First published in 1995 and 1996 Fosse’s Melancholy novels predate his much-admired Septology books his best-known work among English readers. Fans of those books will detect the emergence of his signature style here—recursive musical stream-of-consciousness prose that circles hawklike over themes of art faith and death. Fosse’s subject is Lars Hertervig (1830-1902) a painter who specialized in cloud-thickened surrealistic landscapes. In the opening section set in Düsseldorf Germany in 1853 he’s an art student anxious about his teacher’s opinion of his work his fellow students’ esteem and his imminent eviction because of his relationship with his landlord’s 15-year-old daughter. His mind tunnels obsessively into factual details and imaginary attacks (“black and white clothes are racing toward me at high speed here they come and the black and white clothes move around me right up close to me”) suggesting an imminent breakdown. Subsequent chapters feature Lars back in Norway three years later committed to an asylum; an author not unlike Fosse in 1991 contemplating writing a novel about Lars whom he calls a distant relative; and concluding the book Lars’ sister Oline back in his hometown as Lars seems overtaken by madness while a brother of theirs is on his deathbed. The mood throughout is grim befitting the title (“melancholia” was Lars’ formal diagnosis) and Fosse routinely swings the narrative around the uglier parts of human behavior—rage pedophilia scatology. None of that though feels gratuitous and everything speaks to a larger theme of desperation about how Lars’ urge to make art evokes our need for wholeness and salvation even if it’s inevitably just out of reach.

German art historian Zimmerman examines ways that the breast—“an overdetermined body part”—has been highly politicized evoking contradictory and impassioned responses across many areas of Western culture throughout history. Translated by Barfoot Zimmerman’s well-researched study draws on a wide-range of disciplines including anthropology psychology theology feminist theory gender studies and art history to illuminate the connection of breasts to assumptions about gender identity race ethnicity and above all power. A particular image of breasts—white small firm—was long seen as ideal. Large pendulous breasts in contrast were denigrated associated with so-called primitivity. With her colossal breasts the Venus of Willendorf a statue from 25000 B.C.E. later was deemed fat and ugly; Sarah Baartman an African woman brought to London in 1810 and exhibited as the “Hottentot Venus” was considered repulsive because of her large buttocks and pendulous breasts. Zimmerman considers changing assumptions about male breasts controversy over transgender breasts and the confusing messages women have received about breastfeeding: that infants should—or should not—be fed by a wet nurse and that the breast could be a potential source of poison best replaced by the udder of a nanny goat. An object of lust a target of medical scrutiny and intervention the breast has had political symbolism: the naked breast seen as an allegory of freedom and breast baring as a form of feminist protest. No other body part Zimmerman argues persuasively has been so divisive: whether to “enlarge them reduce them restore them replace them remove them push them up bind them get rid of them and so on—are signs of people’s need to continually prove their femininity masculinity or even humanity.” Two dozen images depict breasts in cartoons photographs and artwork.

In Tallinn a man named Toomas begins a new gig working as a paid companion for a company that has very strict rules. He’s not a sex worker; his job is to accompany women who are lonely unsure or maybe need a date for a company function. There are women contractors who are making a lot of money at this company but Toomas has just three or four clients. He also has a girlfriend named Annika. Toomas used to work in marketing but now is freelancing while Annika has a corporate gig that keeps her busy. She knows what he’s doing and she has plans for herself—she’s outgrowing Estonia and wants to move to Berlin. The move could mean big changes for Toomas since he could work in marketing in Germany but he has his reasons for staying. His clients include Karin whom he really wants to kiss but it’s against policy; Eliise is intriguing and he obviously likes her; and then there’s Helene an elderly woman who’s seeking human connection. Toomas can’t help but feel like his worth is being determined by a website and its algorithm with its constant demand for feedback. He must determine the trajectory of his life while confronting the facts that Tallinn isn’t all that big and that Annika may be leaving. Morel’s concise novel is well paced; the language is spare but the ideas she explores are complex. The author places Toomas in a compelling context—he’s become stalled in life but he’s rich in the number of interesting people surrounding him. Morel plainly and perceptively discusses the ways in which technology affects contemporary relationships going beyond a simple account of juggling multiple people. Vivid details about the setting add color (“wasn’t that why Estonians had so many sayings about saunas?”) with characters feeling tied to the place while also being pulled away by various forces.

