around for so long, I'm excited it's finally being released soon! I'm really intrigued by this premise and am really curious to see what the author will do with this setting and concept. 


The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar
Publication: March 4th, 2025

Tordotcom
Hardcover. 144 pages.
Pre-order: Amazon | Bookshop.org

From Goodreads:
"Follow the river Liss to the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, and meet two sisters who cannot be separated, even in death.

“Oh what is stronger than a death? Two sisters singing with one breath.”

In the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, dwells the mysterious Hawthorn family.

There, they tend and harvest the enchanted willows and honour an ancient compact to sing to them in thanks for their magic. None more devotedly than the family’s latest daughters, Esther and Ysabel, who cherish each other as much as they cherish the ancient trees.

But when Esther rejects a forceful suitor in favor of a lover from the land of Faerie, not only the sisters’ bond but also their lives will be at risk…"

Amal El-Mohtar is one of the authors of This Is How You Lose the Time War and I'm very curious to check out this new work from her! I have a feeling the writing is going to be gorgeous. 

Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Review: Upon a Starlit Tide by Kell Woods

Upon a Starlit Tide by Kell Woods
Tor Books
Publication Date: February 18th, 2024
Hardcover. 432 pages.

About Upon a Starlit Tide:

"Saint-Malo, Brittany, 1758.
For Lucinde Leon, the youngest daughter of one of Saint-Malo's wealthiest ship-owners, the high walls of the city are more hindrance than haven. While her sisters are interested in securing advantageous marriages, Luce dreams of escaping her elegant but stifling home and joining a ship's crew. Only Samuel—Luce's best friend and an English smuggler—understands her longing for the sea, secretly teaching her to sail whenever she can sneak away. For Luce, the stolen time on the water with Samuel is precious.

One stormy morning, Luce's plans are blown off course when she rescues Morgan de Chatelaine, the youngest son of the most powerful ship-owner in Saint-Malo, from the sea. Immediately drawn to his charm and sense of adventure, she longs to attend the glittering ball held in honor of his safe return and begins to contemplate a different kind of future for herself.

But it is not only Luce's hopes at stake—the local fae are leaving Brittany and taking their magic with them, while the long-standing war with the English means Saint-Malo is always at risk of attack. As Luce is plunged into a world of magic, brutality, and seduction, secrets that have long been lost in the shadowy depths of the ocean begin to rise to the surface. The truth of her own power is growing brighter and brighter, shining like a sea-glass slipper.

Or the scales of a sea-maid's tail."

There are so many retellings out there these days that it’s sometimes hard to know which ones will end up being worthwhile. Fortunately, Kell Woods seems to deliver some consistently solid fairy-tale inspired stories. I read After the Forest, a Hansel and Gretel-inspired retelling that takes places years after the events of the story, and really enjoyed her take on that classic tale, despite having a few issues with Woods' writing.

This time, Upon a Starlit Tide draws from The Little Mermaid and Cinderella (I would assume specifically from the original Hans Christian Andersen versions due to the theming and style), and has created something imaginative, compelling, and spellbinding. What I really appreciate about Woods’s approach is that she doesn’t just follow the original stories, she instead expands on them and weaves familiar elements into something that feels fresh and new. I also appreciated how much this book blends a historical fiction style with fantasy, and I think fans of historical fiction and fantasy (or both) would enjoy it.

Upon a Starlit Tide has a darker atmosphere overall, but it doesn’t cross over that line into being too grim. There’s a serious tone underlying the story, but Woods balances it well with moments of whimsy, wonder, and intrigue. The world feels rich and vivid, and the writing has a beautiful fairy tale quality that enhances the storytelling. Her descriptions were incredibly immersive and vibrant, and I could practically the salty sea breeze myself and fully sense Luce’s grand ambitions of captaining her own ship while she observed other ships and imagined her life at sea. I also really felt like I could see how much Woods has grown as a writer since After the Forest and it makes me excited to see what else she will write. 

I thought Luce’s relationships with her sisters were particularly well done and was a surprise highlight for me in the story, especially considering I struggled with characters feeling more one note in her previous book. They fit into the classic Cinderella “evil stepsister” stereotype generally, but Woods added a lot of depth to their personalities and made them so much more than just “evil stepsisters,” which also added a lot of dimension to their characters. We see them be harsh to Luce at times, but they also have moments of intimacy and camaraderie with Luce and do manage to get along, much like regular sisters, and I appreciated this nuance in their relationship.

There is some romance in this story that plays a fairly large role in the plot, which makes sense given the fairy tale inspirations. There were moments where it felt like it focused more on the romance than I expected, but that’s probably on me for not anticipating that more. There’s also a little bit of a love triangle at play here, but I think it was handled carefully and well enough that it didn’t feel like your typical frustration love triangle. I thought the reasons behind having it and how it played out was well-developed, and it made sense overall within the framework of the fairy tales that inspired the story. While there were a few moments where it felt a bit overdone for my personal preference, I will say that overall I thought it had a good balance in execution and that it did add to the story in positive ways. 



I don’t want to give away any spoilers for this one so there are a few areas that I can’t comment on I’m much detail. However, I do want to mention that Luce has a physical disability that plays a fairly important role in this story, and I thought Woods incorporated it really well and took a lot of care in her portrayal. I loved how it showed that something that may be viewed as a struggle by some can have multiple facets and many different angles to view it, and not all negative ones.

Lastly, I wanted to note that I listened to the audiobook version and thought the narrator did a fantastic job capturing Luce’s voice and the emotions that she experiences throughout the story, and it left me feeling very captivated.

Overall, Upon a Starlit Tide is a gorgeous fairy tale-inspired story that is sure to be a hit for those who enjoy such magical tales. I think there’s a little bit of everything for everyone in this one, so be sure to have a look if it sounds like something you might enjoy.


