Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 3/15/26

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles!

This week: inside you, there are three wolves: one is only skin, one is only in my dreams, and the other is only you…

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 3/15/26

“Only Skin” – Joanna Newsom

This song’s a way-homer, but it’s a hell of a long way home. It’s difficult to pitch this song, because yeah, how do you convince somebody to willingly listen to a nearly 17-minute long song whose main instrument is the harp with a decidedly squeaky-voiced vocalist? I doubt it’d convince you further if I said that it took me at least two listens to really get it. But when I did, I got it. I don’t think I’ve ever been captivated by a song this long, or this proggy. I say “prog” because there’s an element of this that its detractors would probably dismiss as self-indulgent, artsy-fartsy bullshit, and that its defenders would call epic. Prog of any subgenre is hit or miss for me, but I think what’s valuable about it is that it emphasizes art for art’s sake—it’s not afraid to get sprawling in service of creating music that defies mainstream traditions. I doubt that there was anything else like the harp-dominated, esoteric folk of Joanna Newsom released in 2005. Most of the imagery surrounding it feels medieval, and there’s a certain bardlike quality to how Newsom presents herself (especially on the album cover of Ys). But to me, it strikes me as strangely Appalachian, more rooted in the pioneer times of the U.S. in the 19th century than anything—particularly in this song, it’s the more folky instrumentation, the mentions of somewhat modern war imagery (even if it’s in an in-song dream sequence), and, somewhat irrelevantly, the way that Newsom says “swimmin’ hole.”

But really, “Only Skin” has genuinely made me go a bit bananas. Admittedly, I was exposed to this song through separate TikTok trends, but frankly, it’s wild that a song as weird as this got any traction. But this song is downright captivating. At best, I feel like I’m picking it apart in the same way that I would some esoteric classic in my English classes; other times, I feel like the voice in my head is about to bust a vein, announcing different elements of the track like a WWE announcer: “AND THERE’S ANOTHER TEMPO CHANGE! FELLAS, WE’VE GOT ANOTHER TEMPO CHANGE—AND HERE COMES BILL CALLAHAN WITH THE STEEL CHAIR!” (And yeah, that was wild to find out too—he has a brief but prominent feature about 13 minutes into the song.) Newsom has this distinct voice that squeaks so much in the first few seconds of the song that I genuinely though it was studio feedback, but I love that nontraditional quality of it—she peeps and howls and mewls, defying all notions of how the feminine voice is supposed to sound. She has this kind of sprite-like quality about her that makes her already stunning lyricism even more like a fable or a fairytale—there’s whole handfuls of lyrics that stop me in my tracks: “Back on the patio/watching the bats bring night in,” “The retreat of their hairless and blind cavalry,” “And I watched as the water was kneading so neatly/Gone treacly” are just a handful of the gems that Newsom has scattered through the rich earth of this track. I could probably go on for at least two paragraphs longer just picking apart all of the poetic devices scattered throughout, but this part of the post is already getting unwieldily long. But the real emotional oomph is the juxtaposition with the more devastatingly bare lines, things like the waver in her voice when she repeats the motif of “That’s an awfully real gun.” It all has a very Kate Bush quality about it, both in the vocal and lyrical styles—as well as her stories of women.

She breathes wonder and fear and devotion and snapped rage into every line—it’s so dense that I can only scrabble for certain meanings. As far as I can tell, Newsom is the kind of enigmatic artist who ostensibly does write true stories, but obfuscates them under at least seven layers of fiction so that they’re all but impenetrable. There’s hints of personal relationship turmoil, something that her ardent fans have been desperately trying to puzzle out in the 20 years since this album was released. In my mind, I can see some kind of 19th-century narrative of a desperate woman married to a man wracked by trauma. She breaks her back trying to provide for him, and he only responds with demanding more and more still of her, without any thought to what she’s going through. I don’t blame said TikTok trends for choosing the part that they did: the part beginning at 13:02 (yeah, sorry) is the most striking part of the song, the climax where the woman reaches her breaking point. You’ve heard me ramble about the watering-down of female rage…but if you want real, desperate, breaking-point female rage? Step right up. Holy shit. This part is the musical equivalent of the straw that broke the camel’s back, the final response of the protagonist as she confronts him about how much she sacrificed just to keep him happy: “All my bones, they are gone, gone, gone/Take my bones, I don’t need none.” I get goosebumps every time I listen to it. This is why it’s worth all 16 minutes and 53 seconds—even if you don’t appreciate the highs and lows of the journey itself, the payoff from that buildup is worth every note. Like Oingo Boingo’s “Change,” it goes through movements, but all in service of a staggeringly intricate musical narrative.

I think those reminders of Oingo Boingo and Kate Bush, at least in terms of their mindset if not in their musical style, is what makes “Only Skin” such a spectacular song to me. Art for art’s sake implies a kind of self-indulgent quality, but there’s nothing much more admirable to me than putting out art that’s nothing but the vision in your brain, removed from all sense of trend-chasing or conventionality. If not for the musical freaks of the world, we wouldn’t have art as singularly unique as this. Art needs not appeal to everybody—just you, in the end. And if it finds an anchor in somebody else, then all the better. But it’s got to be for you.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Crane Husband – Kelly Barnhill – “All my bones, they are gone, gone, gone/Take my bones, I don’t need none/Cold, cold, cupboard, lord, nothing to chew on/Suck all day on a cherry stone…”

“Only In My Dreams” – The Marías

What I appreciate about The Marías’s Tiny Desk Concert was that María Zardoya did what I love with a Tiny Desk Concert from an act that’s been around long enough to accumulate a larger discography; she called the setlist a “tasting menu” of their career, with selections spanning from their newest album to their earliest releases. It gave me the perfect jumping-off points for getting into their music. “Only In My Dreams” is off of their very first EP, Superclean, Vol. 1. It’s always so intriguing when you can see the nascent signs of a band’s sound beginning to solidify so early on. Sure, the lyrics aren’t as refined (and the music video veers on being corny), but already, their distinctive flavor of dream pop was right there, waiting to be chiseled away. If this track is proof of anything, it’s that when you have a clear vision of what’s you, it’ll always shine through in the music, and time will only expose it further—it certainly did so for The Marías.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Stars and the Blackness Between Them – Junauda Petrus – “You’re everything I need/To bare this fear/The demons in my bedThey’re always here/It’s only just a dream…”

“Savior Complex” – Phoebe Bridgers

“Savior Complex” was a favorite of mine when Punisher came out…what do you mean, almost 6 years ago? I remember watching that music video in December of 2020 and, as I did with everything in reach, looked at it with a very Fargo Season 4 lens, but to be fair, they have the commonality of a black and white vignette of a bloodied Irish man in a sketchy hotel with a dog that follows him everywhere. (Rabbi Milligan is everywhere for those with eyes to see him.) Listening back to this song is making me marvel at just how immersive Phoebe Bridgers’ atmospheres are. Her best songs feel like being inside of snow globes, but every snowflake feels just as real as one would in the outside world. There’s an ice-skating rink somewhere in that snow globe, somewhere in the middle of a city, where the flickering lights of the skyscrapers illuminate the ice. “Savior Complex” evokes the palate of the dead of night in December, with starry flourishes from the celeste, Rob Moose’s orchestral arrangements, and the understated murmur of Bridgers’s acoustic guitar. Like the album cover, it evokes the feeling of being absolutely alone, out in the middle of nowhere—lonely and liberating in equal measure. Yet Bridgers’s wintry whisper of a voice is what anchors “Savior Complex” in the end, with her stripped-to-the-bone lyrics: “I’m a bad liar/With a savior complex/All the skeletons you hide/Show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.” As poisonous as the relationship sounds, every utterance of “show me yours, and I’ll show you mine,” feels like a secret you’re being let in on.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Camp Zero – Michelle Min Sterling – “Baby, you’re a vampire/You want blood and I promised/I’m a bad liar/With a savior complex…”

“Fourteen Black Paintings” – Peter Gabriel

Us is full of gems. I almost called them hidden gems, but most of them are pretty easy to identify as gems on the first listen. But amongst gems, some songs get overshadowed in the process. Practically every song on this album hits me like a train, so it’s exceedingly difficult to compete when about half of the album makes me feel like this after I listen to it. But I’ve found that in the three and a half years since I’ve listened to the album, there’s always another layer to peel back. “Fourteen Black Paintings” doesn’t necessarily have the gut punch of “Come Talk to Me” or “Secret World” or even the grooves of “Digging in the Dirt,” but to me, it thrives on simplicity. It’s one of the sparser songs on the album, but all of the lyrics speak for themselves, plain and simple:

“From the pain come the dream/From the dream come the vision/From the vision come the people/From the people come the power/From this power come the change.”