Seventeen-year-old Ida Carter who’s Black and bisexual understands that beauty is currency. As the vice president of Banneker High’s Black Student Union Ida is “Black popular.” She’s earned respect among the few Black students at her predominantly white school but she’s nowhere near the top of the overall social hierarchy and she’s not considered desirable by the white majority. When a crude list ranking the school’s hottest girls starts making the rounds Ida isn’t surprised to find that Black and brown girls are excluded—even Ashley Beckett the ultra-feminine Black co-captain of the girls’ tennis team who only dates the “WASPiest palest white boys” is missing. The BSU members decide to publicly condemn the list by championing a Black girl to run for prom queen and they settle on a reluctant Ida. As Ida navigates her campaign she encounters an even greater threat than her competition. Someone is physically harming the other prom queen candidates on the list. Can Ida find the culprit before she’s next? While the premise echoes classic teen slashers the narrative fails to deliver a satisfying third-act resolution. Travis realistically depicts themes of colorism racism interracial dating identity and misogyny but these topics would have benefitted from clearer more focused treatment. The family dynamics are refreshingly uplifting however thanks to Ida’s openly supportive parents.

In this graphic memoir white-presenting gay boy Damian and his older brother live with their grandmother Nanny; their mother died when they were toddlers. Nanny cared for the boys trying “really hard to fill the mom-shaped hole” in their lives and to “be the mother who had never been there for her.” Now in eighth grade Damian recounts how he still feels like an outsider. Whenever these feelings overwhelm him his imagination takes him into the past sometimes to Nanny’s childhood with her two sisters in foster care a time that inspires many of the stories she tells. Sometimes he tries to imagine what his mother’s life was like when she was his age a more difficult endeavor since Damian’s connection to her exists through photographs and stories “gathered over time from anyone who knew her.” In the muted artwork that features many close-ups of people’s faces Alexander expertly captures small moments of worry. The story’s movement through different time periods (distinguished by different color palettes) offers glimpses into the interlocking lives of a family separated by tragedy. Like real life the book doesn’t have a neat resolution but it does offer a sense of closure as Damian realizes how positive Nanny’s influences have been and how the concept of a mother is broader than he originally believed. The author’s note includes photos along with more information about Alexander’s family.

Picture books often tackle the hard questions: How are babies made? What happens when a loved one dies? And now: What should you do if a dragon bites off your butt? Such is the fate of the knight at the heart of this rhyming romp: “Bereft and bumless the knight cried and cried. / For without his lovely bottom / he surely couldn’t ride!” There are teeth marks where his butt used to be; what’s a bottomless knight who is suddenly the subject of stares to do? And how is he supposed to win the love of the princess now? Fortunately he sees an ad for a “bum shop” while reading a magazine. He manages to ride his bike to the store where he encounters a panoply of phony posteriors. After the knight picks out his new butt he gets the girl but not before readers get several glimpses of the knight’s pink hair-speckled ersatz rear. In Bruijn’s bustling but tidy art the knight runs the gamut of cartoon emotions. Van Teunenbroek’s rhymes are while sometimes rhythmically challenged (perhaps a result of the book’s translation from Dutch) often quite clever and there’s a thoughtful message here about accepting imperfections or differences. The most important takeaway however? Like butts this story is hilarious. The knight and the princess are pale-skinned; the supporting cast varies in skin tone.

