Staff Picks Category: Fiction

A Dangerous Age by Kelly Killoren Bensimon with Teresa DiFalco [Book]

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For the past twenty years, four Manhattanites have met weekly to discuss career changes, cocktails, classes, and connections. Now in their forties, Lucy is a former model and dilettante writer married to a famous artist; Billy is her childhood friend, a currently unemployed food and wine expert; Lotta is a Swedish art gallery employee and party girl; and Sarah is a socialite aspiring to social media and reality show fame. Over the course of one summer, Lucy receives an impossible assignment while her husband prepares for a comeback show, Billy explores supper club subscriptions as a source of income, Lotta descends into a drug fueled breakdown, and Sarah attempts to raise her profile enough to seduce a casting team. Along the way, the friends get together as a group to check in, and in pairs to dish on the others. Bensimon weaves together the tangled threads of their four stories to produce a conclusion that exhibits the drama and immediacy of a reality show in novel form.

Fans of Sex and the City and the Real Housewives franchise will enjoy the rarefied atmosphere, as well as readers and viewers of Gossip Girl and the like.

Alienation by Inés Estrada [Graphic Novel]

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Alienation is a cinematic and upsetting vision of humanity’s immediate future after climate collapse. In this sci-fi body horror, the colonizers and capitalists of today own the biotechnology that allows Eliza and Carlos to all but exist physically in a vast virtual world. The so-called non playable characters of this virtual reality seem to be evolving past artificial intelligence. Estrada’s monochrome illustrations, beautiful and appropriately mind-bending, feel like the perfect means to explore body sovereignty in a world where technology is created by and for those in power.

A  cautionary and escapist tale.

Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge [Book]

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I just finished Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge and loved it! It is historical fiction at its best — bringing the past to life through characters that are complex and relatable. The story begins in post-Civil War Brooklyn and is a coming of age story of a free black girl, Libertie, whose mother is a doctor. We follow Libertie through college and into her young married life which brings her to Haiti.

The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski [Book]

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This YA fantasy novel is the first in a duology about Nirrim, a young woman who lives in a remote island city. Nirrim is Half Kith, which means she cannot wear bright colors, eat flavorful food, or leave the walled-in neighborhood she calls home. Beyond the walls, the privileged class known as the High Kith live lavishly. When an unlucky accident lands Nirrim in the city jail, she meets Sid, a traveler with a mysterious past who somehow convinces the guards to let Nirrim free. Sid has questions Nirrim never thought to ask, like: why do the High Kith get all of life’s pleasures? How was the city founded? And who built the wall around the Half Kith? Together, Nirrim and Sid set out to find the answers.

Though this plot description has elements that will be familiar to anyone who reads YA fantasy and dystopian sci-fi, I found it to be a unique and engrossing story that isn’t quite like anything I’ve read before. The island of Herrath, where Nirrim lives, is immersive and detailed, and Marie Rutkoski’s writing brings it vividly to life. The primary romance in this book is between two women, and the characters feel well-developed and real. I picked this book up on a whim one Sunday morning and didn’t put it down until it was finished–it totally hooked me from the first few pages. Highly recommended to teens and adults who love complicated heroes, LGBTQ romance, and unique fantasy worlds.

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir [Book]

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Gideon the Ninth is a dark fantasy. The world in which it is set seems to be the decaying remanent of a once prosperous interplanetary empire, but don’t let the occasional space ship fool you—this isn’t science fiction and the physics of this world are very different from our own in one notable way: some individuals are born with necromantic abilities and can learn to manipulate, blood, bone, and even the souls of the dead. This would be unbearably dark and gruesome were it not for a few things:

• Our protagonist, Gideon, is strong, queer, contrary, and absolutely hilarious. Despite all her complexities and her own dark past it is her irreverence that keeps the book from being too dark.
• The relationships are complex and intriguing. It quickly becomes clear that while Gideon may put on a show of hating everyone and everything, in actuality her feelings are rarely so simple. It should be noted that some of the relationships portrayed in this book seem deeply unhealthy—but they are also interesting and too believable to be simply dismissed.
• There is a murder mystery—with a small closed circle of suspects, mostly unknown to each other, and all brought together by unsolicited invitations we are treated to a peculiarly mystery that has something of the feel of a classic country house mystery, just with more skeletons and swordfighting.
• The book is full of details that make its world feel much larger than what is revealed. We might suppose that Gideon and her companions have some idea of the history of the once prosperous empire, but it is clear that even their understanding is incomplete and the reader is left to imagine what might have happened. And when it comes to understanding necromancy, we get a glimpse here and there of the complex rules that seem to govern it, but we soon see that even those in the book that profess to understand it best have much to learn.
• Finally, a word must be put in about the swordfighting. Very early in the book we learn that Gideon is very proficient with a two-handed longsword, but circumstances will requirer her to play the part of a cavalier, convincing her audience that she has always trained with a rapier. Muir could easily have left it at that, but she clearly did her homework, and it shows in every mention tactics, posture, and training. These descriptions of swordwork feel real and they serve to ground the fantasy.

So, yeah. I kind of loved this book. It is crass, violent, and excessively gory, but its also good, for all the reasons I gave above and probably for many more I’m not clever enough to put my finger on. This is definitely not the right book for everyone, but if the above sounds appealing, I urge you to give it a try.