That’s it. That’s the entirety of the lyrics in this four and a half minute-long song, other than Gabriel’s hypnotic murmuring. It has the same, dense arrangements and international instrumentation (that haunting instrument you hear at the beginning is a duduk, an Armenian flute), and yet, it’s all so muted and subtle that it tends to relegate itself to the background. Yet it’s proof that even Gabriel’s most seemingly simple songs are anything but throwaways; though it doesn’t have the same striking emotional highs as some of the other tracks on the album, Gabriel’s soaring vocals make up for any need for them. In fact, it’s quite like the fourteen black paintings that Gabriel is referencing in the first place: fourteen black paintings by Rothko, all housed in the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas; though they seem like blocks of solid black to the casual observer, the brushstrokes within prove their deliberate and intricate construction. Quietly throbbing and pulsating, “Fourteen Black Paintings” remains an upfront declaration on the nature of power and resistance.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The King Must Die – Kemi Ashing-Giwa – “From the vision come the people/From the people come the power/From this power come the change.”

“I’m Only You” – Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians

Consider this the millionth post where the gist just ends up being “Jesus, can Robyn Hitchcock leave some of that top-tier songwriting for the rest of us?” Predictably, I’m still stuck on the show I saw him at back in February, and I was delighted to learn that pretty much every other member of my family got as knocked off their feet as I was after hearing the line “I’m a house that burns down every night for you.” There’s a line that’ll stick in your head forever. Here’s the real kicker about “I’m Only You,” though: I’d say at least 95% of the lines are like that. “I’m a policeman working in an empty house?” “I’m a snow-covered mountain in an empty room?” “I’m a liquid you’re dissolving in?”

There’s so much in here about empty structures and becoming a vessel just to hold somebody else, but I found an interesting dichotomy with the lyrics: they’re all either about being said vessel (“I’m a liquid you’re dissolving in”) or being built for a purpose, but being abandoned (“I’m a distant steeple on a long-deserted plain”). It’s such a striking contrast between becoming empty or being surrounded by emptiness—and what a stunning metaphor for being devoted to somebody to the point of total self-sacrifice, only to find that you’re only a shell without them there.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Nothing Burns as Bright as You – Ashley Woodfolk – “I’m a mirror cracked from side to side/I’m a snow-covered mountain in an empty room/I’m a house that burns down every night for you…”

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (3/10/26) – To Ride a Rising Storm (Nampeshiweisit, #2)

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I fully thought I reviewed the first book in this series…whoops. Did I just hallucinate writing a book review? In 10-ish years of writing book reviews, I guess it was bound to happen…

Suffice to say, I really enjoyed To Shape a Dragon’s Breath—it filled the void left by Harry Potter and rekindled my love for good old magic school YA, but without having to remember that J.K Rowling exists. To Shape a Dragon’s Breath is unabashedly Indigenous and queer, with a witty, delightful protagonist, a lovable supporting cast, and potent commentary on racism and colonization. And did I mention the dragons? Naturally, I was excited to see what the sequel had in store. And for the most part, To Ride a Rising Storm was a very rewarding sequel, full of the same heart that endeared me to book one.

Now, tread lightly! This review contains spoilers for book one, To Shape a Dragon’s Breath. If you haven’t read it and plan on doing so, you may want to skip this review.

Let’s begin, shall we?

To Ride a Rising Storm (Nampeshiweisit, #2) – Moniquill Blackgoose

Anequs has survived her first year at Kuiper Academy. Eager to return home with Theod, her only other indigenous classmate…who she may be developing feelings for. She intends to spend her summer break with her family, but what she returns home to is quite the opposite. The Anglish have begun to encroach on her homeland. Anequs is determined to assert her people’s right to govern themselves, but before she can intervene, she’s swept back to Kuiper Academy for another semester. With new friends and enemies, Anequs is determined to not let the idiosyncratic, nonsensical rules of Anglish society beat her down. But with a looming political threat mounting outside of her school, Anequs’s peace might be short-lived.

TW/CW: racism, xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia, colonialism, classism, violence, descriptions of injury

I love the Nampeshiweisit series—both books have been a delight to read. But for both books, I’ve been slightly torn about the worldbuilding. What you have to know right off the bat is that it’s not subtle, but also that it’s not trying to be subtle. Anequs and her people are Native American-coded, and the English stand-in is quite literally Anglish. You can see where we’re going here. But I wouldn’t be reading book two of this series if I wasn’t on board with it; and to be fair, the Anglish are basically a hybrid of England and a lot of Scandinavian countries in terms of their culture and folklore, even though they play the role of the English here.

However, I appreciate it more in the sense that it’s a political statement rather than a worldbuilding one—Blackgoose isn’t here to beat around the bush here when it comes to critiquing colonialism. Once you get past the names, there’s a rich fantasy world to be found here. It’s a world of dragons and secret societies and magic, and Blackgoose does an excellent job of explaining how they’re integrated into this world, and how they’ve affected geopolitics; this book gets even more into the politics of the world, which I greatly enjoyed. Plus, if you’re sick of how said magic schools have handled diversity (you all know who I’m talking about here), there’s so much diversity here, be it queer, POC, or disabled characters. And none of it feels like ticking off boxes—it all feels like how marginalized people would have lived and acted historically in a multicultural space.

One of the parts I most enjoyed about To Shape a Dragon’s Breath was Anequs herself. She’s just such a spirited and downright delightful protagonist, but one that easily holds her own against the obstacles that she faces. The Nampeshiweisit series is one that I’d recommend to readers of all ages, honestly, but especially younger readers who have just reached the age range of YA, and one of the main reasons I’d recommend it to younger readers (especially young girls) is Anequs. She’s such a good role model for young women, especially young, queer women of color: she’s determined, smart, and takes both her peers and the authorities to task for their racism and colonialism. Her personality practically bursts off the page. She isn’t without her flaws, either, and all the better—young girls are better off with role models who aren’t perfect. But so much of the draw for this series is how much I love being in her head and going on adventures with her and Kasaqua. Blackgoose really struck gold with Anequs—she’s a memorable protagonist in every way.

To Ride a Rising Storm was more character-driven than its predecessor, and for the most part, it greatly benefitted from it. For most of the novel, there’s not any hardcore, climactic action, but there are so many parts of the world and other cultures that get fleshed out that I can’t complain…mostly. (More on that later.) Either way, I loved the development of Anequs and her friends, old and new. Blackgoose’s characters are just so charming and compelling, and I loved that we got more page time with them. Jadzia was a great new addition, and I loved what she added to the friendship dynamic with Anequs, Theod, Sander, and the others. The glimpses we get of those on the margins of Anglish society outside of Kuiper Academy made the world feel even realer—there were so many pockets that we hadn’t seen before, and Blackgoose’s prose made me so much more immersed into the setting. Though some of the other parts of the book suffered from this focus, To Ride a Rising Storm felt like it was there to make the world more real.

However, there are drawbacks to having a book just for making the world feel more immersive. I’m torn about To Ride a Rising Storm because although I loved reading every second of it, there was a very clear pacing issue. While I enjoyed the more cozy, somewhat low-stakes approach that this book had, it was paced quite unevenly. We get some very serious action and stakes, but they aren’t introduced until halfway through the book. The final battle is crammed into the last 3% of the novel—I checked on my Kindle when this huge battle went down, and it started at the 97% mark! For a moment this climactic, it was introduced far too late. It just didn’t quite feel like Blackgoose quite knew whether she wanted to make this novel fully cozy or low stakes; either commit to the coziness or give the stakes more weight throughout the rest of the novel. Again, I enjoyed the pace until I didn’t—the last quarter of the novel proved that there was a serious issue with imbalance.

All in all, a worthy sequel with timely political commentary, tender friendships, and one of YA fantasy’s most memorable protagonists today. 4 stars!

To Ride a Rising Storm is the second book in the Nampeshiweisit series, preceded by To Shape a Dragon’s Breath.

Today’s song:

prepping myself to see Jeff Tweedy this friday…thanks to my dad for this one!

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 3/8/26

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

This week: in a terrible day for feminism, I only have a single song by a woman this week, on International Women’s Day, no less. Cancel me if you must. Also, saying “Cobra” by Geese makes me sound like a caveman giving somebody directions for exhibits at the zoo.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 3/8/26

“Cobra” – Geese

“Cobra” starts at 6:15.

Shit. Okay. I get it now.

