Rachel Del Rio describes herself as “42, childless and single,” and while her comedy career is thriving and her lesbian best friend, Scout McDonough, is supportive, she’s insecure about her personal life. She’s reluctant to attend her 20th college reunion—everyone “who isn’t gay or a crackpot is married with kids.” Rachel finds an unsigned love […]
On a spring day in 2001, a couple brought their 6-year-old granddaughter, Haley, on a hike with friends to Cave Mountain, in Arkansas’ Buffalo National River Wilderness. As author Hale (The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore, 2011) relates, this was followed was the largest manhunt in the state’s history. Days after being found by locals, Haley […]
BeBe enjoys her comfortable life as a caterpillar, munching leaves and crawling wherever she pleases. But after waking up with wings and long legs, her world suddenly feels “strange.” She can no longer “crunch on her favorite milkweed or clover” and feels uncomfortable when “her big wings [follow] her everywhere.” The story uses BeBe’s transformation […]
What’s unsaid often leaves the strongest impression, as Tye suggests in this unflinching account of growing up in 1970s Texas. The book’s title nods to the Austin neighborhood where his father moved him and his brother, Kenny, in June 1970. But the author’s hopes for stability there—after attending eight schools and living in 10 different […]
Fourteen-year-old Mikayla Grebe is days away from taking the Fulfilled Genetic Potential test and proving she’s worth society’s investment. The fear of losing Elite status and becoming a Defective or an Expendable always looms. She knows that “you can lose everything in a moment”—like her friend Carmen, who vanished with her family one day. But […]
It’s 1985 in Southern California, where Samuel McCammon is the devout and fiercely observant only child in a volatile household rife with alcoholism, discord, and domestic abuse. In his strict religious school, his demonic visions have already made him notorious. As children begin disappearing from the neighborhood, Samuel’s visions grow darker and more disturbing, and […]
Set in 2014, the story begins in Marquette, Michigan, after a small meteor falls to Earth. When advertising exec Carole Veilleux—unknowingly infected by a tick days earlier—bites bakery owner Booker, she begins a chain reaction that spreads the strange contamination (the “mind-merge thing”) throughout Marquette and eventually all over the world. Billions of people become […]
Before Princess Roselyn the Reticent can articulate what she needs, her parents (the king and queen) and the people of her kingdom anticipate it for her. “Was that a speck of dirt? ‘Run a bath for the princess!’” And when they think she wants a treat? Time for “ALL THE ICE CREAM IN THE LAND.” […]
Cultural critics Druckman and Sen are adoring longtime soap opera fans who infuse their enthusiasm and analysis into a dozen “episode” essays examining the ascent and fanatical obsession of these serials as well as their incremental replacement by modern “reality” versions. In a delightful introductory piece, the authors quiz each other about how their fascination […]
Seventeen-year-old Calico Brown’s 14-year-old sister, Asha, was being treated for cancer when she died. Calico made a hasty deal with an opportunistic man named Lucas Fates and persuades her mum to agree: The sisters will be cryogenically frozen in the hope that Asha can be reanimated when a cure has been found. Calico’s own freezing—assisting […]