Drawing much of his material from the annals of both the Nobel Prize and its real (much funnier) offspring the Ig Nobel Prizes Kallen dishes up a lively if sometimes also revolting smorgasbord of scientific highs and lows. Some of the latter are downright disturbing—such as 1950s CIA experiments that involved administering LSD to unwitting volunteers and a 2014 Harvard research project in which students chose to give themselves electric shocks rather than sit alone without sources of entertainment for 15 minutes. Still the general drift tends toward amusing and occasionally world-changing discoveries like 19th-century physician Ignaz Semmelweis’ then-bizarre notion that doctors should wash their hands between patients and a 2010 trial that showed the remarkable efficacy of the placebo effect in subjects who knew they were taking sugar pills. Readers will be entertained by a study (helpful to prospective cannibals) of a human body’s caloric content as well as one confirming the pizza preferences of Togo’s rainbow lizards. Researchers studying slime molds fatbergs and whale snot explain the surprisingly broad goals and implications of their work. The stock photos are more decorative than illuminating but the work is entertaining enough to persuade skeptical readers to engage with the sciences.

Dolly Parton’s humble origins in a two-room Tennessee cabin in the Smoky Mountains with no electricity or running water were a surprising beginning for this global superstar. She was born in 1946 as the fourth of 12 children and her early years were characterized by minimal resources but as Parton says they “were rich in things that money don’t buy…like love and kindness and understanding.” Bill Owens her musician uncle who wrote songs for luminaries like Loretta Lynn recognized an 8-year-old Parton’s vocal talents and nurtured her skills which led to her appearance on a Knoxville radio and television show at age 10. Her career truly took off in 1967 when she appeared on The Porter Wagoner Show and was signed by RCA Records. Parton’s career as a performer and songwriter has been marked by dogged determination and relentless work. Mooney packs a lot of material into her concise biography covering Parton’s film television business and philanthropic accomplishments in addition to her myriad musical achievements making this a robust account of a worthy subject. Details about Parton’s integrity self-assertiveness and ongoing creative risks will particularly appeal to teen readers highlighting her bold admirable departures from expectations. The accessibly written text ample photographs and black-and-gold page designs add to the work’s appeal.

In what could ostensibly be called a “space opera” Van Shamrai’s novel gets off to a rip-roaring start as a shuttle carrying astrophysicist Gaag Zorb and cryobiologist Zara Espen suddenly crashes over Arabia. The two protagonists emerge from the wreckage to discover a putrid world of sand and fog inhabited by strange humanoid creatures whom the warring elites of this future Earth couldn’t care less about. Naturally the tribal peoples who inhabit the place aren’t too keen on outsiders either. Van Shamrai imagines a society whose members have mastered a method of successfully striding atop the shifting sands using specially designed stilts. As far out as that might initially seem Van Shamrai’s worldbuilding is actually grounded in the here and now; the exploits of the League of Corporations the government of the Four Continents and the Kowloon Empire don’t seem that farfetched. In fact Van Shamrai’s characters are a lot more grounded than the menagerie of spacefaring malcontents George Lucas populated the Mos Eisley cantina with. The novel does however share some of the same DNA with Star Wars in that both harken back to vintage serial adventures. This aspect is where Van Shamrai shines the brightest with exciting action and adventure replete with flaming spears and lasers. It’s all good giddy fun. Sadly the author downshifts the narrative to a more deliberate pace densely packed with lots of palace intrigue involving stolen DNA who gets to go to Glezar and what it might be like when they get there. Some of the dialogue also gets a little goofy along the way (“Buzz off Gaag! You’re as useful as a mosquito screen on a space-craft!”). Sound too silly? Well this post-apocalyptic yarn also contemplates aspects of Plato’s perfect society too. And it’s also somehow reassuring to discover that in this strange future Earth the Rubik’s Cube has survived and evolved into something futuristic but equally puzzling.

Mama opossum and her three joeys “awaken” as night falls. They “blink” “clean” their teeth “dress” and “emerge” from their treehouse burrow. (While the majority of the text is presented in white font the verbs are mauve-colored and bolded catching the reader’s attention as the author proffers examples beginning with each letter of the alphabet.) After stopping to “gather” and “hunt” the opossums proceed to a subterranean disco (hosted beneath a giant toadstool) where they dance the night away with other nocturnal creatures: “Opossums strut and shake their tails / till sun rays light the skies. / They thank the DJ rubbing sleep / from tired droopy eyes.” Gallois narrates in rhyming couplets that in addition to the alphabetically arranged verbs render the story somewhat underwhelming despite the lively concept. Bobrek’s double-page illustrations are masterful lending storybook personality to anthropomorphized animals (treated more naturalistically in previous Awesome Opossum Stories) offering young readers a recurring character (a frog) to find and shading each scene with sublime hazy hues that prove especially striking in the interplay of disco lights. One qualm: The properties of action verbs are never made explicit and several of the chosen words are actually stative verbs (fail know prefer understand) rather than action verbs.