The mountain of hype finally caught up to me. I can’t say that Getting Killed lives up to all of the hype it’s received, but that’s because it’s probably gotten enough hype that, if it were all translated into text in a uniform size, it could probably circle the Earth itself. But Getting Killed really is an excellent album; though it does have some low points, I think it embodies a kind of breaking point in alternative music, and I think that’s what’s resonated with so many people. Getting Killed oscillates between fevered, dystopian breakdowns and moments of contemplative tenderness, but what ties it together is that, for this generation, those emotions often go hand in hand in quick succession. To me, it feels like a response to Gen Z turning to the horrors of the world and poisoning everything with irony; Geese saw this landscape, and the irony we put into it, and slaps us upside the head with this bit from “Islands of Men”: “You can’t keep running away from what is real.” And that monumental amount of hype has to be tapping into something deep within our generation. Honestly, I’m right here raising a glass at the celebration of the death of Gen Z irony poisoning—it’s not fully dead, but hell, Cameron Winter and co. are ready to clobber it with baseball bats. What they’re putting out is chaotic, frenetic, and not always organized or perfect, but it sure as hell feels authentic.

There’s something pure about “Cobra.” By all accounts, the lyrics don’t feel all that wholesome—there’s a strong undercurrent of “that guy isn’t right for you, leave him for me,” which could either be noble or more egoistic. With the whole cobra motif, there’s plenty of back and forth between venom and temptation, and all sorts of spite. So how does it come off so purely? Was it just because I heard the “you can dance away forever” bit and latch onto that? It sure does make you want to dance away forever—it’s a song that commands at least a little shimmy out of you, and the instrumentation—from Emily Green’s high-pitched, intricate guitar work, Winter’s innate ability to make a piano yearn, and the percussion that feels like Tiny Desk without being recorded at Tiny Desk—itself seems to smile. There’s an anthemic quality embedded into a lot of the lyrics, and regardless of whatever romantic foibles it happens to be about, it’s about severing yourself from unwanted temptations and breaking free. And despite the resentment the narrator holds towards this temptor character, I almost feel a kind of respect—he’s still saying that she should leave her boyfriend because he’s keeping her from doing things independently that she was always capable of. So I think that’s what makes this circle back around to feeling wholesome. “Cobra” is like being tugged out of monotony and onto a dance floor bathed in sunlight. It’s so joyous.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Stardust Grail – Yume Kitasei – “Whatever he’s got in his hand/You can get it on your own, you’ll see/Baby, let me wash your feet forever/Baby, you can stay in my house forever and ever…”

“Wu-Tang” – They Might Be Giants

They Might Be Giants have practically been a part of my life since…well, birth probably. I grew up in the golden age of their children’s music (Here Come the ABC’s, Here Come the 123’s, and Here Comes Science), so they were about as vital to my hipster development as the milk in my baby bottle. Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but I’d be hard-pressed to think of a memory from early childhood that they’re not present in. And yet, other than said children’s albums, I’ve consistently loved them…but never their full albums. Other than Flood, I’ve never been compelled to listen to an entire album of theirs. They’re been prolific since the ’80s (this coming album, The World Is to Dig, will be their 24th), which means that there’s a lot to love…but also a lot to cherry-pick. And unfortunately, as much as I admire them as a band, their newer material has rarely grabbed me. I like them, but I never love them.

Until now. “Wu-Tang” is a burst of energetic, jangly joy, much more lively and enlivened than a lot of their new material. (Speaking of jangly, I swear the guitar part beginning at 0:20 sounds exactly like the guitar on Graham Coxon’s “You & I.”) The World Is to Dig, though the title is an homage to Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book A Hole is To Dig, means “dig” in the more “beatnik-y” sense, according to John Flansburgh: “A bit beatnik-y for sure…but hey daddy-o. That’s me.” In that context, “Wu-Tang,” which is about, well…how much the Johns like the Wu-Tang Clan, the title makes even more sense; apparently they’re sitting on dozens of songs that are simply about whatever’s grabbed their attention and has given them joy, which is as good a rulebook for songwriting as any. Impervious to any sort of industry molding or trends, They Might Be Giants have continued to be the flagship for musical weirdos everywhere—and heck, I’m glad they’re still going.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

A Letter to the Luminous Deep – Sylvie Cathrall – “Something was hid in a secret compartment/Inside my heart/Somebody planted a seed and/They’d have me believe that it/Was all my idea…”

“Fireworks” – Jim Noir

HE’S BACK! MY BOY IS BACK!!

Well, he’s only been gone from streaming, really, but the man himself has returned from his almost seven-year album hiatus (not counting his phenomenal and criminally underrated side project Co-Pilot). However, for those who have been following him on Patreon, we know that this has been a long, long time coming. He initially revived the Jim Noir Club, where he released EPs that gradually became his 2012 album Jimmy’s Show (real ones know that this album was originally going to be Jimmy’s Show 2), with the promise that in 2023, he would have three whole albums to show for it. I can’t fault him—I know I’ve made big declarations about projects and not followed through on them until way later. But as we got even more EPs than originally planned, I knew that the album that eventually became Programmes for Cools was going to be something special.

Three and a half years was an excruciating wait for a new album, and that’s also bookended with the time since his previous album, A.M. Jazz. (Insert the “it’s been 84 years” GIF from Titanic here.) But my recurring thought while listening to Programmes for Cools was that it was worth the wait. There’s nothing more gratifying than seeing an artist that you’ve been intimately watching craft an album finally put it out into the world. The demos and first takes have blossomed into fully-formed and polished incarnations of the offbeat pop that Jim Noir has made a name for himself (in my heart, at least) in; it’s slick, it’s ’60s, it’s synthy and sampley, and nothing but him.

Back when he was releasing EPs through the Jim Noir Club, “Fireworks” was a cut from EP 2 (you can probably guess how far along into the project it was released) all the way back in 2022. EP 2 remains one of my favorites of the bunch (it’s a crime that “Mr. No-One” didn’t make it onto the album, but maybe there’s a chance for Programmes for Cools 2…). It was difficult to imagine “Fireworks” getting much better than it already was, but the final version if it makes me realize how much potential was brewing in it from the start. The mix on the original was much more muddied, and in the light of day (the morning light, if you will), it gleams ten times brighter than before—just like the crackling, incandescent explosions that it takes its name from. Jim Noir has honed his craft here more than ever, creating a whole coral reef’s worth of different species of sound, with all sort of electronic blurts and flourishes that make it feel more like a bustling cityscape than the work of a singular man. But there is just one man behind it, and I’m as happy as ever that he’s populated our world with his music.

Programmes for Cools is only available on Bandcamp as of now, but Jim Noir has said that it will come to streaming eventually. In the meantime, support him on the former!

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Murder by Memory – Olivia Waite – I imagine Jim Noir’s synths being the soundtrack to Olivia Waite’s heavily-populated generation ship.

“That White Cat” – Mitski

So…Nothing’s About To Happen To Me, right?? I stand by my opinion that The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We is the best Mitski album of this decade, but this one was a success for sure. Though it’s not as cohesive or quite as emotionally potent (though it has plenty of moments that come close), it’s an album with a clear vision. It’s a Shirley Jackson-esque house with peeling, moldy wallpaper and women scratching claw marks down the walls. Mitski’s occasional ventures into Americana weren’t quite as successful as the ones on The Land for me, and at worst, the transitions between those and the more rock-oriented tracks were jarring; but as a whole, the album is nervy and feverish, but wholly certain of its image. After so long working with more deeply personal lyrics, it’s clear that Mitski’s indulging in a more fictional image—and it’s worked a charm so far. And yet, she can’t help but imbue her lyrics with the truth: about fame, about womanhood, and predatory people (see: “Dead Women”).

Some of my favorite moments on the album were when Mitski returned to her scratchy, guitar-oriented roots from albums like Bury Me at Makeout Creek. As much as I love her newer sound, something inside me always longed for the explosive torrent of her guitars from albums past. At least half of the album scratched that itch, and I could not be happier. In a downright neurotic album, “That White Cat” might be one of the most neurotic tracks. With only the accompaniment of bass and drums for most of the track, Mitski howls about losing control of her house thanks to a white cat whose scent-marking has declared her house his: “It’s supposed to be my house/But I guess according to cats/Now it’s his house.” Her ragged vocals lament the takeover of her house by a whole menagerie of invading animals in her signature, frantic lyricism: “Gotta go to work/To pay for that cat’s house/For the red corseted wasp/Who lives in the roof/For the family of possums/For the bugs who drink my blood.” Pushing her vocal range to the limits, making her voice rasp and gurgle and growl, she laments the loss of her autonomy, an invasion of her house—and her mind.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman – this might be cheating, since this is a short story and not a full-length book, but I kept thinking about this story for the entirety of the album. Mitski had to have drawn some inspiration from here.

