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NonfictionMemoir

Wonderland

Review by Priscilla Kipp

T.S. Eliot wrote, “There’s no vocabulary / For love within a family . . . the love within which / All other love finds speech. / This love is silent.” Not so for Nicole Treska, as she introduces her rogues’ gallery of a family in her debut memoir, Wonderland: A Tale of Hustling Hard and Breaking Even. Treska knows her family’s vocabulary by heart and speaks it with equal parts love, loyalty, chagrin and ambivalence. She paints her hometown of Boston with the same vibrant detail, offering both cityscape and cultural backdrop. Legendary attractions like the Hilltop, Kowloon and the Golden Banana strip club come alive, along with cherished and not-so-cherished memories of her family, some of them long gone but living on in their own notoriety.

Treska begins by envisioning the eponymous Wonderland, a short-lived, early-1900s amusement park on Boston’s Revere Beach. “Of course,” Treska writes, “we revered some kind of permanence—something to point to and say, ‘I came from right here.’ . . . There was yearning in what remained.” In this spirit, Treska dives into her family history. Her grandfather was a bookie for the infamous Whitey Bulger. His diner was host to the Winter Hill Gang, an Irish mob syndicate that dominated the city in the ’60s and ’70s: “They ran books and armed the IRA and engaged in your typical mob-type behavior: racketeering, robbery, drugs, murder.” When her father, Phil, worked at the diner, he took bets from “all the gamblers and wiseguys around town” and later did a stint in prison for federal drug trafficking. “My family met the devil regularly,” Treska notes dryly.

Meanwhile, Treska was the first to graduate from college, and she became an adjunct professor at City College of New York. But she notes, too, her skill at swapping price tags on artwork and stealing accessories for her Harlem apartment. She also became smart at tricking her landlord and profiting from the Airbnb rental of one of her bedrooms. “Begging, borrowing, and stealing were the only way I knew how to build a life, but I did build.”

Treska’s reckoning of her two lives—rising success in New York and her family’s heavy legacy of poverty and crime in Boston—continues. Phil gambles. “He breathed, he lied, he gambled, and then all the rest that makes up a life,” Treska writes. “I loved my father. And how do you love a thief?” For those who, like Treska, may have some skeletons in their family closet, Wonderland holds both good and bad news: We can honor them with our fonder memories, but the damage they caused may yet linger. But still, family is something to point to, to say, “I came from right here.”

Nicole Treska explores memory and legacy as she introduces her rogues’ gallery of a family in her debut memoir, Wonderland.
NonfictionMemoir

Woman of Interest

Review by Kelly Blewett

Raised by vivacious and uncompromising Irish American parents in Massachusetts, Tracy O’Neill did not spend much time thinking about her Korean birth mother or the circumstances of her adoption until the COVID-19 pandemic made her suddenly wonder whether the mother she never knew might, in fact, be about to die alone. Her mother became her “woman of interest,” and O’Neill’s hardboiled detective-style memoir details her journey through her own personal history—and eventually to South Korea—to find her.

Many memoirs offer a carefully rendered picture of past events, with a tight thematic focus. O’Neill is after something different with Woman of Interest. By choosing the tone of a noir, she inhabits a narrative space full of macabre humor, plot twists and offbeat characters. Her sentences run to the jangling and unpredictable rhythms of the classic detective story, with spare descriptions and snappy, deadpan dialogue: “So you graduated?” a social worker who handles adoptions asks O’Neill. “Good for you. A lot of the children don’t graduate.” The author uses the genre’s tropes—chapter titles include “Leave No Witness,” “Red Herring” and “A Stranger Comes to Town”—to recast the story of her life as a kind of meta-nonfiction: “I could confuse my life for experimental literature with possibilities of diffuse narrative perspectives,” she writes, “but it still adhered to realism.”

O’Neill’s journey is confusing, overwhelming and deeply human. It is the story not only of an adopted child facing the essential questions of all adopted children, but also, and more universally, the story of a search for home. As such, the phrase “woman of interest” applies to O’Neill as well as her mother. Through describing interactions with her family, her friends, her beloved dog, Cowboy, and an earthy, semi-wild boyfriend whom she refers to as N., O’Neill reports on a quest that, while uniquely her own in terms of form and content, is also relatable to anyone who has ever looked in the mirror and wondered, “Who am I, really? And who are my people?”

