Norah Piehl

Audio

Better Faster Farther

Review by Norah Piehl

While women’s basketball and soccer gain attention and fans, journalist Maggie Mertens also makes a compelling case for women who run to get their due in Better Faster Farther: How Running Changed Everything We Know About Women (9.5 hours). More than that, Mertens uses the history of women’s running as a lens through which to examine—and debunk—centuries-old assumptions about physiology, gender and race. From the mythical figure of Atalanta to the latest research on women’s ultramarathon performances exceeding men’s, Mertens incorporates elements of history, sociology, gender studies and science in her thoroughly researched account. Mertens’ reading of her work is matter-of-fact but engaging, and the audiobook includes image files so listeners can see pictures of the running heroes she profiles. Better Faster Farther’s stories of female athletes who changed the running game just might inspire you to lace up your running shoes, throw in your earbuds and go for a jog.

Read our starred review of the print edition of Better Faster Farther.

Lace up your running shoes, throw in your earbuds and go for a jog accompanied by Maggie Mertens’ Better Faster Farther, an inspiring account of female athletes who changed the running game.
Children's & YAYA FictionYA

Death at Morning House

Review by Norah Piehl

What was supposed to be an incredibly romantic first date with her longtime crush, Akilah, instead nearly becomes Marlowe Wexler’s undoing, when the custom candle she ordered in Akilah’s favorite scent explodes, burning down a house belonging to Marlowe’s family friends. Is it any wonder that Akilah breaks things off rather than dating an accidental arsonist?

Heartbroken and more than a little embarrassed, Marlowe eagerly accepts an unexpected offer to get far away from her hometown of Syracuse, New York, and work as a summer tour guide at Morning House, a historic mansion in the Thousand Islands region of the St. Lawrence River. Marlowe’s a quick study, so she knows from day one that Morning House has an infamous history. The onetime home of celebrated wellness pioneer (and eugenicist) Phillip Ralston, his glamorous wife Faye and their seven children, Morning House was the site of a 1932 tragedy that left two of the Ralston children dead under mysterious circumstances. 

What Marlowe doesn’t know until she arrives and starts becoming acquainted with the other tour guides—a diverse group of eccentric teens united by their shared history of growing up nearby—is that there’s a more recent mystery afoot, one with ominous echoes of the past . . . and perhaps ongoing danger in the present. 

Maureen Johnson, the bestselling author of the Truly Devious series, crafts a whip-smart standalone whodunit in Death at Morning House. Scenes from the Ralston family’s deceptively idyllic life in 1932 alternate with those chronicling Marlowe’s growing confidence in her detective skills, even as someone disappears, a storm approaches and conditions on the island become ever more perilous. Johnson has consistently excelled at incorporating historical material in novels starring smart, quirky, appealingly flawed protagonists, and dual timelines mean there’s more than one mystery to solve. Readers won’t soon forget their tour of menacing Morning House.

Maureen Johnson crafts a whip-smart standalone whodunit in Death at Morning House, with a narrative that alternates between past and present.
Children's & YAYA FictionYA

Ash’s Cabin

Review by Norah Piehl

Ash has always felt like an outsider. They have few friends at school, their interests in fantasy novels and environmentalism aren’t shared by their peers, and when they came out as nonbinary and changed their name, their parents didn’t quite get it: “When they don’t think I can hear them, they say the old name to each other.” So when their family decides to take a summer trip to Disneyland, Ash asks permission to head to northern California instead, ostensibly to spend time at their aunt and uncle’s ranch—but actually to solve a mystery.

Ash’s beloved Grandpa Edwin always talked about a cabin he’d built in the wilderness near the ranch. Now that Edwin’s passed away, no one’s sure whether the cabin is real or just family lore, but Ash is determined to find out. They spend weeks researching, planning and preparing. When the time is right, they set off with nothing but their dog Chase and what they can carry on their back, ready to fully embrace a life without judgment—and entirely alone.

Graphic novelist Jen Wang, who has explored issues of gender and identity in previous works like The Princess and the Dressmaker and Stargazing, continues to examine these ideas in Ash’s Cabin through the bittersweet, complicated character of Ash. Though determined to be self-reliant, Ash soon comes to understand just how interconnected humans are with each other and with the natural world. 

Wang’s pen and watercolor drawings tenderly illustrate Ash’s world. Structured as a journal, the graphic novel includes illustrations of fish, herbs and edible plants; but even as Ash, the narrator, outlines all they’re doing to survive in this remote place, Wang’s illustrations also depict the toll this isolated life takes on Ash and Chase, especially when a crisis threatens all they’ve built. Beautiful, complex and affirming, Ash’s Cabin will prompt deep conversations about how best to support one another and our environment, at a time when the future is uncertain and peace can be hard to find.

