Calypso

Calypso by David Sedaris is yet another hilarious recounting of his life with his partner Hugh, his abundant siblings, and all the strangers he judges. However, this time he puts his focus on times spent at his vacation home on Emerald Isle. Throughout these instances, Sedaris rocks the readers’ worlds with laughter, shock, and laughter again.

            The book starts with the story of how he came to buy the Sea Section, a stilted house on a resort island in North Carolina. As a child, his family would go to Emerald Isle every summer, and every summer, his father would wistfully suggest buying their own property instead of renting every year, but he would never follow through. Finally, after the tragic death of one of his sisters, Sedaris buys a house on the coast so that his family can come and be together on Emerald Isle whenever they want. Of course, for most people, this would be the “and they lived happily ever after” moment, but the Sedaris family isn’t that sort of people.

            Sedaris goes on to recount almost every gathering at the Sea Section since it was purchased, describing fights with his prudish mother-in-law, conversations that turn into naps with his father, and being crushed by his 12-year-old niece at Sorry, the board game. The stories become more outlandish and vulgar as they go on, especially the running storyline of Sedaris’s quest to feed his own (thankfully removed) tumor to a snapping turtle. Nothing is too taboo for this book, not even gastrointestinal viruses or the things one sees on Intervention, which gives this book the classic Sedaris voice.

            Sedaris takes a lot of time in his book to talk about family and how the dynamic has changed throughout the ages. At the start of the book, he expresses how when his family visits him in England, he often leaves them be for long stretches, afraid that they’ll get sick of him if he lingers too long. After the purchase of the Sea Section, however, he seemingly spends more and more time with his sisters, his brother, and even his father. The biggest show of growth comes at the end, when Sedaris visits his father, the person he was never close to as a child, at his childhood home. Sedaris also discusses his regrets concerning his family, such as never confronting his mother’s alcoholism, and his relationship with his sister Tiffany.

            Overall, Sedaris charms his readers with his stark prose and wit, and he wins us over with his relatable experiences and emotions. If you’ve ever had a partner, a family, or a bad thought about the person in front of you in line at the grocery store, you’ll like Calypso, and if you felt physically ill after the election, sometimes do good things just to look good, or enjoy learning how people in different countries express their road rage, then you’ll love Calypso. Grab a copy today and prepare to experience the snarky, honest world that is David Sedaris’s life.

Reviewed by Danielle Uppleger

Published by Little, Brown and Company, 2018

ISBN: 978-0-316-39238-9 (hc) / 978-0-316-39236-5 (large print) / 978-0-316-39239-6 (international tpb) / 978-0-316-52482-7 (signed edition)
259 pages

Instagram: @david_sedaris
Facebook: David Sedaris

The House of Broken Angels

Big Angel is gathering everyone for one last birthday party, and your invited!

Pulitzer Prize Finalist Luis Alberto Urrea begins The House of Broken Angels by simply thrusting the reader into the world of the de La Cruzes without much context, but within the first few pages, we learn that Big Angel, the family patriarch, is on his way to bury his one-hundred-year-old mother the day before his seventieth birthday, which will be his last as his body withers from cancer. The de La Cruzes family tree is then explored throughout Big Angel’s final birthday party–a setting that dominates a majority of the novel–as he has invited everyone who he possibly could. In order for one to see the family tree though, the reader must be highly attentive–in a way one would be if surrounded by strangers in an unknown area–of every character, their dialogue, and interactions with one another. While Urrea tasks the reader with puzzling various names and relationships together, he sums up how long the La Cruz family has lived in the United States early on, when Big Angel and his family drive past a “Build the Wall” sign.

“…the de La Cruz family has been around here since before your grandparents were even born.”

As the family tree of the de La Cruzes begins to unfold, so do the problems that come along with each character. Many of the problems and encounters that are explored begin with the issues of border-crossing back and forth between Tijuana and California, but move toward issues that are contemporary and of high importance to Mexican-American families. For instance, there are two characters who find themselves ostracized for long periods time for reasons that are still common today. Little Angel finds himself ostracized from his half-brother, Big Angel, and others in the de La Cruz family because he is biracial: he is half-white and half-Mexican. Little Angel is often considered too white, a gringo, to Big Angel and the elders of the de La Cruz family; on the other hand, Little Angel is viewed as simply Hispanic by all others outside of the family. For example, Little Angel is involved in a scene with a Target shopper telling Little Angel that he will be deported soon. All the while, Yndio, Big Angel’s oldest step-son, disappears from the family for many years after Yndio’s non-cisgender identity is revealed to Big Angel and the rest of the de La Cruz family.