 

Despite its snappy, hardboiled style, Tracy O'Neill's memoir is a deeply human story of a search for home.
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.
NonfictionSocial Science

White Poverty

Review by Deborah Mason

In White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy, MacArthur fellow and activist-pastor William J. Barber II makes the logical but nonetheless surprising point that, even though poverty has a disproportionately high impact on Black Americans, there is a vastly greater number of white people living in poverty, leading lives of unacknowledged despair in plain view. Yet we often equate poverty with Black communities, and as a result, poverty and all its ills are seen as a “Black problem.” 

Barber argues that this equation is based on four racist myths that deliberately divide poor white people from poor Black people, and prevent them from uniting against the policies and structures that favor the rich and powerful. These myths—among them that all white people share common ground, regardless of economic and social status—both justify and perpetuate our malign neglect of the poor. His examination of each myth, from its cause to its effect, exposes that what we were told were fundamental truths about poverty were actually dog whistles and racist tropes. 

But, important as this lesson is, Barber’s most powerful message is that if these myths are dismissed, and if poor white people recognize that they have far more in common with poor Black people, they could unite to demand living wages, access to health care and safe housing. Barber calls this union a “moral fusion,” and his descriptions of the power that is unleashed when Black and white poor people discover their common ground are the most hopeful and powerful passages in White Poverty. For example, a queer, poor, white woman named Lakin gave testimony at a Black church about the debilitating isolation of white poverty and the fear it engenders. By exposing the wounds of white poverty, Lakin created a space for empathy and understanding—and action.

White Poverty resonates like a powerful sermon. Like Jeremiah, Amos and other Old Testament prophets, Barber condemns the injustice perpetrated on the poor. And also like them, Barber offers a hopeful way forward to a more just and equitable society.

In White Poverty, William J. Barber II urges poor white and Black people to unite against the policies that favor the rich and powerful.
NonfictionPhotographyLifestylesAnimals

Why We Photograph Animals

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

If your favorite part of social media is posting and seeing pet photos, you’re not alone. In Why We Photograph Animals, historian Huw Lewis-Jones reveals that more than three million dog photos are uploaded to Instagram daily—from the U.K. alone! What’s behind this urge to photograph animals, both domestic and wild? And is this a new phenomenon? 

Lewis-Jones explores these questions in nearly 300 images, both historical and contemporary. Many are breathtaking: a luminous, double-page spread of a black leopard and a gorilla strolling through clouds of butterflies. Others challenge us to examine our relationship with nature: A shot of tourists at a zoo, watching in an aquarium-like setting as a baby elephant is made to perform underwater, is especially disturbing.

Along with stunning images, this beautifully designed book features thought-provoking essays by a distinguished group of nature photographers, cinematographers and scientists. Why We Photograph Animals encourages us to think deeply about the creatures that share our world—and our responsibilities toward them and our planet. Lewis-Jones reminds us that photography can play a role, writing, “With admiration and with art, we raise our cameras as tools of advocacy and action.” 

Why We Photograph Animals encourages us to think deeply about the creatures that share our world—and our responsibilities toward them and our planet.
Children's & YAPicture BookChildren's

What Love Looks Like

Review by Jill Lorenzini

When little Afia can’t sleep, her mind as active as a summer night, she and her papa travel in their imaginations to find love. And find it they do—in the sun-warmed sand, on a snowy mountain top, in the ocean’s friendly waves and even in the darkest night sky. Before she finally drifts off to sleep, Afia and her father discover that love looks like many things across the world; but most of all, it looks like them. What Love Looks Like, written by Laura Obuobi and illustrated by Anna Cunha, is a captivating addition to the bedtime bookshelf.

Against the safe coziness of a cream-colored background, Cunha’s characters are sweet and softly drawn, as well as a little messy and hazy, like a dream. Her oil painting style and warm colors enchant from the start, but as Afia and Papa journey on, Cunha’s art blossoms into magical worlds that feel wondrous and grand while remaining calm and welcoming. Cunha manages to make her art feel both old and contemporary—which means it will never be dated or stale.

Cunha’s artwork is so captivating, it hardly needs accompanying narration, but it’s perfectly balanced by author Laura Obuobi’s beautiful, well-chosen descriptions told with a storyteller’s sensibility. Obuobi’s writing begs to be read aloud and savored, and she peppers her narration with alliteration and a rhythm that pulls one gently forward. Her poetic descriptions are impeccable and lovely, conjuring new settings in seconds. All of these things make What Love Looks Like a perfect last book before bed: Readers may find themselves relaxing and feeling sleepy as they read. 

