Review: The Vivisectors

August 19, 2026Leave a comment

Title: The Vivisectors: A Novel
Author: Missouri Williams
Pages: 288
Release: May 21, 2026

An atmospheric fever dream that’s frustrating and fascinating in equal measure. Missouri Williams conjures a setting where the sharp details of reality have been sanded off. Modern technology exists, but everything feels like a hazy simulacrum of the real world. Only three professions seem to matter: academics, architects, and gardeners. In a deteriorating and depopulated world, the gardens grow unchecked, and only the mercurial bands of gardeners can control them.

This is definitely a vibes-over-plot type of novel, with frequent diversions from the main narrative interrupting the loosely told story, as relayed by an unreliable and detached narrator. I found it all quite entrancing, but never felt like I fully understood what its broad metaphors were meant to represent. Character motivations are often inscrutable, and long, rambling descriptive passages only add to the sense of disorientation. Your mileage may vary here, as this will definitely land with some readers more than others.

★★★¼

My thanks to the public library for lending a free copy in exchange for nothing at all! ☺

Review: Seek Immediate Shelter

August 14, 2026Leave a comment

Title: Seek Immediate Shelter: A Novel
Author: Vincent Yu
Pages: 304
Release: May 5, 2026

A short story collection (masquerading as a novel) with an incredible hook—a text alert about an incoming missile sends a community into a frenzy. This cataclysmic pressure valve opens and the delicate psyches of the residents we follow are laid bare. Yu plays with expectations in an amusing way, as you never know where in each story the missile alert will blare or how the character will react to it.

Each of the subtly interconnected stories has an emotional hook that sucks you in, exploring familiar themes of familial strife, parent-child discord, falling in love, falling out of love, despair, hope, addiction, and the cracks within us that can sometimes turn into fissures.

Each character’s portrait is tenderly rendered and moving, as Yu dives deep into their headspace under extraordinary circumstances. And while the collection never reaches the heights that such a stellar premise might promise, it still gels well and is a worthwhile read.

★★★½

My thanks to the public library for providing a free copy in exchange for nothing at all☺

Review: The End of Everything

August 9, 2026Leave a comment

Title: The End of Everything
Author: M. John Harrison
Pages: 208
Release: October 13, 2026

Surreal. Ethereal. Eerie. Off-kilter. Awash in extreme, casual violence. Difficult to parse with little plot or story to cling to. At times, like if Jeff VanderMeer wrote My Favorite Martian. At others, so slipstream as to be ungraspable. Its strangeness is a feature, not a bug, and while initially intriguing, its opacity becomes overwhelming by the end.

I can certainly see how this would benefit from another readthrough, which likely boosted it among Booker Prize judges – but I’ll leave the rereads to them. Once was enough for me.

★★¾

My thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Ply

August 5, 2026Leave a comment

Title: Ply: A Novel
Author: Hernan Diaz
Pages: 464
Release: September 29, 2026

Having not read his prior work, but being aware of his growing literary stature, I was pleasantly surprised by the accessibility of Diaz’s writing. His lyrical prose expertly conjures a dilapidated but vibrant, thrumming city that persists amidst its deterioration. Evocative descriptions include a river that “doesn’t run but oozes…like molten ore” or vacant warehouses reclaimed by roots that have “clawed their witchy fingers into the plaster…with an invisible slowness…in the gentlest of tantrums.” I loved these descriptions. I was equally drawn to the way he explores the main character’s background through flashbacks that add depth and texture to her character.

The second half of the novel abandons much of what I enjoyed about the first half, however. An abrupt pivot from first- to third-person narration feels gimmicky and doesn’t justify itself by the book’s end. That, paired with plot beats that require heavy exposition of quantum theory, really dragged things down. The more it leaned into this, the more I leaned away. I appreciate the time and effort Diaz put into untangling the book’s thornier quantum entanglements,* but the story is worse for it.

In all, Ply is most effective and affecting when it drills deep into its characters, and much less so when it gets tangled in convoluted quantum mechanics. That said, I really enjoyed Diaz’s writing and felt that the extended time I spent in this world was worthwhile.

★★★¼

*The acknowledgements section really shows how seriously Diaz took the research for the novel.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Blacktail

July 28, 2026Leave a comment

Title: Blacktail: A Novel
Author: Scott Hawkins
Pages: 288
Release: September 1, 2026

Lynx that speak in platitudes, wolves that write poetry in urine, and house cats that worship the Forest God. In Blacktail, Scott Hawkins’s (very) dark fantasy, we see our world through the eyes of a wolf-dog whose personal quest for revenge becomes much stranger and more mythic as it moves toward its conclusion.