Beautiful, complex and affirming, Ash’s Cabin will prompt deep conversations about how best to support one another and our environment, at a time when the future is uncertain and peace can be hard to find.
AudioPopular Fiction

Lies and Weddings

Review by Norah Piehl

Whether you eagerly devoured Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians trilogy, or you’re coming to his “lifestyles of the rich, famous and problematic” subject matter for the first time, the audiobook of his latest standalone novel, Lies and Weddings, is sure to satisfy. Kwan’s thoroughly entertaining global romp spans locales ranging from Houston to Hawaii to British manor houses to Marrakech, as the three children of Lord and Lady Greshamsbury try to salvage the family fortune—and maybe find true love along the way. Narrator Jing Lusi adeptly captures a broad range of accents among the dozens of secondary characters. The production also unobtrusively integrates Kwan’s footnotes, which offer humorous asides—no mean feat in an audio adaptation. Though it clocks in at just over 15 hours, colorful descriptions of fashion, contemporary art and food—not to mention the hijinks of its characters—will keep readers on board for this splendidly enjoyable ride.

Read our starred review of the print version of Lies and Weddings.

The audiobook of Kevin Kwan’s latest standalone novel, Lies and Weddings, is a thoroughly entertaining global romp packed with colorful descriptions of fashion, contemporary art and food.

Bibsy Cross and the Bad Apple

Review by Norah Piehl

With Bibsy Cross and the Bad Apple, award-winning author Liz Garton Scanlon launches a new chapter book series starring a lovable protagonist “with a whole lot to say.” Eight-year-old Bibsy loves school and learning (especially about science), and she has adored all of her teachers—that is, until third grade, when her teacher is stern Mrs. Stumper, who “doesn’t seem that keen on Bibsy either.”

Bibsy enjoys sharing ideas and stories with her class, but Mrs. Stumper thinks Bibsy’s interjections are often “a stone too far.” All too often, when Bibsy and her encouraging parents share their nightly “sweet-and-sour” good news and bad news at dinner, Bibsy’s sour is about her stressful relationship with her teacher. Fortunately, Bibsy is resilient. As her parents note, “If there is one true thing about Bibsy, it is that her sours almost always become sweet.”

So when the upcoming science fair gives Bibsy a chance to flex her creativity and enthusiasm for learning by conducting experiments and creating a poster with her best friend, Bibsy might just gain the courage to speak up for herself one more time—and encourage Mrs. Stumper to change her approach to discipline, not only toward Biby but also toward her other students.

Scanlon’s story, which is written in conversational free verse, combines an exuberant, endearing protagonist with an empowering, STEM-focused plot. Ho’s cheerful black-and-white illustrations are punctuated with bright spots of red that are as bold as Bibsy’s personality. Readers who fall in love with Bibsy are in luck: Knopf is simultaneously publishing a second novel in the series about Bibsy’s attempt to win the library’s bike-a-thon. Hopefully many more adventures will follow.

Within the conversational free verse of Bibsy Cross and the Bad Apple, Liz Garton Scanlon and Dung Ho combine an exuberant, endearing protagonist with an empowering, STEM-focused plot.
Science Fiction & FantasyAudioFantasy

A Letter to the Luminous Deep

Review by Norah Piehl

Sylvie Cathrall’s debut fantasy, a series opener, offers an aquatic variation on dark academia, unfolding entirely through a series of letters and other documents. Set 1,000 years after a mysterious event called “the Dive” sent almost all of humankind underwater, A Letter to the Luminous Deep (12.5 hours) begins with reclusive E. Cidnosin writing to scholar Henerey Clel about her discovery of an unidentified “elongated fish.” Listeners soon discover, through letters between E.’s sister, Sophy, and Henerey’s brother, Vyerin, that E. and Henerey have disappeared under unexplained circumstances. Part mystery, part slowly building romance, Cathrall’s lyrical fantasy utilizes poignant details and quaint language to conjure an evocative underwater world. The use of different narrators for each letter writer—Claire Morgan, Kit Griffiths, Justin Avoth and Joshua Riley—is an effective way to differentiate the characters, and the novel’s unhurried pacing allows listeners to relish the art of letter writing.

Read our starred review of the print version of A Letter to the Luminous Deep.

Part mystery, part slowly building romance, Sylvie Cathrall's lyrical fantasy, A Letter to the Luminous Deep, utilizes poignant details and quaint language to conjure an evocative underwater world.
Children's & YAYA NonfictionYA

Woe

Review by Norah Piehl

This reviewer is emphatically not a cat person. So it’s a testament to my faith in Lucy Knisley that I eagerly picked up Woe: A Housecat’s Story of Despair. 

