Most recent staff pick: Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots
"If you've ever thought about the bureaucracy cranking away behind the superheroic/villainous world, here it is. Anna's day-to-day is not so different from ours-- she's just trying to pay the bills, crunch some data in her Excel sheets, and maybe lock down a date or two. Except, her boss is a supervillain, and the data she's crunching is all about knocking down those pesky superheroes a peg or two-- via social media. Naturally, things get out of hand. This is fun and fast, and is an entertaining counternarrative to the more common superpowered stories out there."
"If you like clever (and math-y) world-building, big bombastic space battles, resilient protagonists who are just Doing Their Best to Survive Difficult and Politically Complex Situations, and also dead military geniuses who aren't quite dead, check this out."
"This story brings does such a great job of portraying the many anxieties of a high school teen, from gender identity to grades to family relationships to first love. The author has a lovely sense of empathy and compassion for the characters, which is really lovely to read."
"Searing, electrifying, and devastating at times, Mailhot's memoir is brief but packs a punch. And though reading about her difficult coming of age and her struggles with motherhood and mental health is painful, there's also a sense of defiance and triumph that rings through her writing."
"Hughes' tale of two Irish brothers and their ailing father is brilliantly written, with scenes that slide seamlessly between hilarity and heartbreak, profanity and poetry, hope and devastation. This is a story about willing and unwilling sacrifices, and making choices in the face of society, family, and your own best interests, set against a spare but evocative rural Ireland in the early 2000s. I laughed, I cried, and I will never look at magnets in the same way ever again."
"A proper, juicy gothic tale with the requisite decrepit manor full of rot and creepy inhabitants, a sharp heroine, and a good thick layer of supernatural horror, all set against 1950s rural Mexico. Straightforward and solidly written, there's a sprinkle of sweet romance, a dash of social commentary, and a whole lot of unsettling fungi. Settle yourself in for a slow-building unease that mounts to a wildly raucous crescendo. This book gave me nightmares, in the best way."
"Reading this is a visceral experience-- in Chang's story, the body and all its changes and functions are as key to the narrative as the complex family relationships depicted. At times bewildering and hilarious, and other times fierce and bittersweet, this is a story that shows you all the complex love and rage, resentment, and hope that form the bonds between mothers and daughters."
"If you've ever thought about the bureaucracy cranking away behind the superheroic/villainous world, here it is. Anna's day-to-day is not so different from ours-- she's just trying to pay the bills, crunch some data in her Excel sheets, and maybe lock down a date or two. Except, her boss is a supervillain, and the data she's crunching is all about knocking down those pesky superheroes a peg or two-- via social media. Naturally, things get out of hand. This is fun and fast, and is an entertaining counternarrative to the more common superpowered stories out there."