In these pages McDonnell continues to recount his Hollywood adventures alongside his writing partner Jim Carlson spanning the 1970s to the 1980s. The author goes into great detail about each project this time concentrating on children’s programming and entertainment. He describes the shows puts them in context of the larger industry breaks down the individual episodes he wrote and dishes some behind-the-scenes dirt when he’s got a good story to tell. Many of these projects are shows likely to be unknown to most readers—series like the SF cartoons MASK or Spiral Zone—but his editorial commentary still contains plenty of intriguing tidbits. Spiral Zone for example was based on a toy line for boys and McDonnell notes it was darker than anything he and Carlson had ever written for animation: “Based on the show’s premise” he recalls “this show was a dystopian series about near-desperation.” The author gives readers an insider’s look at the developmental meetings behind many of these projects (“Nobody cares how you dress” he observes; “We care about how you do your job”) and he relates with rueful humor the unexpected setbacks he and Carlson encountered as in the case of Mayday! Mayday! in which two kids in the Sierra Nevada are menaced by a pack of ostensibly wild dogs who couldn’t stop wagging their tails during filming. “It was hilarious” he recalls. “They were so adorable and not one canine in the pack was showing its canines.”

McDonnell strikes the pitch-perfect note of a smart sassy underdog throughout delivering the stories of the shows that went well and the ones that flopped with equal relish. 1988’s Pound Puppies and the Legend of the Big Paw for instance made under $600000 against a budget of $6 million and is widely considered one of the worst animated movies of all time. “After I screened the movie for my dog recently” the author writes “he got up and pooped in front of the TV.” The author smoothly relates industry trivia (the grandson of TV’s Captain Kangaroo left a picture of his grandfather on Mount Everest; actor Strother Martin was a champion diver in his teens and taught swimming to the children of Hollywood stars including Charlie Chaplin) and he warmly recounts meeting living legends like Ray Bradbury and Ray Harryhausen. The specific episode details he discusses will be of interest only to the most obsessively completist fans of programs like Goof Troop or James Bond Jr. the latter a show about the superspy’s nephew that has never been re-aired but the mixture of wry humor and warm affection that fills these reminiscences will easily win over readers. He writes of writer/director Howard Cohen that their “time together was usually spent in gales of laughter”; the same can be said of working on shows like X-Men: The Animated Series Beetlejuice or The Pink Panther. McDonnell explains the inner workings of the show-writing process (both as a writer and as the supervisor of other writers) with skill and insight. He doesn’t shy away from the frustrating or sordid stuff but the overriding tone is one of gimlet-eyed celebration.

Opal Opossum falls asleep on her usual trash heap after an adventurous night out at the Moonlight Marauders concert with her best friends Albin Ferret and Essie Skunk. She’s awakened by the presence of a glowing green taco which she promptly devours. The next day her friends notice Opal’s glowing green stomach—as well as her eyes’ new ability to shoot lasers (which she uses to protect Essie from a personal-space-hogging snake) her tail’s extension into a lasso (handy for apprehending pizza-stealing raccoons) and the fact that her pouch now contains infinite space (she stows three extra-large pizzas in there). Each chapter begins with factual information about an animal or idea featured in the story including skunks and quantum physics. The book is formatted like a graphic novel with multiple illustrated panels on each page dialogue balloons coming from the characters’ mouths and textual asides at the bottoms of some panels (“*all three take a moment to contemplate Earth’s impending doom*”). The illustrations by Possum Mood are extremely basic with bold lines and minimal detail or shading. Gallois’ story has legitimately funny moments particularly in the “Fidget Breaks” that appear at each chapter’s conclusion (“Focus! You may have no idea what just happened but see if you can get back on track so you’re ready for whatever awaits in chapter three. Close your eyes and try to visualize a slowly rotating cow in your mind. Or if you prefer count backwards from 23”). Unfortunately the scattered plot comes across as a string of chaotic events rather than a thought-out story. The general goofiness will likely appeal to young readers but the stiff dialogue (“You two…You better get gone! And don’t try anything funny!”) and lackluster illustrations ultimately result in an underwhelming production.