Other issues explored by Urrea involve military recruitment practices and assimilation to unknown aspects US culture. Lalo, another one of Big Angel’s children, is solicited to enlist in the military with the promise of a pathway to US citizenship but is deported to Mexico after serving in Iraq, having to reenter the US by crossing the border. This leads to drug-abuse and other outbreaks of symptoms related to PTSD that neither Lalo nor his family seem to be aware of. Big Angel’s American born nephew Marco, a metal-head who goes by the alias of The Satanic Hispanic, doesn’t interact much with the de La Cruzes at Big Angel’s party, but is smitten with a blind girl named Lily.

While the main story focuses on the de La Cruz family and many of the challanges they face, there are moments of beauty that may go unnoticed, such as Big Angel’s lifelong marriage to his wife Perla, a couple that seems to remain in love with each other as if there were teenagers after decades of marriage, or the way that the de La Cruz family is able to find some level of reconciliation amongst each other without any more dignity ravished from one another.

The House of Broken Angels is a novel that appropriately veers between heavy moments of disaster and beauty, with small dashes of humor, to serve as a testament to the struggles that many Mexican-American families face–many of which that are hardly discussed, but are all too real and common. This novel provokes the discussions ignored, while at the same time, finding a way to humanize the perceptions of immigrants, immigration, non-cisgender identities, and those attempting to balance a multiracial identity.

Reviewed by Carlos Joshue Reyes

Published by Little, Brown and Company on March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-0-316-15488-8
336 Pages

Stray City

Chelsey Johnson tells the story of a lesbian living in 90s Portland who has a straight fling that leaves her pregnant. 

How does a lesbian get pregnant in the first place? And what does she do with the pregnancy? 

Andrea is just a shell of a good child from Nebraska who goes to church with her family and bides her time being who they want her to be. She turns 18, moves to Portland for college, goes by “Andy,” and is finally able to be herself: queer. She becomes a part of the lesbian community in the city and finds a home here, staying even after dropping out of school. 

Set in Portland in the late 90s, Chelsey Johnson describes a place and time many of us want to go back to – even if we were never there. There is a community of queer punk kids who become queer punk adults and make families with each other when they no longer have support from their own. Stray City moves because it is told through many ways: first person narrative, third person, letters, voicemails, internet search history, and other forms.

Andrea becomes Andy and finds herself in the thick of the “Lesbian Mafia,” going to shows and swapping girlfriends in their ever-small circle. Reeling from a fresh, passionate breakup, she sleeps with a man . . . a few times. 

Andy is a lesbian that has a straight experience. This is a counter narrative where the straight experience is the weird venture, the one-off thing. At its core it is a story about community, learning who we are, and that life is not always a linear journey. 

Chelsey Johnson tells a story of navigating sexual experience in a real way. Andy is a lesbian at a time and place where “bisexual” is a way to stay in a safe gray space without fully coming out. She is not bisexual, she says, but she has to reconcile her feelings about Ryan, the one straight man she likes enough to sleep with. 

Sleeping with Ryan leads to a pregnancy that Andy ultimately decides to keep. She then has to navigate social expectations in queer communities as well as learning how to be a queer parent in a straight-parent society. Andy faces real fears like: what if her straight parents decide they want to fight for the right of the child? What if the home she has built in the lesbian community is broken with the news of her heterosexual activity? 

Andy brings us through how she deals with these new experiences, how curiosity and insecurity plays into sexuality and how we are not always our labels, even if we’ve used them to define ourselves in the past. Stray City is for anyone feeling a bit like a stray.

Reviewed by Emma Givens

Published by Harper Collins, 2018
ISBN: 9780062666680
Pages: 432

Ars Botanica: A Field Guide

Ars Botanica is a Bittersweet Memoir Through Letters to an Unborn Child

Ars Botanica is Tim Taranto’s first book. Part poetic memoir, part field guide, and written as letters to his unborn child, this book is both heartbreaking and heartwarming, oftentimes in the same sentence. 

The book is broken up by Taranto’s drawings: of flowers, of skulls, of packs of cigarettes, of Patsy Cline and fortune cookie fortunes and something that looks oddly like a diver’s helmet, but with feathers adorning its top. Each drawing comes with a Latin naming on the opposite page and a short definition. The accompanying description ebbs and flows into vignettes that go hand-in-hand with the narrative progressing through the story’s letters. 

