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THE METAMORPHOSIS OF BUNNY BAXTER

Thanks to her great mop of flaming-red hair and some unfortunate incidents on the first day, Theodosia “Bunny” Baxter’s hopes of invisibly blending in at her new middle school may be dashed. But the ensuing notoriety leaves her alternative scheme—being expelled, so she can go to school with her best friend—all the more doable. Or […]

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MERCY

As Dillon’s novel opens, the lands of Maetlynd and Taldreas and other territories are still fragmented. They are reeling from a great conflict called the Reckoning, in which the powerful, mystical objects known as Tears were scattered so they could never fall into the wrong hands again. As the story begins, a man named Harglon, […]

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AND SO I TOOK THEIR EYE

The first entry, “A Gringo Died Today,” kicks things off in a village in Guatemala. As the title suggests, the dead body of a foreigner is discovered on a beach; the story of how that dead body came to be there is one that lands a local in some serious trouble. In “The Eagle of […]

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THE FIRST HOMOSEXUALS

Born out of the editors’ desire to “redress a long history of disinterest, ignorance, and/or active censorship around questions of gender and sexuality in art history and museum culture,” this lavish book by queer art historians Katz and Willis accompanies an exhibition at Wrightwood 659 in Chicago. It’s a project composed of a wide array […]

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10,000 INK STAINS

Twenty-five years into his prolific career, Lemire (Minor Arcana, 2025, etc.) humbly reflects on his expansive bibliography and guides readers through his progression from producing his own self-published zines to inking production deals with Netflix. Each chapter primarily focuses on one book’s genesis and is packed with character studies, sketches, and archival photos. Lemire worked […]

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THE IDAHO FOUR

Patterson, that industrial-strength writer, adopts a sort of semi-noir tone in this true-life procedural, opening when news of the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin reaches the chief of police of Moscow, Idaho: “And again he presses harder on the gas. One good thing about being the police chief is […]

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Misfit’s Magic: Twisting in Time

Fourteen-year-old Goff, having faced off against a dark wizard, is ready to enjoy his days at a boarding school. Elsewhere, his “magical friends from past adventures,” Bones and Maxim, find and inadvertently activate a Time Lock. Around the campus, Goff, his romantic interest, and his best friends all vanish with a “pop.” The story then […]

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JOURNEY BEYOND THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD

The Wizard of Oz and its adaptation, The Wiz, are employed as metaphors for the caregiving experience in this self-help book. The author is a registered nurse and tells us that much like landing in Oz, assuming a caregiving role involves “all sorts of new customs, expectations, relationship dynamics, challenges, and personal insecurities to navigate. And […]

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DEATH AND THE LIBRARIAN

In the time she’s not spending wrangling her 6-year-old twins, Taylorsford Library director Amy Muir is busy with an arts festival and the premiere performance of her husband Richard’s new dance company. The Friends of the Library association has invited true-crime author Maureen Dryden to speak at their book sale; her best-known book claims to […]

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HATE REVISITED!

The book alternates between the characters’ young adulthoods in 1990s Seattle (in black and white) and their middle-age years in the 2020s in the suburbs of Seattle and New Jersey (in color). We see the formative moments of a group of disaffected friends—maybe just associates—and how life has changed or broken them. Central figure Buddy […]