The term useless is of course provocative particularly when applied to knowledge—but here five researchers have worked hard to separate historical wheat from chaff and in general done a creditable job of dispensing with the former. Some of the anecdotal entries aren’t exactly trivial such as a reference to how over 60% of the military casualties in the American Civil War were due to disease. But even when dropping names that would be or should be familiar to most readers the authors usually go for lesser-known achievements such as Abraham Lincoln’s 1992 induction into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame or how fans’ demand for locks of his hair prompted composer Franz Liszt to get a dog and send “fur clippings” instead. There’s some myth-busting too; no Charlie Chaplin did not enter a Charlie Chaplin lookalike contest…and lose. A few illustrations such as a view of Robert Peary literally shoving Matthew Henson aside (“Outta my way!”) at the North Pole don’t come off as all that funny but in general the wisecrack-laced cartoon art does add further comical notes. People depicted are racially diverse throughout.

Ramping up the fighting with artful references to dangling eyeballs and similar rousingly gruesome notes while adding a horde of zombified ogres to her opener’s cast of golems dragons predatory mermaids and other dangerous Mythicals Cervantes dishes up a second action-packed crowd pleaser. Struggling both to awaken his own powers as a shape-shifting gilgemish and to master the destructive impulses of his ravening inner dragon Ollie nonetheless rushes to the rescue when Dr. Robles and Dr. Jackson are snatched by Nole a raving megalomaniacal scene-stealer with a dastardly scheme that threatens the human world as well as the Shadowland. Lighthearted banter—"There’s nothing wrong with eating forest goblins you know. Or even a tasty gnome. Extra crunchy!”—plus a small but feisty manticore sidekick effectively buoy the tale’s overall tone. Readers fond of plot twists will find them in plenty as Ollie (who presents Latine) Garen (who has curly brown hair green eyes and golden freckles) and magical allies old and new battle their way through internal and external crises before finding happy hard-won resolutions.

Between her autism and her fury at Alissa for the suicide Evie knows she’s not expressing grief in the ways everyone around her expects. Only Alissa’s brother Ash seems to understand what Evie needs. He doesn’t mind that she’s skipping track practices and checking out at school. When Ash talks to her about Alissa’s favorite game the media tie-in Children of Hypnos Online Evie decides to give it a try. “I get to be somewhere else. I get to be someone else” Ash says and to grieving Evie that sounds perfect. Yet Evie is still very much herself when she plays CoH: studious determined and competitive as hell. Classwork and track can wait because Evie cares only about going on raids with a high-level CoH clan. Between gaming with Ash and sharing his weed gummies plus their developing romance Evie’s got all she needs in this post-Alissa world where nothing matters anyway. She rapidly becomes a star player and Zappia’s illustrations of the CoH characters help make the players’ online world feel real. Evie’s disassociation and carefully cultivated apathy ring painfully true as she recovers from being left behind coping with a senseless world by burying herself in the video game. Evie Ash and Alissa present white.

When Burke Weathers Garrett Weathers’ rich and famous author grandfather dies his will includes an unusual stipulation: Garrett and his mother will only inherit if they spend a week at Inkwell Point Burke’s home. When they arrive 13-year-old Garrett soon learns why locals call it “the Doll House.” Eccentric Burke spent his solitary later years creating a series of wooden marionettes in his attic workshop and hanging their body parts from his back porch. Events soon move from the merely unsettling (finding a marionette in a closet attached to wires “like a levitating scarecrow”) to the unexplainable (a typewriter producing messages for Garrett without anyone touching the keys) to the outright terrifying (an encounter with whatever that thing is in the basement). But the house has a strange effect on Garrett—he’s seemingly unable to stop himself from helping to bring his grandfather’s diabolical plans to fruition. Even seasoned horror readers will find something new here to give them the creeps; twists on the haunted doll trope abound. White-presenting Garrett’s first-person narration which occasionally addresses readers directly (“if you’re going to stick with me for this whole story you’ll have to get on board for some weirdness”) plunges right into the heart of the action.