*I received a copy of Upon a Starlit Tide in exchange for an honest review. This has no affect on my opinions.*

Buy the book: Amazon | Bookshop.org

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

Can't-Wait Wednesday: The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica, Motherland by Julia Ioffe, & Luminous by Silvia Park

  

Can't-Wait is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings that spotlights exciting upcoming releases that we can't wait to be released. 


The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica, transl. Sarah Moses
Publication: March 4th, 2025

Scribner
Hardcover. 192 pages.
Pre-order: Amazon | Bookshop.org

From Goodreads:
"The long-awaited new novel from the author of global sensation Tender Is the Flesh: a thrilling work of literary horror about a woman cloistered in a secretive, violent religious order, while outside the world has fallen into chaos.

From her cell in a mysterious convent, a woman writes the story of her life in whatever she can find—discarded ink, dirt, and even her own blood. A lower member of the Sacred Sisterhood, deemed an unworthy, she dreams of ascending to the ranks of the Enlightened at the center of the convent and of pleasing the foreboding Superior Sister. Outside, the world is plagued by catastrophe—cities are submerged underwater, electricity and the internet are nonexistent, and bands of survivors fight and forage in a cruel, barren landscape. Inside, the narrator is controlled, punished, but safe.

But when a stranger makes her way past the convent walls, joining the ranks of the unworthy, she forces the narrator to consider her long-buried past—and what she may be overlooking about the Enlightened. As the two women grow closer, the narrator is increasingly haunted by questions about her own past, the environmental future, and her present life inside the convent. How did she get to the Sacred Sisterhood? Why can’t she remember her life before? And what really happens when a woman is chosen as one of the Enlightened?

A searing, dystopian tale about climate crisis, ideological extremism, and the tidal pull of our most violent, exploitative instincts, this is another unforgettable novel from a master of feminist horror.
"

I still think Bazterrica's Tender is the Flesh is one of the most memorable books I've ever read, but I really didn't care for her short story collection Nineteen Claws and Blackbird. I feel like it's 50/50 whether I'll like this one, but I'm really excited about it nonetheless and am hopeful for another one I like as much as Tender is the Flesh


Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy by Julia Ioffe
Publication: March 4th, 2025/October 21st, 2025

Ecco
Hardcover. 320 pages.
Pre-order: Amazon | Bookshop.org

From the publisher:
"Award-winning journalist Julia Ioffe tells the story of modern Russia through the history of its women, from revolution to utopia to autocracy.

In 1990, seven-year-old Julia Ioffe and her family fled the Soviet Union. Nearly twenty years later, Ioffe returned to Moscow—only to discover just how much Russian society had changed while she had been living in America. The Soviet women she had known growing up—doctors, engineers, scientists—had seemingly been replaced with women desperate to marry rich and become stay-at-home moms. How had Russia gone from portraying itself as the vanguard of world feminism to the last bastion of conservative Christian values?

In Motherland, Ioffe turns modern Russian history on its head, telling it exclusively through the stories of its women. From her own physician great-grandmothers to Lenin’s lover, a feminist revolutionary; from the hundreds of thousands of Soviet girls who fought in World War II to the millions of single mothers who rebuilt and repopulated a devastated country; from the members of Pussy Riot to Yulia Navalnaya, wife of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, she chronicles one of the most audacious social experiments in history and how it failed the very women it was meant to liberate—and documents how that failure paved the way to the revanche of Vladimir Putin.

Part memoir, part journalistic exploration, part history, Motherland paints a portrait of modern Russia through the women who shaped it. With deep emotion, Ioffe shows what it means to live through the cataclysms of revolution, war, idealism, and heartbreak—and reveals how the story of Russia today is inextricably tied to the history of its women.
"

I've been really enjoying more nonfiction lately, so I'm very curious to learn more about Russia's history/culture through this perspective! Also, I actually think the publication date may have just been pushed back to October because when I planned this post it said March, but it now might be October? Just a head's up!

Luminous by Silvia Park
Publication: March 11th, 2025
Simon & Schuster
Hardcover. 400 pages.
Pre-order: Amazon | Bookshop.org

From Goodreads:
"A highly anticipated, sweeping debut set in a unified Korea that tells the story of three estranged siblings—two human, one robot—as they collide against the backdrop of a murder investigation to settle old scores and make sense of their shattered childhood, perfect for fans of Klara and the Sun and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.

In a reunified Korea of the future, robots have been integrated into society as surrogates, servants, children, and even lovers. Though boundaries between bionic and organic frequently blur, these robots are decidedly second-class citizens. Jun and Morgan, two siblings estranged for many years, are haunted by the memory of their lost brother, Yoyo, who was warm, sensitive, and very nearly human.

Jun, a war veteran turned detective of the lowly Robot Crimes Unit in Seoul, becomes consumed by an investigation that reconnects him with his sister Morgan, now a prominent robot designer working for a top firm, who is, embarrassingly, dating one of her creations in secret.

On the other side of Seoul in a junkyard filled with abandoned robots, eleven-year-old Ruijie sifts through scraps looking for robotic parts that might support her failing body. When she discovers a robot boy named Yoyo among the piles of trash, an unlikely bond is formed since Yoyo is so lifelike, he’s unlike anything she’s seen before.

While Morgan prepares to launch the most advanced robot-boy of her career, Jun’s investigation sparks a journey through the underbelly of Seoul, unearthing deeper mysteries about the history of their country and their family. The three siblings must find their way back to each other to reckon with their pasts and the future ahead of them in this poignant and remarkable exploration of what it really means to be human.
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What a fascinating premise! This idea of a unified Korea in the future and everything else involved just sounds like it will be playing with a lot of interesting ideas and I can't wait to check it out.