While there is no lack of picture books to help with bedtime procrastination, What Love Looks Like deserves a spotlight. Not many offerings are so well-matched in their text and art. Indeed, Cunha and Obuobi deliver the embodiment of What Love Looks Like: beautiful things to look at, gentle words before bedtime and someone dear to share them with.

Cunha and Obuobi deliver the embodiment of What Love Looks Like: beautiful things to look at, gentle words before bedtime and someone dear to share them with.
NonfictionPhotographyLifestyles

Wash Day

Review by Becky Libourel Diamond

Hair can instill empowerment and confidence. It can also cause stress and anxiety, especially when it doesn’t fit Eurocentric perceptions of beauty. Tomesha Faxio, a self-taught documentary photographer, sets out to debunk myths about Black women’s natural hair and celebrate the rituals surrounding its care in her loving photo-essay book Wash Day: Passing on the Legacy, Rituals, and Love of Natural Hair.

Combining touching photography of mothers and daughters with a descriptive history of natural hair, Faxio explains how Black women and their hair have been misunderstood and misrepresented for centuries, and how the pressure to straighten and relax naturally curly, textured hair is a symptom of racism. By also focusing on the bonding that occurs on wash day between mothers and daughters, Faxio demonstrates that Black hair and beauty rituals can and should be honored. With its exquisite photography and heartfelt personal messages, the visually stunning Wash Day fills a gap regarding what it means for Black women not just to embrace their natural hair, but their whole selves.

With its exquisite photography and heartfelt profiles, Wash Day celebrates Black women’s natural hair.
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.
FictionDystopian Fiction

This Great Hemisphere

Review by Lauren Bufferd

Mateo Askaripour’s second novel, This Great Hemisphere, is set 500 years in the future. The world is broken up into warring hemispheres, in which some of the inhabitants are born invisible and consigned to second-class citizenship (vizzers) while the manipulative Dominant Population (DPs, or dippies) rule with an iron grip.

Sweetmint, born invisible but imaginative and hardworking, is granted a highly sought-after internship with eccentric inventor Croger Tenmase. He encourages her scientific creativity, inspires her with obsolete objects like books and cameras, and teaches her to play tennis. But Sweetmint’s projects are shut down after a political assassination; the Chief Executive of the Northwestern Hemisphere is killed and Sweetmint’s long-lost brother Shanu is accused of the murder. Sweetmint is determined to locate Shanu, embarking on a quest that takes her far outside her community, forging new relationships and digging into the mysteries of her origins. Meanwhile, a power struggle ensues between ambitious politicians and ruthless generals as they vie to win the hearts and minds of the DPs in an upcoming election.

Part political thriller, part sci-fi, This Great Hemisphere revels in dystopian details with plausible roots: the ruling class controlling access to information, history and religion; the abundance of cheap processed food to keep the Invisibles in poor health; and the hypocrisy of the DPs between their pious pronouncements and secret sex clubs. At the same time, a secret Invisibles army, the “Children of Slim,” gains strength and power through collective knowledge of their shared legacy.

Askaripour’s breakthrough 2021 novel, Black Buck, was a wicked satire about a young Black man leaving his job as a barista for a position in a dubious tech start-up with cultish vibes. Similarly, This Great Hemisphere explores the allure of power and the lengths people go to gain and retain it, but it’s also a story about rebellion, resilience and the strength to shape your own future. It’s only when Sweetmint stops relying on false narratives that she can truly become the inventor she longs to be.

Part political thriller, part sci-fi, Mateo Askaripour’s second novel, This Great Hemisphere, revels in the dystopian details of a world where invisible citizens live under the control of the visible Dominant Population.
Mystery & SuspenseThriller

Things Don’t Break on Their Own

Review by Lauren Emily Whalen

In Things Don’t Break on Their Own, Sarah Easter Collins goes straight for the gut and the heart with a tale of a dinner party gone awry, where repressed memories are unearthed and everyone at the table will be forever changed.

Suburban London, just before Christmas: Radiologist Robyn and her wife, Cat, put the kids to bed and welcome an array of dinner guests into their bustling, happy household. Among them is Willa, Robyn’s boarding school roommate and first love, now married to the boorish Jamie and still under the roof of the controlling father she tried to escape over two decades ago—after Willa’s 13-year-old sister, Laika, left for class one morning and never returned. When the psychologist date of Robyn’s brother, Michael, begins a conversation about memory, Robyn and Willa reflect on their shared past and wonder what happened to angry, vulnerable Laika. Can someone really disappear without a trace?