Ever since an event he’d rather not think about Adam Gibbons has been afraid of pumpkins. He and his family have relocated to give him a fresh start; unfortunately his new town is home to a huge annual Halloween celebration featuring pumpkins galore. Bummer. Even worse Adam is assigned to help his classmate Molly plan this year’s Friday Night Fright Night a middle school lock-in held the evening before the yearly Pumpkin Festival and which requires a lot of talking about you guessed it pumpkins. Molly’s Gramps also owns the farm where the Pumpkin Festival is held and there’s something odd about this year’s prize pumpkin the Big-Un. The kids must also contend with Bruce who thinks Molly sabotaged him in last year’s pumpkin carving contest. Though gourds have always been a popular topic of conversation here teachers and students start praising the pumpkins with a bizarre fervor—could they be possessed by the pumpkins? Despite his fear Adam sticks with Molly her neighbor James and James' cousin A.J. as they fight to break the evil spell for good. Though the premise is utterly goofy Payne pulls it off aided by a quick pace disgustingly gooey descriptions and action scenes straight out of classic zombie movies. Adam Bruce and Molly read white while James and A.J. present Black.

Embry Woodcross who has blue eyes and curly blond hair is the queen bee at Raven’s Head School for the Magically Gifted. There Embry works hard to make potions to help her fellow students as well as playing matchmaker whenever possible. When a new student “petite and pale” platinum blond vampire Oakley Riddle enrolls in senior year Embry is instantly intrigued. The work Embry and her best friend Amethyst Oberon who’s also a senior prefect put into making Oakley an it girl comes to a screeching halt when Oakley is found murdered—and Embry is the prime suspect. Suspended from school Embry turns to the (literal) boy next door blond green-eyed Rye Knighton for help clearing her name. In addition to the many elements that closely follow beats from the film Clueless Henning’s magical world in which all sorts of magical creatures from werewolves to zombies to selkies attend a magical school will feel familiar to fans of the show Wednesday. The writing is fluid the banter among the friends is fun and the mystery surrounding Oakley’s death and Embry’s potential involvement make for a good story. There’s some racial diversity among the supporting cast members including Ames who has curly black hair and “flawless dark brown skin.”

Wedge an award-winning journalist and Boston Herald veteran opens in media res: It is just past 1 a.m. on January 29 2022 a nor’easter is burying the South Shore of Massachusetts and Read is drunk screaming into O’Keefe’s voicemail. By dawn he will be found dead in the snow outside a house in Canton owned by a well-connected fellow Boston cop. The question at the center of two trials—did Read strike him with her Lexus SUV or was he beaten inside the house attacked by a dog and dragged out to die?—has never been answered. Wedge is quick to give his credentials to tell this story: He grew up on the South Shore still calls it home and has covered the case since the story broke. His dual portraits of the two people at its center are meticulous. O’Keefe a “forty-six-year-old serial dater” who was “fond of blondes” and not the marrying type emerges as a complicated beloved figure—a guy’s guy who nonetheless dropped everything to adopt his niece and nephew after his sister and brother-in-law died just weeks apart in 2013 and 2014. Read 41 and possessed of a jealous streak is rendered with equal complexity. The author is at his sharpest though cataloguing the media circus that swallowed the proceedings particularly the role of the “rogue blogger” known as Turtleboy whose controversial and relentless coverage ignited a “Free Karen Read” movement. Most impressively Wedge keeps the book from tipping into tabloid territory while never losing his grip on the reader; his access to O’Keefe’s family lends the narrative a moral gravity that feels sincere.