There’s an intentional discordance between the brutality and disturbing imagery of the main quest and the absurdity interwoven throughout the narrative. House cats with names like “Miss Prissy Pants” show up. Dogs worship their piles of “food-rocks” (kibble). Car demons controlled by “two-legs” (humans) stalk the “black path” (road). This discordance is amusing but often jarring, as these sillier elements undercut the dark edge of the story.

It’s a quest novel, but the pacing is somewhat stilted, with Blacktail jumping from one interaction to another as new creatures are placed in his path. This keeps the quest from gaining enough narrative momentum to earn its final denouement. Ultimately, I was consistently engaged and quite gripped by the tale, but it never quite fulfilled its promise for me.

★★★½

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: May We Feed The King

July 18, 2026Leave a comment

Title: May We Feed the King: A Novel
Author: Rebecca Perry
Pages: 264
Release: October 20, 2026

At first, this book seems destined to be the most interesting novel about the procurement and placement of fake fruit you’ll ever read. Soon after, though, we’re swept into an unnamed kingdom and placed at the feet of a nameless king, oh so burdened by the weight of his crown.

Both narratives are equally engrossing and could have carried novels on their own. Perry pairs them instead, inviting us to juxtapose two lives shaped by grief and the weight of expectation. The decorator possesses a freedom the king can only dream of: she tells the story, arranges the objects, and creates a scene of her own making. The king, meanwhile, is beset by the ceaseless gossipmongering of his court and has little control over the story being told about his reign. Only when he learns to harness those narratives and use them for his own ends can he begin to free himself from them.

I’m still mulling over exactly what these two stories achieve together. Individually, though, they’re both engrossing.

Through silky-smooth prose and an eye for exacting detail, Perry has stitched together two wholly entrancing tales. Each is worthy of your time. I enjoyed this greatly.

★★★★

My thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: West of the World

July 14, 20261 Comment

Title: West of the World
Author: Mike Shel
Pages: 450
Series: The Chronicles of Jerebad Madder #1
Release: August 25, 2026

Set two hundred years after the conclusion of his phenomenal Iconoclasts Trilogy, West of the World seamlessly expands the boundaries of Shel’s dark and dangerous fantasy world. Jerebad Madder, a gunslinging dirt-witch of no particular renown, tracks a demon across the western expanse of Nethe Mundis, the New World, in a story that evokes Stephen King’s The Gunslinger while forging its own strange and sorcerous path.

This fantastical frontier tale features a snake-oil salesman with a complicated past, a sweeping romance born from a calamitous meet-cute, and a troubled hero battling demons both internal and external alongside a succession of unlikely allies. Shel delivers elegant prose, fascinating lore, and intricate worldbuilding in a story that is dark and gritty but still full of heart.

West of the World serves as both an accessible entry point for newcomers and a rewarding expansion for longtime fans. It cements Shel’s place as one of the best fantasy writers working today and will hopefully bring many more readers to his work.

★★★★½

My thanks to the author for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: The Moon Papers

June 24, 2026Leave a comment

Title: The Moon Papers: A Novel
Author: Emmalea Russo
Pages: 336
Release: June 30, 2026

What begins as a delightfully off-kilter chronicle of the impending launch of a massive art installation, Moon2, eventually strikes a discordant note as the unfocused and unrestrained narrative loses any semblance of cohesion.

I did find much of the commentary surrounding the creation of a second moon to be biting and sharply observed. Each character responds to the imminent launch in different and often amusing ways, ranging from deep skepticism to general indifference. I just wish the narrative gelled better overall, because there is a lot of interesting writing from Russo here. At times, it made for intoxicating reading; at others, it felt as though the novel was drunk on its own supply.

★★★

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Public Access Afterworld

June 13, 2026Leave a comment

Title: Public Access Afterworld
Author: Jane Schoenbrun
Pages: 608
Release: October 27, 2026

A bold, high-concept premise, confidently executed with impressive focus. Schoenbrun brings the idea to life with engrossing prose and assured pacing, keeping the story moving while fully embracing its stranger impulses.

The novel is at its strongest when it leans into its more surreal elements, exploring the off-the-wall interdimensional oddities that emerge through the static. The meta-framing of the story as a series of television episodes felt novel, but ultimately a bit too cute and not entirely necessary in service of the larger narrative.

While I still need some time to sit with the ending, the journey to get there made the experience worthwhile. If you’re a fan of conspiracy theories, enigmatic cult leaders, love-to-hate-them tech bros, and, of course, hallucinatory interdimensional phenomena, Public Access Afterworld should be right up your alley.

★★★★

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.