“A Globe of Frogs” – Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians

Getting this excited about a remastered, remixed version of a song means one of two things: either I’m officially getting old, or I’ve just surpassed some new benchmark of pretentiousness. But why don’t you go and listen to the original and then the 2026 remix/remaster of “A Globe of Frogs” and then look me in the eye and say that it isn’t a marked difference? The 1986 original was never subpar by any stretch of the imagination, but this remix, 40 years later, brings out what was blooming under the surface in the original. It’s far clearer and brighter. It feels like how the world looks after you wipe all the gunk off of your glasses. Robyn Hitchcock’s lyrics and artistic vision at large never needed any improvement; as it was before, “A Globe of Frogs” feels like taking a walk through the gardens behind a Victorian mansion, but the gardens slowly lead into Wonderland—not the Disney version, but the Lewis Carroll one, for sure. All that was evident from the first demo, I’m sure, but this reworked version feels like forcefully blowing the dust away to find the clean glimmer beneath.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Mad Sisters of Esi – Tashan Mehta – the strange world of this novel is certainly adjacent to the microcosm in “A Globe of Frogs.”

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Books

The Bookish Mutant’s Feminist Books for Women’s History Month (2026 Edition) 🚺

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Wednesday, bibliophiles!

In the U.S., March is Women’s History Month! More than ever, it’s blatantly clear that this administration views women as inferior and disposable, given the sweeping legislation attempting to curtail women’s rights and the complete lack of consequences here in the States for those in the Epstein Files. With all of that weighing on my shoulders, it’s hard to not feel that I’m disposable; I’ve unfortunately realized from a fairly young age that the government does not have my best interests at heart, but it’s hard not to internalize that rhetoric that I don’t matter. But that’s exactly how they want us women to feel. We have to remember, especially now, that the government is no match for the power that we have in numbers and strength. After all, this is Women’s History Month—there’s a long, proud line of women who have fought before us, and if they could face the oppression of their times, then we can face the oppression today. For all women—women of color, queer and trans women, disabled women, immigrant women, and all the rest—there is always hope.

So for the occasion, I’ve compiled another list of feminist books for women’s history month: fiction and nonfiction, Adult and YA, and from all different genres and contexts. (NOTE: I’ve included We Will Rise Again in this list; not all of the contributors to this anthology are women, but I thought this would be fitting since it directly talks about resistance and feminism, and many of the contributors are women. This is not to diminish or invalidate the different identities of the authors, but rather to celebrate the feminist message that they encourage.) I hope you enjoy this list, and I hope it makes you realize that there are so many ways to be a feminist.

For my previous lists, click below: 

2021

2022

2023

2024

2025

Let’s begin, shall we?

🚺THE BOOKISH MUTANT’S BOOKS FOR WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH🚺

SCIENCE FICTION:

FANTASY:

REALISTIC & HISTORICAL FICTION:

NONFICTION:

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK! Have you read any of these books, and if so, what did you think of them? What are your favorite feminist books? Let me know in the comments!

Today’s song:

That’s it for this list! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (3/3/26) – Red Star Rebels

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

BEFORE I BEGIN: as this is a bookish space, I feel that it’s essential to bring this to your attention. Here in the States, H.R. 7661 (misleadingly named the “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act”) presents a grave danger to libraries and our freedom to read as Americans. This legislation, as many similar ones are, is presented under the guise of “protecting children” from sexually explicit material, but we all know what it targets in reality: fiction and nonfiction about queer people, people of color, and other marginalized groups. EveryLibrary has both a petition to oppose H.R. 7661 and instructions to call your representatives. Excluding stories of marginalized people doesn’t protect anybody. Protect our freedom to read!

It’s 2019. I’m about to finish my first year of high school, and I’m excited to buy the new Amie Kaufman book.

It’s 2026. I’m about to finish my last year of college, and I’m excited to buy the new Amie Kaufman book.

Needless to say, longtime followers of this blog (and longtime friends of mine in general) know how pivotal of a role Amie Kaufman has played in my life. Her sci-fi and fantasy novels have been a positive constant for seven years and counting, especially the Aurora Cycle. I was over the moon to find out that she was returning to science fiction after a long stint focusing on fantasy. And though it wasn’t as emotionally potent as some of her other novels, Red Star Rebels was an action-packed and romantic blast all the way through!

Enjoy this week’s review!

Red Star Rebels – Amie Kaufman

Hunter Graves has Mars in the palm of his hand. As the grandson of the man who settled Mars, he’s got it made. If only the rest of his family would actually pay him any mind. But when he’s trapped on the U.N. base after a mysterious attack, he’ll have to use more than his name to get out alive.

Cleo just wanted to stow away on this U.N. base to get the Earth gangs off her back and make a quick buck. Having to stow away with Hunter Graves when the base goes on lockdown was not part of the plan. But they’ll have to work together for eight hours before a bomb detonates, killing everybody on the base. And neither of them counted on falling for each other…

TW/CW: violence, loss of loved ones (past), fire

I’m a huge fan of Zoë Van Dijk’s artwork and I love her cover art for the U.S. edition of Red Star Rebels, but…I can’t unsee the fact that Cleo is doing the Dreamworks face. It haunts me. The thing is, it’s 100% in character for her, which almost haunts me even more.

The main draw for Red Star Rebels is that it’s a pulse-pounding action thriller in space; Kaufman has compared it to Die Hard and Home Alone in equal measure, in reference to both the atmosphere and the amount of interstellar hijinks. All of the events of Red Star Rebels happen in the span of 8 hours (the time it’ll take for the U.N. base to detonate), and it really does feel like it’s all crammed into such a short amount of time. Be prepared to be gripping the edge of your seat, because this novel moves fast—and this is the exact type of novel that needs to go at breakneck speed. The pacing is impeccable. The only drawback is that Red Star Rebels sacrificed some of the emotional potency that I come to expect with your typical Amie Kaufman novel. There’s a reason that her books are normally so thick—she doesn’t hesitate to get in the weeds with character development and poignant arcs. Though Hunter and Cleo’s relationship was charming as ever, some of the emotional aspects of this novel were quite rushed in comparison to her other novels, and I think that can exactly be chalked up to the uncharacteristically short page count—288 pages, in comparison to her often 400+ page whoppers. While the pacing worked for the plot, it didn’t work all the way for the characters—give it at least 50 more, and I think this would’ve been near perfect. That being said, even a weaker Amie Kaufman book is guaranteed to be a cut above the rest, so I’m not complaining.

Every time there’s a chance for Amie Kaufman to write a relationship dynamic where one’s a scrappy criminal and the other is a spoiled, rich brat (both of whom secretly have a heart of gold), by God, she’ll take it (see also: Selly and Lysander from Isles of the Gods, Lilac and Tarver from These Broken Stars, Nik and Hanna from Gemina, etc.). And do I eat it up every time? Absolutely. At least she switches the genders up. It’s a blatant pattern at this point, but she writes it so compellingly that I’m not even that mad. Would I like for her to mix it up a little? Sure, but this is Amie Kaufman we’re talking about—no matter what kind of relationships she’s writing, they’re always so charming and heartstring-tugging, so I’m not here to complain. The setup for Cleo and Hunter’s relationship was a perfect storm, but Kaufman did such an excellent job of making the development of their relationship realistic—it’s a survival situation spaced over eight hours, but never at any point did their romance feel too rushed. They were trapped together with very little interaction from the outside world (other than the antagonists), and there was plenty of time for their chemistry to develop. All in all, it’s another slam dunk from Kaufman—Cleo and Hunter were so sassy, and yes, made for each other. Plus, I’ve loved Kaufman’s casual queer inclusion, especially in terms of bisexuality. Beyond that, it’s so, so important to show that straight-passing relationships are just as valid and still queer, so I’m very grateful to Red Star Rebels for showcasing this!

Red Star Rebels should be a masterclass in why you shouldn’t underestimate the craft that goes into good YA novels. The best part about Amie Kaufman’s books is that sure, they look like cheesy YA (and in some ways, they are, but tastefully so) on the surface, but 9 times out of 10, they’re Trojan horses for top-notch, exhaustively researched worldbuilding. Aside from the Illuminae Files, Red Star Rebels might honestly be some of the hardest science fiction that she’s ever written. There was a ton of thought put into the physics and logistics of establishing colonies on Mars, and every aspect was pored over in exceptional detail, from the nutrients you’d need to survive on Mars to how the gravity affects the red planet’s permanent residents. Not only that, Kaufman goes headfirst into discussing the geopolitics of international Mars settlements. All of this fed into some great commentary on corporate space exploration and how corporations have unjustly been able to buy their way into influencing world politics. Kaufman’s vision of 2067 is basically what would happen if Elon Musk—[ahem] Graves had his way with things, and the commentary was an excellent way to scaffold the worldbuilding.