The comics included here will be familiar to the bestselling author’s numerous social media followers; over many years she chronicled the misadventures and many (many) demands of her charmingly grouchy cat Linney as webcomics. Now, they’ve been collected into a single volume for the first time. Readers unfamiliar with Linney will benefit from Knisley’s introduction, in which she explains why her drawings of Linney don’t look exactly the way one might expect a cat to look: “A lifetime of trying to draw cats ‘well,’” Knisley writes, “has shown me that it’s much better to try to draw their personality, rather than an accurate visual representation.” 

In Knisley’s artwork, Linney is a vaguely cat-shaped being with personality to spare. She is the color of butterscotch pudding, with a fluffy tail, no nose to speak of, and eyes and a mouth that are expressive beyond belief. Her green eyes can go wide and attentive, or squinty and sly (and in at least one case, they’re lit with the fire of devilry); her one canine tooth sticks out when she yowls in despair or just for attention. 

Knisley’s comics chronicle dynamics that will be familiar to pet owners, and cat owners in particular: the pet who whines loudly for food only to turn up their nose at what’s on offer; the toddler whose fur-pulling affection is barely tolerated; the long-suffering spouse who grudgingly indulges the cat’s foibles. Since the real-life Linney passed away in 2020, Knisley also chronicles the inevitable pain of losing a beloved member of the family in sections that will undoubtedly affect readers emotionally, whether they’re cat people or not. The individual cartoons are short and clever, but collectively, they compile a funny, touching saga that explores what it means to care for a beloved four-legged companion through thick and thin.

Woe: A Housecat’s Story of Despair is a funny, touching saga that explores what it means to care for a beloved four-legged companion through thick and thin.
FictionAudio

Bad Habit

Review by Norah Piehl

Spanish novelist Alana S. Portero debuts with Bad Habit (5.5 hours), a brief but stunning coming-of-age novel set in a working-class neighborhood of Madrid during the 1980s and 1990s. The unnamed narrator describes her early awareness of hostility towards her nascent trans identity, hostility which exponentially compounds other dangers like drugs and poverty that confront all of the neighborhood’s young people: “We grew up like that: generations of working-class kids dreaming up whole worlds in the very same plots that might one day become our final resting places.” Actress Alexandra Grey, who is a trans woman, reads with a smooth and resonant voice that mirrors the lyricism of Portero’s words in Mara Faye Lethem’s English translation. This image-rich, unsentimental portrayal of a vibrant yet vulnerable place will transport readers into a world and a life worth understanding.

Read our starred review of the print version of Bad Habit.

Actress Alexandra Grey resonantly reads Alana S. Portero’s stunning debut, Bad Habit, chronicling a trans girl’s coming of age in 1980s Madrid.
Children's & YAPicture BookChildren's

Simone

Review by Norah Piehl

Pulitzer-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen (The Sympathizer) takes his first foray into children’s books with Simone, a thoughtful and emotionally intense family story set during the California fire season. Simone, a young Vietnamese American girl, is dreaming of floating in the ocean when she is awakened by her mother (whom she calls M&aacute, the only Vietnamese word she knows). A wildfire is approaching their town, and they’ve been ordered to evacuate.

Simone and her mother are prepared with go bags and an evacuation route—but even then Simone has to make tough choices: “I’ll be back for you,” she reluctantly says to the books and toys she can’t take. The pain of leaving things behind and the panic of vacating her home in an emergency remind Simone’s m&aacute of when floods forced her to evacuate her childhood home in Vietnam and abandon everything but her precious crayons. Despite the disorientation and chaos at the evacuation shelter, Simone’s m&aacute helps Simone find a path forward: “You don’t fight fire with fire, / You fight fire with water,” she says.

Minnie Phan’s hand-lettered text reinforces Simone’s first-person perspective, and Phan’s colored pencil and watercolor palette gorgeously interprets the book’s themes. Simone dreams in color, but when she awakens, the world is black and white, with the only remaining colors the red and orange of the flames. Likewise, her mother’s memories of Vietnam are blue, like the floodwaters that engulfed her home. Toward the end, as Simone and her new friends use artwork to remember their homes and to re-imagine their future, color returns to the pages. The illustrations combine with Nguyen’s words—“It’s up to us”—to offer a vision of hope and healing in the wake of generations of displacement.

