True Love by Sarah Gerard. Harper, 2020. $25.99, 224 pages
We meet Nina on speakerphone, telling her friend Odessa that her mom is trying to reconcile their past, while holding her phone’s camera to her crotch to send a picture …
Book Review
You Will Never Be Forgotten
You Will Never Be Forgotten by Mary South. FSG Originals, 2020. $15, 257 pages.
Mary South’s short story collection You Will Never Be Forgotten begins with the line, “The Keiths are Keiths because they are not particularly handsome, not particularly …
The Cactus League
The Cactus League by Emily Nemens. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020. $27.00, 288 Pages.
I am in love with baseball. Classic Americana baseball movies, The Sandlot, and Field of Dreams were staples of my childhood. I go to as many …
Music From Another World
Music From Another World by Robin Talley. Inkyard Press, 2020. $18.99, 384 Pages.
Imagine living in the seventies in a conservative community in California. Oh, and you’re also a closeted teenage lesbian. No one knows about it and you keep …
What You Become In Flight
What You Become In Flight by Ellen O’Connell Whittet. Melville House, 2020. $17.99, 240 Pages.
At nineteen, Ellen O’Connell Whittet had a promising career as a ballerina ahead of her. The kind of ballet she was most suited to, she …
Rodham
Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld. Random House, 2020. $30.00, 432 pages.
Curtis Sittenfeld’s upcoming novel, Rodham, is a reimagining of Hillary Rodham’s life had she not married Bill Clinton. The provocative premise will draw readers in, but you’ll stay for …
Strong Like Her
Strong Like Her by Haley Shapley. Simon and Schuster, 2020. 272 pages.
“Carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man” is a phrase that has become increasingly popular within the Etsy cross-stitch community, and possibly more surprisingly, perfectly …
Kept Animals
Kept Animals by Kate Milliken. Scribner, 2020. $27.00, 368 pages.
It’s been three months since I’ve found the time to read a whole novel, and part of me was wondering whether I’d forgotten how to read completely until I opened …
These Ghosts Are Family
These Ghosts Are Family by Maisy Card. Simon and Schuster, 2020. 271 pages.
In Maisy Card’s These Ghosts Are Family, the legacy of trauma takes form. Told in chapters that could be read as individual stories, These Ghosts Are …
Look
Look by Zan Romanaff. Dial Books, 2020. $17.99, 366 pages.
Women experience objectification in film. You’re probably rolling your eyes and thinking, Of course. So many forms of media treat women as objects, most of us have known about …