Long before she became the visionary artist Rosie Lee Tompkins Effie was one of 15 children in a loving faith-filled family of Black sharecroppers. Fieldwork was grueling but sewing—taught by her mama—offered refuge. Effie dreamed of leaving the segregated South where African American children were denied the same education and access as white youths. At 22 Effie moved to California where she became a nurse a wife and a mother. After a mental health crisis led to hospitalization she returned to sewing as a source of safety and healing. Using unconventional materials like velvet charmeuse and even old T-shirts she broke from traditional quilting conventions to create bold deeply personal and political works rooted in Black life faith memory and survival. Eventually collector Leon Eli began sharing Effie’s work with the world under the now-famous name Rosie Lee Tompkins helping preserve her privacy. While the sparsely worded poetic format makes weighty topics like mental illness and segregation more accessible for younger readers it leaves less room to dive into what made her quilt designs so groundbreaking and reflect on the broader impact of her work. Moore’s stunningly tactile gouache watercolor and collage illustrations are what set this book apart: Richly textured they echo the layered improvisational beauty of Effie’s quilts.

Generations ago immortals were cast out of the mortal realm of Gaia and into the Skein. The witches Lykae vampires and Berserkers have all created heavily fortified settlements as bulwarks against invasions from other immortal factions in their new violent world. Now the Accession is looming an intense cycle of warfare and matchmaking that happens every 500 years. The reader is quickly introduced to more than a dozen point-of-view characters. Eight of them quickly develop romantic entanglements that may or may not last through the coming Accession: A young female vampire determined to flee her evil family is paired with a Berserker; her vampire servant bargains with an incubus sent to spy on the vampire clan; a Lykae king recognizes a high priestess from the witch coven as his mate; and the witch and Lykae seconds-in-command drift into an affair. Other primary characters include a pair of Valkyrie sisters as well as assorted allies or enemies across the clans. Cole sinks her considerable storytelling energy into describing the setting and landscape of the Skein and introducing a truly dizzying number of characters but she makes almost no attempt to create a coherent overarching plot. Eventually each of the subplots coalesces and drives toward a single point on the timeline an upcoming full moon when it’s foretold that a portal to Gaia will open. Cole’s writing is sharp and entertaining but the sheer number of subplots results in too many characters and the book feels both rushed and underdeveloped. Cliffhanger endings for each of the plotlines promise to be picked up in future books in the series.

Siblings Marion and Robert-John Connolly live on an island in the fictional Neagh Archipelago nicknamed the Ark a smattering of islands in Lough Neagh exposed by the partial draining of the lake—even in this alternate history the plan is botched. They are the children of the late RJ Connolly a renowned anthropologist who moved his family to the Ark in 1972 so he could study the “modern ‘utopia’” that had sprung up there. Shielded from the violence of the Troubles this community came to house people persecuted on the Mainland including Catholic-Protestant couples people of color and LGBTQ+ people. But when childhood resident and early-career anthropologist Alex Anderson returns in 2016 to conduct research for a book on the Ark it’s in sharp decline. The lake is polluted by a growing film of toxic algae and the government wants the cheapest fix: Flood the lake to wash the algae out to sea and resubmerge the islands. The Connollys think Alex’s book could be the godsend they need to save their home. Carson has a talent for crafting uniquely neurotic characters and the gnarled dynamics between them generate a compelling critique of gender roles and ecological decline in Northern Ireland and beyond. The book’s supernatural elements—including souls in a kind of bardo women literally comatose with grief and an island that eats dumped items—seem almost true to life set against the absurdity of the real-life drainage scheme while also acting as moving manifestations of the idea that buried sins will always find a way to haunt the living.

The book opens with unspoken wishes on Tolly’s 13th birthday. Her family is shattered—it’s been six months since her 16-year-old sister Sunny died. Tolly grapples with the strangeness of yearning for a “normal” birthday and with the reason that her sister got in a fatal car accident. Tolly who presents white wonders whether it was her fault—and whether her parents blame her. Riddled with guilt the rising eighth grader tries to piece together Sunny’s last day but for that she needs to find her sister’s phone. Even as the friendships around her change Tolly is entrusted with running the new Luddite Club at school; although she really wants a phone she’s one of the rare students not to have one (she lost hers in the aftermath of Sunny’s death). This powerful verse novel brims with poignancy intricate details and beautiful sentences painting a portrait of a guilt-ridden teenager and a family coming to grips with tragedy. Between Tolly’s Luddite Club activities which lead to unexpected growth and her need to search her sister’s phone for answers technology becomes central to the story. A focus on the outdoors particularly trees—a special interest of Sunny’s—balances the technology element. Divided into four parts the book is thoughtfully rendered with complex characters and a plot that etches out the inevitable feeling of lingering guilt that comes in the aftermath of loss.