Back to Cleo and Hunter—as well as the worldbuilding—what I really appreciate about Kaufman’s class-divided relationship dynamics is that the less privileged person in the couple doesn’t sacrifice their values. There’s some potent class commentary in Red Star Rebels, and I love Hunter’s arc in seeing that their colonialism has consequences, and that the exceptionalism of his family came at a bloody cost. There’s also some sharp commentary on how poor people have to circumvent the law in order to make a living and are punished for it, but rich people use the same methods and get away scot-free—for instance, Cleo and Hunter ending up on the U.N. base in the exact same way, but Cleo being the only one who would be theoretically imprisoned for it. There’s a fine line in these dynamics where the poorer person in the couple ends up excusing the power imbalance and the narrative ignoring any issues of class disparity and the circumstances that made them so, but Kaufman is always right on the money (no pun intended) with imbuing her relationships with a strong sense of justice and class commentary.

All in all, another win for Amie Kaufman, full of outer space hijinks, crafty characters, and romance. 4 stars!

Red Star Rebels is a standalone, but Amie Kaufman is the author of several other books for children and teens, including the Isles of the Gods duology (The Isles of the Gods and The Heart of the World), The Illuminae Files (with Jay Kristoff; Illuminae, Gemina, and Obsidio), The Aurora Cycle (with Jay Kristoff; Aurora Rising, Aurora Burning, and Aurora’s End), The Other Side of the Sky duology (with Meagan Spooner; The Other Side of the Sky and Beyond the End of the World), and many more. Her next book, co-authored with Meagan Spooner, is One Knight Stand, the sequel to Lady’s Knight, which is slated for release on June 4th, 2026.

Today’s song:

gonna be honest…I wasn’t a huge fan of The Mountain, but this song was fantastic, so it’s not a complete loss.

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 3/1/26

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

This week: lots of watery songs this week—you’re either in a swimming pool or standing mysteriously in the pouring rain, so pick your poison.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 3/1/26

“Nobody New” – The Marías

Apparently, 2025 was an exceptionally fruitful year for women who make music that sounds like you’re underwater (see also: Cate Le Bon). There’s a broader spectrum of both vibes and aesthetic here without a doubt, but in separate ways, María Zardoya and Le Bon have made music that sounds like dunking your head into crystal-clear water and watching tiny fish dart past your face. Of course, Cate Le Bon’s completely on another planet, but although The Marías don’t snag me nearly as much as she does (and nobody makes aquarium gravel music like Cate Le Bon), they’ve clearly perfected their own art of making music that sounds like light reflecting off the bottom of a swimming pool.

Here’s another contender for my list of songs with specific lyric pronunciations that scratch a very specific itch in my brain; pretty much everything that comes out of Zardoya’s mouth is downright ethereal, but the way she sings “nadie como tú” in the chorus feels like a massage on the tired folds of my brain. Gently wistful and listless, “Nobody New” has the heavy-eyed feeling of the first thoughts that tumble through your head after you drag yourself out of a dream you can’t quite remember. It’s sleepy, but in a way that instantly draws you in—in my limited experience, the best Marías songs feel like slipping into the sea, but fully embracing the swell of the waves as they crest over your head. It’s simultaneously weightless, like hair billowing underwater, but sagging with the weight of yearning.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Seep – Chana Porter – “Baby, I promise/There’s nobody new/I’m being honest/There’s no one like you…”

“Raymond Chandler Evening” – Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians

I often lament that perfect songs are too short. I’m the last person I’d expect to say that about a Robyn Hitchcock song that barely scrapes past the two minute mark is just the right length. “Raymond Chandler Evening” only repeats its chorus once, and it’s generous to even call it a chorus when there’s only just verses apart from it. But some songs were meant to be a brief but potent punch, and “Raymond Chandler Evening” is one of them. It’s a series of polaroids strung together from the atmosphere of a noir detective novel—fitting, since the song itself is a tribute to detective fiction author Raymond Chandler. Every darkly humorous turn of phrase creates a vivid image that can only seen in black and white, from the abandoned body to the rain-soaked pavements. The only burst comes from Hitchcock’s description of the “yellow leaves [that] are falling/in a spiral from the sky.” It smells like rain. But interspersed within that noir backdrop is some of Hitchcock’s most wry lines: “I’m standing in my pocket/And I’m slowly turning gray” and “There’s a body on the railings/That I can’t identify/And I’d like to reassure you/But I’m not that kind of guy.” Hitchcock knows exactly how to package so much vitality and wit into such a short amount of time—as usual, Hitchcock doesn’t get the flowers that he deserves by and large. But the song was included in the comic The Crow, and a Cyberpunk 2077 side quest also paid homage to it in title, so it’s made more than a few ripples in pop culture—and rightfully so.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Even Though I Knew the End – C.L. Polk – “It’s a Raymond Chandler evening/And the pavements are all wet/And I’m lurking in the shadows/’Cause it hasn’t happened yet…”

“Queen of the Bees” – Jack White

I wish that there was a real, tangible reason for Jack White to get on my nerves. Scratch that—maybe it’s good that it’s just his personality that’s grating. It could be way worse. I’ve just never recovered from how much of a pretentious prick he came off as in It Might Get Loud. But he’s recently created his own publishing house and absolutely shredded with IDLES…the man makes it harder and harder to hate him every day.

After No Name proved to be rather samey (I saw a promotional poster last year that said “the best rock record of 2024 has no name“…lmao), it was official that I was just kind of sick of Jack White. After the adventurous two-for-one deal that was Fear of the Dawn and Entering Heaven Alive, White’s sonic range started becoming the same song over and over. So I let him fade into the background…and somehow forgot about this gem from Entering Heaven Alive. How could I have possibly forgotten about this song? “Queen of the Bees” is one of my favorites of his. He’s putting on every ounce of bluesy airs, but this time, but it doesn’t feel as posturing as some of his other stabs at the genre. So much of his solo work is very bluesy, but there’s a point where he almost becomes a caricature of himself (we once again circle back to It Might Get Loud). But “Queen of the Bees” feels like an honest embodiment of the genre. It’s a slick, charming strut where every strike of the mallet against the xylophone feels like a Cab Calloway-style cartoon feeling a visual chill up its spine. White’s rasping croon, though indebted to past rockers, comes straight from the soul, surpassing mere tribute. Yes, almost everything about the man is a meticulously curated performance, but I’ll give him this: he never half-asses anything. Everything you get from him is a labor he puts every ounce of his passion into.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Portrait of a Thief – Grace D. Li – “I’ll butter your toast/While you’re taking it easy/My tea needs honey/’Cause it’s not so good/And who cares if I’m misunderstood/’Cause I love you…”

“Alien” – Beach House

NOTE: definitely proceed with caution before watching the music video if you have epilepsy or any kind of photosensitivity issues.

Sometimes there’s no use in giving a big preamble about how I found this song. The other day, I just thought to myself, “isn’t there a Beach House song called ‘Alien?’ Wonder what that’s like,” and here we are. I’m just glad that it’s good—but then again, I’ve never met a Beach House song that I didn’t like. Them naming a song “Alien” is almost redundant, because all of their songs that I know have an equal degree of spaciness, and this track is no different. But it’s pure shoegaze indulgence; the distortion roars like the engine of a rocket careering through space, while Victoria Legrand’s vocals are whispers clinging to the soaring jet trail hurtling through the stratosphere. The lyrics verge on being surreal, but the castoff “helpless and glimmering” feels exactly how it is to be carried away on the comet’s tail of this song.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Ocean’s Godori – Elaine U. Cho – this track would fit in with the shining, sci-fi world of this novel: glistening, but with traces of rust and grime around the edges.