Next to a drawing of a feather is the title “Barred Owl (Strix Varia)”. Below, Taranto writes:

Lacks ear tufts, large dark eyes, mottled brown “barred’” plumage. Native to the eastern United States, but range has expanded to include the Midwest, Iowa. Caterwauling call sounds like, “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you?”

           “I want to cook for you.”

           “Yeah, cook what?” 

           “Anything. I’m learning how to make ostrich sausage. I’ve been candying lilacs.”

Though the flaura, fauna, and other knick-knacks have their own pages, they are also integral to the story. Ars Botanica begins with a peek into Taranto’s head-over-heels romance with his ex-girlfriend. His ex is never named in the book, only referred to as ‘she’ and ‘her’, despite their unborn child’s name, Catalpa, heading up each section in a ‘Dear’-form address. Together and apart, they collect flowers, acorns, and the occasional flat, round pebble as sacred ornaments to decorate and declare their love for one another. 

Taranto expertly navigates through what he calls the ‘Blissed Out Era’ of their relationship, allowing the reader to feel the warmth of their love through the page as they sing Fetty Wap, bake a lamb’s head, and make out in Clark’s. The reader catches glimpses of the doom to come, the unplanned pregnancy that will result in the dissolution of their relationship. 

Though the book is letters to their unborn child, there is no judgement cast on the topic of abortion. In the book, Taranto allows his girlfriend to make the decision and supports her. There is no bitterness to the melancholy sadness as Taranto looks back on the ended love affair. At times, the book is darkly humorous, using dialogue to highlight the painful obliviousness of acquaintances as lookers-on. In looking back, Taranto is reflecting through his writing and by the end of the book it seems to be helping him to move forward, to understand through feeling fully what the experience was to him. 

Reviewed by Zoe Raines

The Sarah Book

           In the audiobook version of The Sarah Book, Scott McClanahan reads like he can’t wait for his novel to be over. He doesn’t rush, stumble, or falter, but instead adopts a distanced, impersonal numbness, letting his beautifully amateurish language and West Virginian accent breathe authenticity and life into his lonely world of Walmart parking lots and empty apartments, strip clubs and childhood homes. There’s an unshakeable malaise that comes with McClanahan’s reading that’s understandable; this book, and much of his writing, appears to be largely autobiographical (though he’s quick to deny this), and the lengths he goes to in order to reveal himself are at once shocking and absolutely refreshing. 

This novel finds McClanahan in new territory, plumbing the depths of loss, divorce, fatherhood, and every type of love one can think of. In The Sarah Book, the narrator, known as Scott McClanahan, ruminates on his relationship and eventual divorce with the titular Sarah, the mother of his two children and one of his only close relationships. The story jumps backwards and forwards in time (he’s cited Alejandro Inarritu and Saul Bellow as influences, though Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine also jumps immediately to mind), crashing together scenes of giddy, early-romance selflessness and genuine love with later scenes that are stark and heartbreaking. This bipolar, kaleidoscopic technique is not as rigid as one might think. For example, in one of the lowest emotional points in the novel, there’s a sudden appearance of sentient chicken wings. 

Scott McClanahan’s unending fascination with the ordinary fuels every layered, intricate moment; from the beautiful and meaningless conversations he and Sarah share to the mundanities of cleaning up after an incontinent dog, there’s a raw, diary-entry quality to the writing. The bare-bones prose is confrontational and the overarching themes are laid bare. McClanahan understands exactly what he needs to share and what he doesn’t. For the first time in McClanahan’s career, there’s a feeling of restraint, of things left unsaid, of stories unincluded propelling the stories that are. This creates a dizzyingly quick, fast-forwarded version of the lives of Scott and Sarah, the reader only catching the blur. 

The Sarah Book is Scott McClanahan’s most honest and astonishing work to date. It captures a complete world of fully-realized characters, their complexities and psychological trip-wires plotted out exactly. It is both a lightning-fast read and a heavy, difficult endeavor. No wonder McClanahan sounds exhausted.

Reviewed by Tom Ronningen

Published by Tyrant Books. 2017. 
ISBN 13: 978-0-9885183-9-1. 
233 pages.

Lady Midnight: The Dark Artifices

Lady Midnight is the first of the newThe Dark Artifices trilogy written by Cassandra Clare. The novel follows the lives of shadowhunters Emma Carstairs and Julian Blackthorn. Shadowhunters are nephelium, half-angel, half-humans, who kill demons. They’re on a mission to figure out why there have been a series of killings throughout Los Angeles that seem similar to murder of Emma’s parents five years before. 