Nothing to See Here [Book]

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There’s nothing to see here—or maybe there is? Keeping the secret of stepchildren who spontaneously combust is not easy especially when your father is a high profile politician. Magic realism at its finest with fascinatingly flawed characters.

Such a Fun Age [Book]

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Race, class and parenting collide in this thought provoking tale centered around a special relationship between a lovable and precocious child and her amazing nanny.

Motl the Cantor’s Son by Sholem Aleichem [Book]

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Motl the Cantor’s Son was the last novel by Sholem Aleichem. It tells the story of Motl and his family, first in Kasrilevke, a fiction shtetl where the family is increasingly destitute after the death of Motl’s father Peysi, then on their journey as refugees across Europe and eventually by boat to America, and finally as they try to assimilate and make a living in New York.

Although the story is full of hardships, Motl sees the changes in his circumstances in an entirely positive light. When his father dies, Motl enjoys the attention he receives and hardly seems aware of the death as a loss, and when family must sell all their furniture, Motl delights in how much space they now have. Motl generally sees the world around him as a great source of humor and amusement—he certainly isn’t bothered by the worries—mostly about money and social status—that preoccupy the adults around him. And Motl and his family, in fact, are lucky compared to many of their neighbors—his family leaves because of economic hardship, but those that stay are soon forced out by a pogrom.

Sholem Aleichem never finished the novel. We don’t know what eventually becomes of Motl and his family in New York. But we do know that Motl loves his new home, and his family, after a difficult start, is doing well for themselves. More importantly, Aleichem’s storytelling is wonderfully engaging—I enjoyed every moment of them immensely.

Levar Burton Reads by Levar Burton [Online Resource]

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Levar Burton’s podcast has a tagline that embraces superlatives: “The Best Short Fiction, Handpicked by the Best Voice in Podcasting”. That may be taking things a bit far, but I am loving the stories Levar picks, and I can’t think of anyone I would rather hear read them. Perhaps that’s because I grew up on Reading Rainbow, but whatever your generation, if you enjoy short fiction read allowed, I urge you to check out Levar Burton Reads.

The podcast is impeccably produced, with sparing use of subtle soundscapes that enhance the storytelling. The stories are mostly science fiction and fantasy, but the selections are always of an accessible sort—you don’t need to be a fan of these genres to appreciate these well-told tales. And the authors are diverse, including both classic well-established writers and new writers of all races and genders. Levar always takes a brief moment to tell you about why he selected the story and what it means to him, and I invariably find I appreciate what he has to say.

So, whether you are looking for new authors and ideas, some great bed time stories, an impeccably produced podcast, or just the comfort of hearing Levar’s voice, give it a listen.

Ayesha at Last [Book]

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This funny and touching retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is set in the Muslim community of Toronto, Canada. Full of mistaken identity, eccentric family, arranged marriages vs. love matches, and how appearances can be misleading on several levels. Great debut by author Uzma Jalaluddin.

All He Ever Wanted: A Novel [Book]

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If you like dark, involving, character-driven tales, pick up this one about a professor at a small New England college at the turn of the last century. The unlikable, perhaps unreliable narrator is writing an account of his obsession with a woman he met by chance, is instantly enthralled with, and ultimately marries.  I didn’t so much enjoy this very well written “memoir” as was possessed by it. As the object of the narrator’s desires, we see the female character only through the narrator’s eyes and she remains enigmatic.  As is Shreve’s modus operandi  there is another interlocking tale written years later called Stella Bain. Perhaps these characters stayed with the author as they did with me.

Foreigner: A Novel of First Contact by C. J. Cherryh [Book]

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The subtitle of C. J. Cherryh’s novel Foreigner is “a Novel of First Contact”. The novel begins with a brief prelude in which a starship is flung off course and and its passengers and crew find refuge on a previously unknown world where their first encounter with the local inhabitants has a fairly promising start. This is not a typical first contact story, however, because the novel then jumps several centuries into the future, and we find that relations between the indigenous population and the foreigners are mired in misunderstandings and ignorance.

As it turns out, the indigenous Atevi and the foreign humans found they had a common interest in slowing down contact between their two peoples. After some disastrous misunderstandings a treaty is formed to limit human-Atevi contact. According to the treaty the humans are given an island on which to live, the Atevi have the rest of the world, and contact between the two species is channeled through a single human translator/diplomat known as the paidhi. This worked well; for generations humans and Atevi both prospered, and for generations of paidhi the job consisted of attending meetings and writing dictionaries. Foreigner tells the story of Bren Cameron, a young paidhi whose plans for a quiet life of linguistics and tedious but routine bureaucracy must be exchanged for intrigue, politics, and outright violence—and he doesn’t even know why. Cherryh’s narration alternates between Bren’s awkward interactions with his Atevi hosts, which increasingly involve attempted assassinations, espionage, and uncertain alliances, and his internal monologues as he tries to make sense of his increasingly incomprehensible situation. Suddenly, things are changing very rapidly. Bren is the only human with a chance of comprehending what the changes mean to the Atevi. Is Bren the world’s only hope at keeping peace?

Foreigner is the first novel in a long series (nineteen novels have been published so far) and is perfect for folks that like long character arcs, anthropological sci-fi, deliberate pacing, and complex relationships.