“There She Goes” – The La’s

“There She Goes” has to be one of the more ironic stories in rock music history. It’s considered by legions of musicians, music critics, and music directors for every rom-com under the sun to be a perfect song. It heralded a renewed appreciation of the ’60s styles of The Beatles and The Kinks, but is often credited with being one of the songs that jumpstarted Britpop in the early ’90s. Yet by all accounts, its architect, Lee Mavers, hated it. Even when you brush past the inevitable “this song is popular and mentions veins once, it’s gotta be about drugs” (it’s been confirmed by multiple band members that it isn’t about heroin) rumors, there’s so much mythos swirling around this song; most of them are about frontman Lee Mavers, who hates the band’s one and only album. The characterizations span from troubled perfectionist at best to irascible and impossible to work with at worst, cycling through dozens of producers and band members just to achieve the unreachable, perfect sound in his head. It has to be a tragedy to never have that satisfaction be reached, and to have your legacy be the runoff from those fruitless sessions. And yet…how the hell could “There She Goes” be considered a failure? This ought to be the guidebook for a pop song—catchy, charming without being cloying, and guaranteed to make you nostalgic. This song is a must if you want to make your bus ride into a rom-com montage. It’s jangle pop royalty, and rightfully so—nobody jangles like The La’s, and not many have jangled quite so well since.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Isles of the Gods – Amie Kaufman – “There she goes/There she goes again/She calls my name, pulls my train/No one else could heal my pain…”

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Monthly Wrap-Ups

January/February 2026 Wrap-Up 🌨️

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Saturday, bibliophiles!

We’ve all felt it, right? Like the past two months have simultaneously crawled by excruciatingly slow and then sped up, and then the cycle repeats itself? Anyways, I’m in denial that tomorrow is the first day of March, but in the meantime, I’ve got some books to recap.

Let’s begin, shall we?

GENERAL THOUGHTS:

Before I go on: my heart breaks for the trans community, and especially all of the trans folks in Kansas. I’d like to direct your attention to somewhere to donate to/a potential resource if you need to get out of a dangerous state—the Trans Continental Pipeline, an organization based here in Colorado that helps relocate queer and trans people from unsafe environments. Donate if you can! Sending all of my love to my trans siblings, today and every day. You are loved.

Alright, so here goes nothing with this recap of the first two months—

Wait, first two months? Insert that one Tintin meme (“What a year!” “Captain, it’s only February…”) here.

But if there’s anything that those two humble months have taught me, it’s the value of staying busy during difficult times. The government committing war crimes not even a week into 2026 feels about as American as apple pie and baseball at this point. I can’t remember a time since the age of 12 where it hasn’t been at least partially a scary time to be alive, but January and February both exemplified that, what with the horrors of ICE in Minneapolis (and elsewhere in the States) and the formal declaration that our government is a rat’s nest of the richest and most depraved pedophiles (what else is new?) imaginable. I’m rarely grateful to be this busy. What with the honors thesis and everything crammed into my final semester of undergrad, I’ve had so much to keep me busy, and this period of work couldn’t have come at a better possible time for me. I get frequent flashes of guilt that I should be doing more: the world is burning, and I’m just chiseling away at this thesis in a coffee shop. But this is my education we’re talking about, and I’m trying to focus on not falling into stagnation creatively and keep my mind limber, which isn’t nothing. And I did knit the Melt the ICE hat—I spent about 75% of these past two months learning how to make a hat in preparation for this, and I’m glad I’ve got this finished project to show for it.

It’s difficult for me to separate politics from the past two months. But I’ve still been going at a number of projects. There’s all the reading, which has also kept me afloat both intellectually and emotionally. I’m taking a class on People of Color and Social Movements, and I’ve already gotten several great books out of that. Ever since picking up knitting, I’ve discovered that I’ve accumulated and awful lot of hobbies. But what better time to have a ton of hobbies? So I’ve been knitting my way through the horrors. I’ve been chipping away at some Cate Le Bon and Robyn Hitchcock on guitar…to varying degrees of success. I’ve been sketching out sci-fi soldiers and spaceships and ordinary people to better visualize my thesis and my novel. And speaking of said novel…ANOTHER DRAFT DONE, BABY! 108,000 WORDS! The key for me here, above all, is to not become stagnant—that’s when it’s easiest for both my negative anxiety thoughts and excess rumination on the bad news to take hold. At this point, Instagram has made it so that sticking my head in the sand isn’t an option, but I sure can limit my intake of negative news. So don’t underestimate the value of putting the phone down, hanging out with friends, and your craft of choice—and, obviously. reading.

Anyways, here’s my Melt the ICE hat:

My magnum opus.

BONUS: I meant to slip this in as a bonus after one of my Sunday Songs posts, but there’s one, singular thing that has made me feel patriotic as of late, and it was the Benito Bowl. Have I ever really cared about his music? Nope, but I respected his politics. I did not expect to be crying while watching the Halftime Show the morning after the Super Bowl. I full-on saluted my phone with tears in my eyes when he shouted out Colombia. GOD BLESS AMERICA!

JANUARY READING WRAP-UP:

I read 13 books in January! Though there were some misses here and there, I had an absolute slam dunk of a month, with two 4.5 star reads and one 5 star read. If that’s not a good start to my reading year, then I don’t know what is!

2 – 2.75 stars:

Son of the Morning

3 – 3.75 stars:

Pod

4 – 4.75 stars:

Railsea

5 stars:

Borderlands/La Frontera

FAVORITE BOOK OF THE MONTH: Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza – 5 stars

Borderlands/La Frontera

REVIEWS:

SUNDAY SONGS:

FEBRUARY READING WRAP-UP:

I read 12 books in February! I mixed it up with new-to-me and familiar authors, and although I had my first book in the 1-star range this month, there were tons of fantastic books that I discovered too. I thought I’d get lower than this because I ended up reading several VERY thick books in a row, but I’m happy with this number. And as it’s Black History Month, I focused on Black authors.

1 – 1.75 stars:

Every Variable of Us

2 – 2.75 stars:

This Great Hemisphere

3 – 3.75 stars:

This Town Is on Fire

4 – 4.75 stars:

Salvation: Black People and Love

FAVORITE BOOK OF THE MONTH: The King Must Die – 4 stars

The King Must Die

REVIEWS:

SUNDAY SONGS:

BONUS:

Today’s song :

NEW MITSKI, HOW ARE WE FEELING

That’s it for this wrap-up! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (2/24/26) – Every Variable of Us

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

I’ve read a lot of great books this month, but a lot of the ones I’ve read recently are sequels to books that I haven’t reviewed, so it feels weird to review a book 2 or 3 when I haven’t even review book 1. Hence why there have been more negative reviews this month. However, I do feel like I have to get my feelings about Every Variable of Us off my chest, because it promised something so positive, but crashed in burned in so many ways. It was a sore disappointment for sure.

Enjoy this week’s review!

Every Variable of Us – Charles A. Bush

Alexis Duncan loves basketball—and she’s counting on it to get her the scholarship she needs to escape her impoverished neighborhood and turbulent home life. But when she’s injured in a shooting and can no longer play basketball, her dreams are crushed. With no other option, she turns to Aamani, the new student in her school. Aamani encourages Alexis to join their school’s STEM team to get the scholarship she needs. Alexis is skeptical—she knows nothing about the sport, and she’s reluctant to fit in with the nerdier crowd. But as her skills—and her confusing crush on Aamani—develop, Alexis realizes that there may be more to her than meets the eye.

TW/CW: racism, gun violence, homophobia, Islamophobia, xenophobia, ableism (internalized/external), drug abuse/addiction themes, mentions of child abuse

I’m a little ashamed to be giving this novel such a negative review, but I firmly believe that negative reviews have their place. This novel was clearly a labor of love for Bush, being a debut novel about a queer, Black, and disabled girl, a story that’s exceedingly difficult to get out there in this climate. There’s probably some kids out there who think that this is just the book for them. Without a doubt, Every Variable of Us is an important book to have out there. But I think there’s a lot of valid criticism to be had for this novel, and it’s important to note that a book being diverse doesn’t absolve flaws in its writing…of which this novel had many.

In theory, I think Alexis is a great character to have for a YA audience; there’s this expectation in the genre that even your characters can’t be flawed in terms of their worldview, because that might be “problematic.” It’s good for teens to see a character that starts off narrow-minded and comes out the other side more tolerant or understanding. I tried to roll with Alexis’s inner monologue with that in mind. There’s a lot that you have to put up with—in the beginning of the book, Alexis is…practically everything-phobic: Islamophobic, racist towards other minorities, fatphobic, homophobic, and ableist. There’s a clear setup for her to learn from her mistakes and be more understanding of other people’s cultures, and in turn, accept her own status as a disabled, bisexual person. However, there doesn’t end up being much development on her part, when both the novel and the marketing want us to believe that she undergoes this dramatic arc and becomes a whole new person. Alexis becomes more tolerant towards queerness and Aamani’s Indian heritage and traditions, but save for that (and her success in becoming an asset to the STEM team and getting a scholarship), her arc is practically a straight line. Her lack of self-reflection wouldn’t have been a problem if Bush wanted the reader so badly to think that she’d magically changed into a better person, when in reality, she was in a very similar place to where she was at the beginning of the novel. I’m all for flawed characters, but don’t tell me that a character’s had this monumental shift in her worldview when she really hasn’t.