During the Covid-19 lockdown a Massachusetts-based writer/professor whose nerves are frayed from spending too much time cooped up with his family goes for a drive and ends up on a sandy seashore. There he finds a large white whale beached but still alive. He tries talking to it and the whale surprisingly answers in a “clickety-clack language” that the professor can understand. His story is a familiar one: an obsessive tale of vengeance involving the whaler Ahab who in this story is being pursued by the whale. “Call me…anything. But do not call me Moby Dick” the whale says to the man defiantly refusing Ahab’s name for him; he suggests “Hvítur-hval” the Icelandic word for “white whale.” His story begins optimistically: He and his partner adopt a calf the endearing Sea-Turtle. The ocean is a magical place where glowing eels produce lights that are like “twinklings in Sky’s night” but our hero is not easily distracted: “Nothing of these puny glow-worms interested me in the least.” Hvítur-hval knows that Ahab and the crew of the Pequod have killed his mother and that Ahab is still out whaling. The whale’s mother’s voice comes back to him in dreams and he knows he must seek revenge against the man who broke apart his family. Adamo’s action-packed Moby-Dick role-reversal takes place almost totally underwater and it showcases the author’s research as in his careful attention to describing whale pods—how they form and how whales live their everyday lives. The book also has extensive footnotes some of which are unnecessary but the prose is energetic and informed; although the narrative arc is not especially engaging the battle scenes are consistently powerful. Overall the work should interest those looking for a new spin on the Melville classic.

The book begins by discussing the push by legal scholar Raphael Lemkin a Polish Jew who was disturbed by the mass murders of Armenians by Ottoman Turks and other atrocities to have genocide a term he coined recognized as a specific war crime. In 1948 the United Nations adopted Lemkin’s proposal. Nardo notes the term’s complexity as illustrated by controversy over the 2025 UN assessment of Israel’s attacks on Gaza as genocide and the initial UN categorization of mass deaths in Cambodia under Pol Pot as “crimes against humanity” rather than “genocide.” Subsequent chapters describe historical events including the Holocaust the Trail of Tears (and other campaigns resulting in the devastation of Native American nations) the 1994 killings in Rwanda and massacres of civilians in Darfur Sudan. Text boxes highlight topics such as the Nazi murder of roughly 250000 disabled people a remarkable story of survival and family reunion from the Armenian genocide and the role of radio broadcasts in spreading anti-Tutsi propaganda in Rwanda. The writing is accessible and numerous photos and sidebars punctuate the tragic stories. Nardo’s calm objectivity in the face of his devastating material enhances its impact granting readers space to have their own emotional reactions.

Doug Fir is eager to change color hibernate or migrate; he observes these phenomena around him every autumn and pines for transformation or even transplantation. Unable to cease chlorophyll production he sadly must be “forever green.” His migrating friend Robin drops the bombshell news that palm trees are evergreens too and carries Doug’s letter bemoaning his “cold and boring” life to Queenie the Queen Palm who lives in Florida. While he’s waiting “chilly and stuck” for a spring reply we see that other critters depend on him. By mail Queenie counsels Doug to “stick to your roots.” He admits he needs rich soil not sand; as his “family tree” attests generations of evergreens have lived in the forest. Still Doug remains depressed until Queenie observes “I’m sure you do more than you think” and Doug realizes that a bear mushrooms deer fir-sprouts and bats all need him. Doug’s epiphany feels rather abrupt—and readers may wonder if it will last. He’s an appealing figure with expressive cartoonish eyes but the tale feels spread thin in its attempt to both convey info on ecology and offer a portrait of a protagonist learning to be satisfied with himself. A final page offers basic stats on four evergreen species.

“’Twas the night before shinny and all through the woods / not a maple leaf fluttered so all was still good.” While several pale-skinned human youngsters are “nestled and snug in their beds” the animal hockey players gather on the ice readying themselves for a game of shinny. A blue jay serves as referee while the chipmunk announcers offer running commentary. But the game proves stressful (“No one is scoring—this is no fun at all!”) until real-life hockey legend Gordie Howe descends on the ice—as magical and mystical as St. Nick himself—and imparts his wisdom. Nicholson’s rhymes mostly work though there are some clunky and forced pairings that make reading aloud slightly awkward. The story will appeal to hockey fans with its inclusion of sport-specific terms but those outside the fandom may not understand or appreciate it as much (particularly the cameo from Howe). Chen’s illustrations complete with gear-wearing animals do an excellent job of conveying movement and action. A page featuring a series of overlapping shots puts readers right on the ice. The anthropomorphized animals have expressive faces that convey their frustration and elation alike. The final page includes a brief glossary of hockey terms more information on Howe and a checklist of basic equipment.