In Simone, Minnie Phan’s illustrations combine with Viet Thanh Nguyen’s prose to offer a vision of hope and healing in the wake of generations of displacement.
Audio

The Unclaimed

Review by Norah Piehl

Much has been written about the recent epidemic of loneliness in America. The Unclaimed: Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels (9.5 hours), an impeccably researched collaboration by sociologists Pamela Prickett and Stefan Timmermans, traces that epidemic to its tragic and perhaps inevitable conclusion, as it follows the stories of four individuals whose bodies are unclaimed and destined for county disposal after their death. Nan McNamara’s direct and compelling narration mirrors the clarity of the text, which combines personal narratives with historical and cultural context, including the not insignificant task of explaining the bureaucratic apparatus surrounding death. Most moving are the stories of people providing ritual and ceremony for those they never knew: abandoned infants, forgotten veterans, the deserted and estranged. The extensive afterword is worth a listen, too, to understand and fully appreciate the complexities of the issue and the work involved in creating this heartbreaking but essential project.

This impeccably researched audiobook, compellingly narrated by Nan McNamara, traces the American epidemic of loneliness to its tragic and perhaps inevitable conclusion in the stories of four individuals whose bodies are unclaimed after their death.
Children's & YAMiddle GradeChildren's

Poetry Comics

Review by Norah Piehl

In some ways, Grant Snider’s Poetry Comics is exactly what you’d expect—a series of short narratives that combine lyrical words with cartoons. But in almost every other way, this collection manages to surprise readers at each turn of the page.

Poetry Comics is loosely structured around seasons of the year, beginning in spring with tadpoles and leafing trees, and wrapping up in winter with snowfall and the boredom of being stuck indoors. But not all the topics of Snider’s poems—which are mostly in free verse but include some rhyming verses—are seasonal in nature. Many are introspective, touching on personal growth and the creative process in ways that will resonate with readers of various ages: “Maybe a moment is a taste— / a pickle’s sour crunch. / If only there were a way / to put it on paper / I could capture a moment / in all its wild power.” A recurring exploration of “How to Write a Poem” addresses frustration and revision before reaching a joyful conclusion.

Most of the poems include one or two figures leaping acrobatically through panels, often interacting with birds, insects, plants, trees and other elements of the natural world. The pen-and-ink illustrations, colored and edited digitally, span a gorgeous range of pastel and more saturated hues (on display to particularly great effect in “Poem for Painting My Room”). At times, the artwork is more conceptual, as in “Best Friends,” which visualizes a friendship via shapes in two different colors, or “Shape Story,” whose creative panel structure might prompt readers to think not only about what makes a poem but about how comics are constructed.

That may be the greatest value of Snider’s creativity-infused collection: Young readers and aspiring creatives who might be daunted by the prospect of writing a traditional poem or drawing a full graphic novel will find in these pages dozens of new models for, as Snider puts it, helping “say things / I never knew were in me.”

Grant Snider’s Poetry Comics are often introspective, touching on personal growth and the creative process in ways that will resonate with readers of various ages.
FictionAudioPoetry

Root Fractures

Review by Norah Piehl

Award-winning poet Diana Khoi Nguyen traverses deeply personal emotional landscapes in her second collection, Root Fractures. Nguyen’s poems, as the title suggests, trace her family’s fractures, from their origins in Vietnam, to her father’s attempts to resettle and assimilate in California, to her brother’s self-erasure from the family. Movingly read by Nguyen herself, the audiobook offers a close approximation of attending a poetry reading. Perhaps the most challenging aspect of producing this audio version was that Nguyen, who’s also a multimedia artist, often incorporates photographs and unique text treatments in her written work. The audiobook of Root Fractures comes with a PDF of these poems, whose visual forms are also described on the recording. Clever techniques, such as muted sound to approximate grayed-out text or multiple tracks to replicate overlapping text, make the auditory experience a beautiful complement to the visual one.

Read our starred review of the print edition of Root Fractures.

Movingly read by author Diana Khoi Nguyen herself, the audiobook of Root Fractures offers a close approximation of attending a poetry reading.
Audio

The Fury

Review by Norah Piehl

Alex Michaelides has crafted a superb psychological thriller in The Fury (8 hours), combining classic whodunit elements with contemporary storytelling techniques. Glamorous American actress Lana Farrar invites a small circle of friends (and frenemies) to her private Greek island for a getaway. This includes playwright and consummate hanger-on Elliot Chase, who narrates the story. After one of their number turns up dead, Elliot reveals ever more secrets and lies—including some of his own. Alex Jennings’ reading, with its measured pace and conversational, almost confessional tone, perfectly captures Elliot’s personality, as well as the varied voices of the small cast of characters. Listeners will be loath to press pause on this entirely unpredictable tale.

Read our review of the print edition of The Fury.

Listeners will be loath to press pause on this entirely unpredictable tale of a Greek island getaway gone wrong.

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