Which brings me to the complicated issue of the diversity of this book. I really appreciate that Bush put a lot of effort into making Every Variable of Us have a diverse cast. However, a lot of the diverse characters ended up feeling like props to reinforce lessons for Alexis about being tolerant about other marginalized people. To be fair, Aamani had more development than the rest, but there were moments when she was clearly only there to teach Alexis about Indian people and Hindu traditions, as well as queerness. It was more blatantly evident in characters like Matthew; I appreciated the note at the beginning where Bush acknowledged that he’s not autistic and wanted to represent autism as respectfully as possible. I can’t speak to the autism rep specifically, but as a neurodivergent person, I found Matthew to be decently represented. That being said, it very much felt like he was there just so that he could challenge Alexis’s ableist worldview. At a certain point, I could see the checklist in Bush’s head: “oh, wait! Maybe we can add an Asian character here, jot that down!” Diversity can only be successful when its intent is to provide representation of minorities, but also minorities as people, not teaching moments for the main character; otherwise, it becomes disingenuous. Every Variable of Us unfortunately fell straight into this trap.

I’ve talked about this with several YA books, but there’s a very vocal camp in the YA world that’s staunchly against pop culture references in the story. I’ve never really understood the argument—why not have your characters engage with media that current teenagers like and/or that you liked as a teenager? Why not have something that a teenager can relate to or be introduced to because of this book? However, there is very much a wrong way to do it, and that’s to cram every possible reference into the narrative for no reason. Dear Wendy is another example where that approach nosedived (too many references, not enough actual story), but it pains me to say that Every Variable of Us is also a masterclass on how not to write pop culture references into the narrative. Every other sentence had a reference. Even when I was Alexis’s age, and deeply, deeply nerdy (especially about some of the same things that Aamani is passionate about, namely Marvel comics), my inner and outer monologue didn’t contain an Avengers reference every 10 seconds. It got to such a ridiculous point—nobody, not even nerdy people, talks like that at all. As a result, almost all of the characters ceased to become real to me. People just do not speak like that. It’s like Bush was trying to relate to every possible teenager by thinking of every possible thing that a teenager could like, and then translating it into dialogue, making it exceedingly hammy.

That issue of trying to relate to every possible teenager felt like the core of my issues with Every Variable of Us. It’s an issue that I often see in a lot of debut novels: authors want to cram every possible thing that they’re passionate about into a single novel; at best, it’s a labor of love, and at worst, it’s quite bloated. This novel suffered from this without a doubt. He just tried to tackle far too many issues, and as a result, the analysis of them was often surface-level. Bush talks about gang violence, abuse, having a parent with an addiction, homelessness, suddenly developing a disability, religious bigotry, and queerness all in one novel. While it’s admirable to write about this much (and there are of course people who live in these circumstances), Bush clearly didn’t have the page time to do justice to all of them without only giving an underdeveloped take on all but maybe…two or three of these issues. I do appreciate the handful of moments where the exploration of these topics actually did land; the moment at the end with Alexis’s mother was one of the only parts of the book that was emotionally impactful to me. But for the most part, this was just way too much for a single debut novel to be doing. In an attempt to try and address every issue that he seems to be outspoken about, Bush ends up hardly addressing them at all.

If there’s a lesson to be learned here, it’s that you can’t please everybody with a single novel, whether it’s the audience you’re appealing to or the groups that you’re trying to represent. Charles A. Bush just seemed too concerned with trying to make every possible reader in every parallel universe happy, which stretched the narrative thin. I get that there’s an insurmountable amount of pressure with a debut novel, but you do not need to please everybody! It’s okay! Breathe!

All in all, a debut novel that tried too hard to do too much, and ended up spiraling into a mess as a result. 1.75 stars.

Every Variable of Us is a standalone, and Charles A. Bush’s debut novel.

Today’s song:

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 2/22/26

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles!

This week: even though I mention both Water Moon and Underwater Moonlight in this post, they’re somehow not paired together…sorry. Plus, songs about grief, love, and illegally keeping wild animals in your apartment.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 2/22/26

“The Man Who Stole a Leopard” – Duran Duran

I didn’t expect to be putting such critical Madeline Todd lore here on the blog, but it was recently dredged up from the annals of my mind after not thinking about it for, at minimum, a decade. So here you are.

I’ve been something of a Durannie from a young age. Second-generation Durannie on my mother’s side, if you will. My mom was at the critical point of fandom for Duran Duran, being a tween (and then a teen) in their heyday, and from an early age, she passed down that love to me. I have lots of fond memories of watching their music videos from a DVD on our old TV, along with listening to their CDs while we played with Barbies, some of which my mom had passed down to me as well. That brings us to All You Need Is Now, which came out when I was in elementary school; a lot of the tracks have heaps of nostalgia attached to them, including “The Man Who Stole a Leopard,” which I loved at the time. Fast forward a few years, and I now had my own iPod nano that I could listen to music with at night. “The Man Who Stole a Leopard” made its way onto the first playlist that my dad lovingly made. But at night, this song transformed into something that scared the shit out of me. Specifically, the violin sample beginning at 5:52. “Scared the shit out of me” is an adequate description, but what might be more accurate is that it gave me the absolute willies. My heebies were jeebied, dude. Something about the mild distortion of the violins, under cover of darkness, sounded so fundamentally wrong to my 10-year-old mind, huddled under blankets. Thankfully, I got my dad to remove the song from the playlist, and the nightmare ended.

Naturally, this was a very pleasant thing to remember when I woke up at 4 am a few weeks back. But when I revisited “The Man Who Stole a Leopard,” I found that my memory had completely distorted my perception of that violin sample that freaked me out all those years ago. Admittedly, I get a kind of knee-jerk sense of dread in the lead up to it, but I was pleasantly surprised that it sound completely innocuous to me—a little distorted and reverby, but just a handful of fuzzy chords to give a flourish to the outro. I’m now hovering where I was in the pre-iPod era, when I was allured by this song. Despite what the fabricated (yes, FABRICATED, I’ve been living a lie since 2011) news broadcast might lead you to believe, this tale of the man who stole a leopard and kept it in his apartment is entirely fictional. (Granted, some of the wording in the broadcast clues me in to the fictionality of it now, but it’s still fairly convincing, especially considering that they got the real newscaster Nina Hossain to record it.) What stands out to me about this track, along with most of the tracks I fondly remember from All You Need Is Now, is that there’s hardly a sense of Duran Duran trying to put their youthful, ’80s glory days in amber and imitate it. Sure, there’s a very “Hungry Like the Wolf” sensibility to the subject matter, but its prolonged runtime (6:15) and more eery atmosphere better fits their earliest albums, before they became perennial pop icons of the ’80s. Like a prowling cat, it’s a drawn-out, seductive crawl through a tale of toxic seduction and love that isolates you from all else. But from all of these memories, there’s one crucial lesson I have to take from this: things tend to sound a lot more sinister when you’re in the dark. Shed some light on it, and this track—like so many other things—will lose the fangs you thought they had. What a relief it is to not be 10 anymore. I love this song.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Open Throat – Henry Hoke – I think there’s enough overlap between a big cat being inside human houses and almost being domesticated to bridge the gap between a leopard and a mountain lion. Literary fiction isn’t always my favorite, but this was an excellent read.

“Queen of Eyes” – The Soft Boys

At its worst, a lot of punk music and culture became a caricature of itself; There was such a dogged determination to “sticking it to the man” that, in declaring that they were different from the mainstream, they created a different kind of conformity in sound and style. If you’re not exactly like x, y, or z, you weren’t punk. As insufferable as that is in retrospect (and today, presumably, though I don’t keep up with a lot of modern punk), it did breed a veritable garden of absolute weirdos who weren’t punk enough in a myriad of ways—bands like XTC and The Soft Boys, whose quirky members adhered in some ways to punk’s musical style, but were too sincere—and literary-minded—for punk, because punks don’t write about statues who come alive and wander out to sea. I’ve definitely been influenced by some aspects of punk bands and aesthetics over the years, especially when I started becoming more aware of politics; however, I feel like the bands I identify more with are the ones that were a little too soft, melodic, or just authentic enough for punk. And I think that’s where my expression falls too—I’ve always identified, in terms of my makeup and my clothes and my politics and my music, with “alt,” just because it’s an umbrella term for anyone who falls outside of those strictly-defined, often social media-enforced lines in the sand between one aesthetic from another. My music taste was bound to fall here eventually.

