Category: book review

Seoul Before Sunrise by Samir Dahmani. Life Drawn / Humanoids, 2024. Translated by Nanette McGuinness. 144pp. Seong-ji and her friend Ji-won get into different universities after taking South Korea’s entrance exams. Even before it happens, Seong-ji is nostalgic for high […]
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Love & Vermin: A Collection of Cartoons by The New Yorker’s Will McPhail. Mariner Books, 2022. 9780358346227. 240pp. A collection of cartoonist / graphic novelist McPhail’s. comics; most are one-panel, and most of which appeared originally in the New Yorker. […]
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Fitting Indian by Jyoti Chand and Tara Anand. HarperAlley, 2025. 9780063237544. 288pp. Nitasha is under a lot of pressure from her parents to be the perfect student and daughter, though she quietly rebels against those expectations. The fact that her […]
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Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Orbit, 2025. 9780316579025. 464pp. This is my favorite first contact novel. It’s set in a post-Earth interstellar future where humans function as assets for expansion across the galaxy. A ship has arrived at an unexplored star […]
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Zeroed Out: A Sci-Fi Rom-Com by Jim Munroe and Eric Kim (artist). At Bay Press, 2025. 9781998779673. 163pp. Offworlders and their tech have improved life for most folks on Earth. But Matias lost a girlfriend to one of the shapeshifting […]
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The Fable Omnibus 1 by Katsuhisa Minami. Kodansha, 2024. 9978888772447. 416pp. Publisher’s Rating: Mature 18+ This manga series opens with Fable, a legendary hit man, taking out a bunch of goons. He’s unhurried, the violence is balletic, and when he […]
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Umami by Jacob Grant. Viking, 2024. 9780593624067. Umami (a penguin) is tired of eating cold fish, so she sets out on an adventure. She travels and eats foods with lots of different flavors, and then she decides to bring those […]
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Questions Without Answers by Sarah Manguso, illustrated by Liana Finck. Hogarth, 2025. 9780593733622. 160pp. The book is full of the best questions kids have ever asked. They’re profound and strange, and arranged into the following subjects: people, animals, things, big […]
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This Year, A Witch by Zoey Abbott. A Caitlyn Dlouhy Book, 2025. 9781665956024. The little girl narrating this tale is done with cute costumes! She’s ready to be a witch! And this is amazing because of the bright colors in […]
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Jazzy The Witch In Broom Doom by Jessixa Bagley. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2025. 9781665922326. 232pp. Includes an author’s note and an excerpt of the next book in the series. Jazzy’s moms and granny are very excited […]
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