The Dark Artificesis the third series in the Shadowhunter Chronicles universe – the first and second being The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices. 

Clare is one of my favorite authors and originally won my heart over in The Mortal Instruments. She continues to keep me enthralled with Lady Midnight.

The novel was a thrill ride from start to end and was definitely a treat for those who read the previous books. You get all the humor and action that you loved and there are even appearances from past characters such as Clary Fray, Jace “Insert Last Name Here” (he goes through quite a few of them), Tessa Gray,  Jem Carstairs, and a crowd favorite, Magnus Bane.

If you haven’t read the previous books, no worries! Lady Midnight has made its own mark with loveable characters, entertaining action, steamy scenes, and great adventure. There are so many interesting and complicated relationships, too. For instance, the forbidden love between Emma and Julian, desperation of lost love from our villain, and difficult relations between lost family members just to name a few. One thing I got from this read is, relationships are complicated no matter who they’re with. One thing I’d suggest is to always keep an eye on characters in this universe, minor characters included. You never know when they’ll show up again.

If you enjoy an addictive read full of action, some laughs, romance, and a whole lot of magic, I’d suggest picking up Lady Midnight.

Reading the first two series of books is definitely not needed but if you want to get all of the nice Easter eggs placed in the novel, it wouldn’t hurt. There is so much about this book and this universe that Clare has created; it’s hard to sum up the vastness of it all. This world of Shadowhunters, demons, and Downworlders is quite large and is still growing. Take a dive into it.

You can check out the next novel, Lord of Shadows, now! The last installment of The Dark Artifices, Queen of Air and Darkness, was released in autumn of 2018.

Reviewed by Courtney Gilmore

Published by Margaret K. McElderry Books
Published in 2016
ISBN: 1442468351 
698 Pages (Hardcover)

Witches Sluts Feminists

In Kristen J. Sollée’s book, Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive, she writes: “The witch is at once female divinity, female ferocity, and female transgression. She is all and she is one. The witch has as many moods and as many faces as the moon.

Most of all, she is misunderstood.

With a pretty straightforward title, Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive leaves no questions as to what you should expect to find in its pages. From the “All-American Witch”, AKA what really went down in Salem, to the “Political Witch-hunt” of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election, this book will leave you with the what, why, and how of the words witch, slut, and feminist in our history. Albeit, “our” means mostly “American” in this case, but Sollée states right off the bat in her introduction that the Christian, Anglo-European view is so prevalent in the media’s perception of the witch that she decided to pick apart the biggest offender.  

Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive is a history lesson with a contemporary feel. It will educate you without overwhelming you with dry facts. It will answer questions such as “when did ‘witch’ become a negative term?” or “how has the internet changed witchcraft and the feminist movement?” with a plethora of sources, 225 in the 200 pages to be exact, from historians to witch-identifying people to historians who are also witches. 

Sollée’s voice is snarky, and her comments are brief but amusing. She never makes herself the focal point. This is not a person on her soapbox, shouting her beliefs at you for 200 pages. She is merely the vessel for the dozens of voices woven into the passages, telling their stories, findings, research, their histories. It is a cumulative journey, each sentence building on the last, each chapter carrying you further through time, showing you a history of adversity and of perseverance, leading you to the present-day identities of witches, sluts, and feminists.   

Reviewed by: Ash Dietrich 

Publisher: ThreeL Media

Publication Date: May 22, 2017

ISBN: 9780996485272

Length: 200 pages

House of Names

Relatability – it’s the one thing that makes a good book great and meaningful to an individual. So, have I ever sacrificed my daughter, kidnapped children en masse, or murdered my husband or mother? Well, no. No, I have not. But, I’ll forgive Colm Tóibín in this instance. His latest novel, House of Names, retells the classic story of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon in the aftermath of the Trojan War. I found that this novel was a very fast read – I probably could have read it in one sitting if I had a few hours available consecutively. Although the plot occurred over several years, Tóibín moves quickly through the major events leading up to and following Agamemnon’s assassination by carefully balancing the political events with the personal perspectives of his three main protagonists: Clytemnestra, Orestes, and Electra. I only know the basic premise of the story, so I can’t speak to how true Tóibín held to the original tale. Having familiarity with other classic epics, though, I can appreciate his adaptation of language, relationships, and mannerisms of the time to be more accessible to the modern reader while still maintaining a degree of authenticity. Overall, I enjoyed House of Names. It was an easy way to pass the time, and entertaining for what it was. However, it was largely unmemorable, and, I think, underwhelming in the light of its source material. 