As artist and debut author Collins’ title suggests, many things can break (especially familial and romantic bonds), but as Robyn and Michael’s potter father once showed the then-teenagers, carefully repairing scattered shards can make a piece, and a person, stronger than ever. This literary thriller doesn’t simply titillate and scare; it thoroughly explores the complex journey of two bruised young women as they stumble through life before finding sure footing. Every character, from Robyn’s and Cat’s family members to Willa’s George Michael-loving mother to an enigmatic French yoga teacher named Claudette, is richly drawn and worth rooting for—except when they’re not. Like the handmade pot Willa throws during an unforgettable summer, Things Don’t Break on Their Own is a rare treasure, bursting with emotion and built to last.

Sarah Easter Collins’ literary thriller, Things Don’t Break on Their Own, is a rare treasure, bursting with emotion and built to last.
Science Fiction & FantasyFantasy

These Deathless Shores

Review by Stephanie Cohen-Perez

In a world full of Peter Pan reimaginings and remakes, P.H. Low’s These Deathless Shores stands apart. This evocative, thrilling flight follows Jordan, a 22-year-old woman who was once one of Peter Pan’s loyal Lost Boys. It’s been nine years since she and Baron, her childhood friend, were exiled from Peter’s Island. Both have tried to make a life in San Jukong, a sprawling city reminiscent of Southeast Asian metropolises, but Jordan’s been in withdrawal from Tinkerbell’s Dust ever since she left the Island and has become addicted to a drug called karsa in order to cope with her symptoms. Jordan decides to return and steal Tinkerbell in order to gain an unlimited supply of Dust, and drags Baron along on the perilous journey. But when sinister truths are revealed about Peter’s machinations, Jordan sets her sights on a new goal: revenge. 

Low’s world building is lush and detail-laden, and they fully immerse readers into San Jukong and later Peter’s island, to the point that readers are sometimes left feeling as if they’re paddling to keep their heads above water. However, Baron and Jordan’s profound connection provides an emotional foundation. While Baron is content to forget Peter, Jordan knows that he will follow her to the ends of the earth to honor the bond they forged while masquerading as twins on the island. With each delicious and devastating twist, Low makes clear that the traditional archetypes of heroes and villains have been flipped on their head in this telling, especially when it comes to Jordan (who just so happens to wear a metallic prosthetic hand). As she and Baron fight the boy who never grew up, and navigate the traumatic memories that have come flooding back, can they rewrite the ending to this cursed bedtime story?

P.H. Low’s intriguing debut fantasy, These Deathless Shores, is a haunting modern spin on Peter Pan.
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.
Science Fiction & FantasyFantasy

The West Passage

Review by Chris Pickens

Jared Pechacek’s The West Passage is a medieval(ish) fantasy novel awash in dualities. It’s richly detailed, but often lonely and stark. It’s whimsical, bordering on silly, before turning grotesque and haunting. It speeds up without warning, then slows down to closely examine some new oddity. The West Passage is consistently wondrous; the reader turns each page knowing they will encounter something wholly new.

Five towers rise from a massive palace, each one home to an ancient Lady. These giant beings, full of mysterious power, rule over the people who live there like beekeepers tending a hive. But not in Grey Tower, where the last Lady has long since died. All that remains are the women of Grey Tower, left to tend to a decaying fortress and observe their rituals even as their numbers dwindle. When the guardian of Grey Tower dies, two young apprentices’ journeys begin. Pell, the women’s apprentice, searches to find out why winter covers Grey Tower even in spring. Meanwhile, the guardian’s apprentice, Kew, must relay his mistress’ final, ominous message to Black Tower: The Beast, an eternal evil, stirs in the West Passage. If the Beast returns, the palace’s very existence will be in jeopardy. Can these two youths find the answers and save their world before the cataclysm?

The setting of The West Passage is as much a character as Pell and Kew. Following in the footsteps of Lewis Carroll, Pechacek has built a universe unique in modern fantasy. Solemnity and absurdity abound in equal measure: Bodies are given to the birds rather than being buried, and an eccentric schoolteacher tries to teach apes how to read and write. Strange things, lovely things and horrific things all blend together in a fable-like narrative of deceptive simplicity. It’s exciting to get lost in a world like this and be surprised and unsettled again and again. The West Passage deserves a chance to spellbind you: Dive headfirst into the rabbit hole.

Jared Pechacek’s The West Passage is consistently wondrous; in this experimental fantasy, the reader turns each page knowing they will encounter something wholly new.

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