With only two years left before she turns 18 and ages out Jonty Blay is determined to win a national championship with her competitive cheerleading team the Exalted Ones. Now that she’s captain she’s sure this is the year she’ll achieve her deceased mother’s own dream of winning a National Cheerleaders Association medal with the Exalted Ones. But everything falls apart at the first practice of the season when Jonty’s teammate Tommie Taylor is found dead. Jonty and her co-captain Adam Ibrahim are suspected of murdering her: They were seen having a contentious conversation with Tommie following the captain vote and physical evidence ties Jonty to the crime scene. With some parents keeping their kids away from the gym out of caution Jonty and Adam need to figure out how they’ll compete—and also clear their names. Between demanding practices schoolwork and amateur sleuthing Jonty’s cheer season and relationships with her grandmother and friends start to unravel. This captivating story centering on a Black cast is well-paced with suspense mystery drama and authentic emotions. The novel explores the intensity and pressure of the sport of cheerleading. Jonty also struggles with her identity: Her life has revolved around cheerleading and living up to her mother’s unrealized cheerleading ambitions.

As a teenager Arden suddenly becomes invisible. After running away in a fit of anger she wishes she could disappear and discovers when she returns home that she has done just that. Ten lonely years pass in this way bringing tragedy after tragedy while Arden stays close to the friends and family who can’t see her and tries to find and confront the witch who cursed her. But her mundane unseen existence is upended when she comes back from a walk to find that her entire village has been razed by dragons and then confronts the four she finds amid the ashes. These dragons claim that her town’s destruction was not their doing and insist on taking her back to their den so she can’t reveal their secret. It’s here that Arden starts to feel attraction for the pack’s alpha Tage even as she dreams of running away from them to finally reverse the curse she lives under. But even though it’s clear that Tage is just as attracted to Arden their situation becomes more complicated than either could have imagined when they first met. The third volume in Jordan’s Fire in the Sky series is unfortunately disappointing in comparison to her other books due to overwrought prose and an uneven plot. The first third of the book is entirely focused on Arden’s miserable solitude and Tage doesn’t even appear until Page 125; from there the story progresses unevenly with most of the action saved for the final chapters. Fans who remember Jordan’s Firelight series fondly may enjoy the story anyway thanks to Arden’s interesting character arc and her steamy insta-chemistry with Tage but they’ll need to make it halfway through the book to get there.

In Hopkins’ series opening debut 11-year-old Astrid Crossley who has “paper-white” skin and “white-blonde” hair knows no life beyond the dark rhubarb shed where she’s kept safe from unspecified dangers by her mother. Her desperation to see the stars leads to her discovery by Mrs. Wairi one of the winged Librae. Claiming Astrid is a Librae on the cusp of fledging Mrs. Wairi whisks her away to a fantastical city above London which is invisible to unauthorized people. But something is rotten in London Overhead. At Starminster school unfledged children are treated as lesser. When they stage a protest the ruthless Headmaster expels them then exploits them as free labor. Meanwhile Mama mobilizes London Underfoot to find Astrid who learns that other children are missing—but where are they? Astrid is a resilient poignant character who’s struggling with big questions. How could her loving Mama steal her childhood? Why do London Overhead’s mysterious Luddite Overlords treat some citizens so cruelly? Kurtz’ opening two-page spread sketches the city of stone marble and flower-shaped buildings hovering above London but readers may wish for additional illustrations to clarify aspects of the intricately imagined world described in Hopkins’ vivid prose. The story features a multicultural cast and an appendix describes the birds from around the world whose wings appear on various Librae.