Reviewed by: Kristin Rawlings

Scribner (Simon & Schuster imprint)

ISBN: 1501140213

278 pages

Marlena

Marlena is Julie Buntin’s debut novel about two teenage girls growing up on the edges of a forest in rural Michigan. It’s the raw coming-of-age story of Cat, a girl from the suburbs of Detroit and her growth as a character when she’s unwillingly thrown into a little nothing of a town where she meets Marlena, her “manic, beautiful, pill-popping” neighbor. Throughout the novel Cat conforms herself to Marlena, no longer wanting to be “Catherine,” the private school girl who coughs at the smell of cigarette smoke, but Cat. Marlena’s friend. Marlena is entertaining, Cat is interesting, this is very much a character driven story, and I really enjoyed every moment of it.

The novel is told through a distanced and mature retelling of Cat’s young teen years with chapters flipping from her life in Silver Lake and her current adult life in New York. Buntin artfully uses anchoring points throughout the “younger” chapters of the novel that keeps reminding the reader that this is a memory. I’ll admit that the first couple times that happened I was a bit thrown off. A voice would suddenly break into the telling that didn’t match the already established voice of fifteen-year-old Cat but once I realized who that voice was and what it was doing for the story, it really strengthened the moment.

This is Cat’s story, from the first time she sets foot in Silver Lake to her being an adult with a career in New York, but she’s oftentimes overshadowed by Marlena. Marlena is a wild child from the very first time the reader sees her in the passenger seat of her boyfriend’s pickup. Her personality is bright and eccentric yet tainted with a darkness that Cat couldn’t really grasp until she was older. Cat was just along for the ride, moulded by Marlena’s unique allure. It would have been easy for Cat to become a background character; she’s quiet and often times unsure of herself, but Buntin kept her at the forefront of the story. The voice of the character kept her interesting even if, seemingly at first, the character herself wasn’t. The first person narrator was a perfect choice and Buntin did a great job with it.

This is a story of more than just sex, drugs, and lost childhood. It’s about friendship, family, and self-discovery. It’s about loss and growth and everything in between. I think this is a story worth listening to and the artful and unique telling kept me reading even when I knew that I should go to bed.

Reviewed by Cali Luisa Lemus

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

Publication Year: 2017

ISBN-10: 1627797645

Number of Pages: 274

October 02, 2018

Guidebook to Relative Strangers

Guidebook to Relative Strangers is the blueprint of breaking down communication barriers and changing the view of our troubled world.

Award-winning writer Camille T Dungy is acutely aware of what it means to live on the crossroads: she is a writer, a mother, and an African American woman. In Guidebook to Relative Stangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History, she poetically intertwines history with her present. This weaving of events helps readers understand not only why history is of great significance, but how to “interpret—and not disdain” people.

The opening of her book begins with a conversation she was pulled into among her peers. This experience sheds light on a catastrophic detail that comes from privilege: the obliteration of communities of people. She connects this to why history is an all-consuming experience to many, including herself.

“There is something about privilege that can place one in a position to erase the realities of others. . . my life and flesh and family and history demand that I recognize [others] where and how I can.”

Dungy ties this awareness of erasure with the way she raises her daughter. Her young daughter experiences moments completely disconnected to history but that does not devalue the importance of it.

“I notice, now more than ever, what I don’t know, and what I want to know, and what I want to share with you, Callie Violet. I want to name the world correctly.”

Dungy shares how and why a traffic stop is something feared by African American men. She shows readers the realness of this fear when she intertwines her traffic stop while with her family with those that happened before and after her. 

“Our routine traffic stop happened just a week after Texas police shot and killed thirty-eight-year-old Jason Harrison, a black man. And one month earlier, Eric Garner, a black forty-three-year-old father of six, was choked to death by New York Police Department officers. It was six weeks before Ferguson police shot Michael Brown, and five months before Cleveland police shot and killed twelve-year-old Tamir Rice. . . .”

           Despite all this trauma, Dungy still gives the benefit of the doubt to all those she encounters.

“I am, for one thing, more prepared to interpret—and not disdain—other people’s potentially flawed communications. . . I am, I believe now, more prepared to be accepting of the humanity in all of us.”

            History is alive all around us. Take some time and become aware of how it connects to you.

Reviewed by Maria Mendoza Cervantes

Published by W. W. Norton Company on June 13th 2017

ISBN: 978-0-393-25375-7

240 pages

September 04, 2018