Two stories are told in parallel: scenes of a dad with his child rendered in mostly blue with English dialogue and scenes depicting a mother and her child portrayed in a yellow and sepia palette in Vietnamese. Both kids are learning to ride a bike—a process marked by falls and tears of frustration. Phi’s succinct stanzas are composed entirely of tender dialogue between parent and child. Both kids start out apprehensive and each even briefly gives up. Yet with the parents’ persistent encouragement both are eventually able to ride independently making the kids’ triumph feel all sweeter. Laudably both adults also give their little ones room to struggle and even fail. The dialogue in both stories is essentially identical with the mother and child’s Vietnamese followed by English translations in parentheses. It’s only when the father and child walk home that both stories converge the house being a color blend of both palettes. Bui’s minimalistic illustration style with soft blurred spots of color and lined textures deftly complements the dialogue creating a tone of warmth. As the child asks Dad who taught him to ride the picture of the father as a boy with his mom can be seen on a nearby mirror.

When Mama Opossum goes out foraging all 10 of her joeys come along for the ride clinging to her back. When she stumbles and falls all 10 roll off in different directions. Readers are invited to join Mama Opossum in searching the nighttime forest. (“There’s no time to lose. Let’s get to work!”) She finds Joey One singing silly songs with the porcupines Joey Two sharing the raccoons’ breakfast Joey Three listening to Grandma Bat’s stories and so on. Readers encounter beavers armadillos skunks flying squirrels hares white-tailed deer and finally a great horned owl—a predator from whom a joey requires rescuing. With all her joeys back on board Mother Opossum returns to her hollow-tree burrow…only to find one child too many in their midst. Somewhere along the line she’s picked up a young mouse—the returning of which will be the opossums’ next adventure. Gallois and Bobrek who collaborated previously on Opossum Opposites (2020) present a simple but magical tale rooted in nature’s gentler aspects. Gallois narrates in engaging non-rhyming text describing the creatures encountered and spurring young readers on to pick out the missing joey. Bobrek’s illustrations—a mix of single- and double-page spreads—are dreamy and dark full of animal personality. An addendum of opossum facts rounds out the story.

It’s March of 1942. Ireland is determined to maintain its neutrality in the war which the government refers to as the “Emergency.” But there’s dissension all around; some favor the Germans believing that they offer the best road to a reunited Ireland. Others favor alliance with the Allies. Mixed into this chaotic cauldron is a diverse cohort of spies and conspirators. They include Julia Winter who’s half German and half Irish and is working for German intelligence; American reporter Virginia Payne who’s recruited by American intelligence; various government officials of questionable allegiance; and Karl Degler a captured U-boat commander planning an escape. Fergus Finnan a seasoned Dublin detective with a reputation for indulging in women and alcohol is now a lieutenant colonel in Irish military intelligence. He grills Peter Moynihan a member of the Irish Republican Army whose brother has just been executed for the murder of a garda (national police) detective. To save himself from the hangman Peter reveals that the IRA is expecting a shipment of weapons from the Germans. A hunt for the shipment begins and Fergus finds himself in the center of a dangerous web of competing conspiracies. Chadwick’s intricate narrative inspired by real events contains a hefty assortment of secondary characters—readers will have to stay on their toes to keep track of them all. There are two romantic entanglements one between Julia and Fergus and another between Virginia and Karl relationships further complicated by the fact that both Julia and Karl are operating under aliases. The twisty plotline overflows with intriguing behind-the-scenes trickery and betrayals—fortunately Chadwick is a skillful storyteller. His descriptions of life and death in Dublin have a visceral impact and the battle at sea between Karl’s U-boat and British destroyers is riveting filled with mechanical details and daring maneuvers that bring the action to life: “The diesel engines sent a shiver along the sleek hull making the boat seem alive eager for the hunt.”

In an alternate version of the mid-2020s global famine mass extinctions and the mysterious exhaustion of soil and water all threaten humankind. A corporate-run fascist American government concocted a profitable formula to increase crop production and now holds a world food monopoly—but cancers and birth defects have spiked both at home and abroad. In Minneapolis 26-year-old Caitlyn Svendsen defiantly tries to unravel the government’s secret formula and fight what the docile public accepts: “The health crisis was camouflaged as the new normal. As if a sixty-three percent cancer rate among the population could possibly be normal.” The rest of the planet is not so willing to ignore the crisis. Russia spearheads an alliance (including Mexico Japan and Israel) to blitzkrieg the American coasts wipe out Food Traitors (a group based in Washington D.C.) and seize the heartland. Russian hackers have been monitoring Caitlyn and her suppressed research; Commander Kaleb Volkov a legendary operative of the fearsome Spetsnaz special forces and his team are to infiltrate Minnesota and bring Caitlyn to Moscow to brew up a cure. But Kaleb masquerading as an American officer has become infatuated with Caitlyn (whom he calls his “Viking princess”) as she turns out to be fierce indomitable and good with guns. But Caitlyn despises Kaleb despite his declarations of devotion and protection and she demands sanctuary in neutral Canada. This is high-octane plot material that’s bracing in its portrayal of both the United States and Russia as nests of evil and corruption. The novel may not satisfy a readership that may be hoping for epic-scale combat ops; instead the work is closer to a thriller-romance with its genre-mainstay enemies-to-lovers arc. (Readers will likely visualize an Arnold Schwarzenegger type as the muscular Kaleb.) The book does feature some occasional violence including torture plus weighty themes of betrayal guilt Eastern European folklore and fatalism all of which add a kick to this killer-boy-meets-tough-girl dystopian series opener.

“Like food songs too can speak without words” writes the Seattle-based author at one point in this offbeat memoir. “A melody stirs a memory as a dish summons nostalgia. Both speak the language of the heart.” This creative book isn’t merely about the author’s love of music though but also her love of cooking and how she found her way back to culinary masterworks that she experienced in childhood (she immigrated from Hong Kong to the United States nearly 50 years ago). She also discovered that her passion for writing which she’d put aside decades ago was not a dying dream but an awakening of herself and her talent. This rediscovery of who she was occurred unexpectedly when she witnessed a Macanese singer on a Hong Kong singing competition show called Midlife Sing & Shine! His talent and passion for his art touched the author greatly she says; she goes on to explain how she came to learn more about the singer German Ku and found that his career somewhat paralleled hers especially in how they both faced adversity yet never quit. Cheng takes a philosophical perspective on what she sees as the similarities between music food and writing and how this insight led her to delve deeply into Macanese culture and cuisine creating a kind of homecoming for her. She was inspired to express herself in a cookbook which she’s crafted in a highly original style in these page. The philosophical interludes do tend to be a bit repetitive at times but she effectively expresses how she’s “come to see Macanese cuisine not merely as food but as a language that speaks of resilience and adaptability.” She not only expresses to readers how she found her joy again but also how more broadly “Joy matters.”

As World War II winds down in 1945 Commander M.T. Kwan returns from serving with the British to his war-ravaged hometown of Guilin China. As the Japanese pull back Kwan—aka The Dragon—hopes to retrieve his family from where they’ve taken refuge farther inland. Colonel Lindsay Ride his commandant with the British Army Aid Group shows up at his family estate. He wants Kwan to scout occupied Hong Kong and determine the intentions of the Japanese the Nationalists the Communists and the residential Hongkongers. Since no one knows when the Japanese surrender will come Ride wants Kwan to leave immediately. Kwan is conflicted but he finds another reason to go: It gives him an opportunity to locate his long-lost love Iris who last lived in Hong Kong. Once there Kwan meets with and assesses the motivations of all the involved parties assisted by James Chua his loyal aide-de-camp and Leck a recalcitrant local BAAG agent. He also reunites with Iris but he later learns that she has a secret that may keep them apart. The atomic bombs falling on Japan speed up Kwan’s timetable as he seeks some way to keep Hong Kong in British hands. Daniel’s experience as a banking executive in London and Asia (including two tours in Hong Kong) informs the textured background of this gripping spy novel. In this prequel to Follow the Dragon (2024) the first volume of his Dragon series the author delves deeply into Kwan’s history explaining how he came to land in Hong Kong and how he learns to balance his Anglophilic and Chinese sides. He introduces a colorful cast of characters with Kwan struggling to determine who agrees with British rule and who is likely against it. The narrative’s pace is frenetic as Kwan races against the clock while in unfamiliar territory. Ultimately Daniel skillfully captures a period of time that would change the face of China for another half century.

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.