I’d loved about half of Underwater Moonlight ever since I saw Robyn Hitchcock for the first time, but now that I’ve started collecting vinyl, I picked up a copy of the album when I saw him again at the beginning of the month—AND GOT IT SIGNED BY THE MAN HIMSELF!! I’m still in shock, honestly, so on the off chance that you’re reading this, Mr. Hitchcock—thanks again. It’s been in the background of my life consistently for the past month, and I can’t think of any downsides, other than my neighbors hearing the lyrics of “Old Pervert” through the walls. (Look, it’s not my fault that they made a song called “Old Pervert” but also made it an indisputable banger.) I was agonizing over which song to include here, since they’ve all more or less been on a loop in my brain, but “Queen of Eyes” stuck out to me, probably the sunniest inclusion on the record, especially on the heels of the jagged, leering stylings of “Old Pervert.” Even this early on, Hitchcock was nothing but himself: his half-nonsensical, half sweetly sincere and lovesick lyrics are wrapped in a wallpaper collaged from the psychedelic Beatles, Syd Barrett, and something that could have only come from his brain and his alone. Bright, jangly, and infectiously catchy, it embodies this line from the booklet that came from my record booklet, written by David Fricke: “the Soft Boys dared to ask: did punk rock and the end of the 1970s…also have to mean the end of joy, literacy, and bright voices?” That torch remains the same one that Hitchcock has carried for the rest of his prolific career. What struck me while listening to Underwater Moonlight is that this same spirit has always been there—his sprightly musical vitality has only brightened since his early forays into music.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

A Song of Salvation – Alechia Dow – “Here I am again, it’s no surprise/Locked in orbit ’round the queen of eyes…”

“Sienna” – The Marías

Expect a lot more about The Marías in the coming weeks—they’ve been a very calm anchor in the chaos of…well, everything in my life. I’ve spent the past week digging more into their music, but this song was one of the first I discovered, in no small part because it was the soundtrack to a recent art trend that went around Instagram and TikTok. (The one I linked is from @zaiciart on Instagram, who has such a wonderful style!) From what I’ve heard of the album, Submarine really was the best possible name—every song feels like it’s been submerged, crafted from trails of bubbles and that special kind of whispery echo that happens to your voice when you’re trying to talk to your friends in the pool. María Zardoya has such a uniquely ethereal voice, so much so that it was genuinely jarring to hear her normal, lower speaking voice on their (excellent) Tiny Desk concert. “Sienna” is a wistful track, but one that only really harpoons you in the gut out of nowhere once you look into the lyrics—the backdrop is the fallout of Zardoya’s previous relationship, but specifically mourning the baby she imagined having with her partner: “she would have done all these things like us. But because we broke up, Sienna will never exist,” Zardoya said about the origin of the track. The track’s ghostly qualities crystallizes once you know that meaning—this entire future that Zardoya imagined is nothing but mist now; it’s fitting that, as this future fades away, so does the song, and Submarine as a whole—”Sienna” is the last breath before the album closes, an exhale of resignation before Zardoya’s wishes become ephemeral.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Water Moon – Samantha Sotto Yambao – “And I smile when I think of all the times we had/On the beach in the winter, when the waves were mad/Down by the water, crystal clear/See her face in the forest, then it disappears…”

“Cuckoo Through the Walls” – Cate Le Bon

Sunday Songs has basically become one of those Scooby-Doo villain reveal scenes. You rip off the “Sunday Songs” mask, and it’s just a weekly excuse for me to blabber on about Cate Le Bon. You fools all fell for my trap!

Did Cate Le Bon just casually come out of the womb with years’ worth of fully-formed talent? I still have two albums of hers that I haven’t listened to, but I swear that she’s incapable of making a bad album. Mug Museum feels a lot more like a standard indie rock album than her more recent works, but even the more (marginally) accessible style couldn’t keep her from her quirky engine firing on all cylinders. Moments of somber contemplation (“Mug Museum”) are hand in hand with ragged rage (“Wild”), and yet all form the weave of Le Bon’s experiences surrounding the album. Most of it deals with the death of her grandmother and how Le Bon processed her sudden absence from the matrilineal line; for her, it was less about what her grandmother meant to her as an individual and more about how her family rearranged and shifted in wake of her absence. The titular Mug Museum is a kind of haunted house of sorts where memories live: she called it “an imaginary place where relationships are looked at and thought upon.” Walking through this album does feel like strolling through a museum built inside of someone’s old house; small objects hold centuries of memories, and every strand on a curtain or crack in a window holds a deep history. “Cuckoo Through The Walls” is one of the tracks that I felt exemplified this feeling the best. Its more restrained, steady pace feels like tentatively peering through all the corners of said aging, dusty house, glancing at the light illuminating unseen gaps in the floorboards. Le Bon describes a state where these memories have anchored her to the house, to the point where she almost becomes the house itself: “And I watched the dinner drown/I drank for hours/Never leave the house/Cuckoo through the walls/Lay still on the ground/Exhale the sound of symphonies.” Like her signature, left-of-center takes on the most universal emotions, her grief doesn’t keen, but sinks into all the hollows of her mind and body—and that might be more of an honest depiction of it than most songwriters are willing to take.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Immeasurable Depth of You – Maria Ingrande Mora – “I will not sing your name/And tie my heart to Jupiter/And watermelon dreams/I felt the fear of change…”

“Au Pays du Cocaine” – Geese

Alright, you got me. The jury’s still out if Getting Killed is getting lobbed onto the mounting pile of albums I want to listen to, but “Au Pays du Cocaine” makes me understand a modicum of the hype. Sometimes an album invades your Instagram feed for no reason, but half the time, there’s at least something to it, even if that something boils down to only a song or two. This song just makes me feel…safe. Yes, it’s seems more to be about a relationship with someone who’s ruined their life, but it feels so safe to me. It sounds like the friends you give you a ride when it’s too far to walk, and the people who texted me and offered their showers when the hot water shut off in my apartment. It’s a hastily-built up lean-to to give you a fleeting moment of shelter in the rain. The middle ground between my feelings about “Au Pays du Cocaine” and the more literal lyrics is that it’s a promise: believing that people can change, and being ready for them when they do. I’ve learned the hard way that for some people, you just have to let them heal on their own terms, but that you by no means have to forgive them, or even be there for that healing. There’s a hard-won freedom in that realization. But this song is for the ones that are worth sticking around for—the people you love despite their faults. It’s rare to find those people worth sticking around for, but maybe that’s why I feel such solace in this song—those people are few and far between, but this song is for them.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet – Becky Chambers – “You can be free/You can be free and still come home/It’s alright/I’m alright…”

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Posted in Book Review Tuesday

Book Review Tuesday (2/17/26) – The King Must Die

Posted on by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

Confession time: I was not a fan of Kemi Ashing-Giwa’s debut, The Splinter in the Sky. I didn’t think I would read any of her other books. But my hunger for sci-fi knows no bounds, and when I saw this, I was intrigued enough by the premise to give her writing a second shot. Thankfully, the gamble paid off—The King Must Die was an unexpected delight, full of rebellion, blood, and the friendships that somehow spring up from those other two things.

Enjoy this week’s review!

The King Must Die – Kemi Ashing-Giwa

Newearth was once humanity’s last hope, a planet terraformed by incomprehensible, alien overlords. Now, it’s on the verge of destruction, with dwindling resources divided unfairly amongst the struggling poor and the Sovereign that rules over them. What’s more, the Sovereign has the power of the omnipotent, alien Executors on their side, willing to do their divine bidding at a moment’s notice, leaving a path of destruction in their wake. Fen, the daughter of anti-imperialist rebels, is on the run after the assassination of her fathers. With a target on her back, she flees for a neighboring rebel faction. But when Alekhai, the ruthless heir to the Sovereign, stumbles directly into the plans of the rebellion, Fen is faced with a brutal choice: join forces with him, or let the rebellion fall prey to the Sovereign.

TW/CW: murder, loss of loved ones, gore, blood, violence, descriptions of injuries, torture

I almost passed on this novel when I saw that it was by the same author as The Splinter in the Sky. But sometimes, every once in a while, it’s worth it to give an author another chance; if not for second chances, I wouldn’t have loved Grace Curtis’s Floating Hotel, for instance! I’m glad I took the chance with Kemi Ashing-Giwa, because The King Must Die was an action-packed, adrenaline-filled story of rebellion and intrigue.

My issue with The Splinter in the Sky was that the story did not feel original. A recurring thought I had while reading it was that it had poorly copied A Memory Called Empire‘s homework—there wasn’t enough about the story that was original. I can excuse some of it, since this was her debut novel, but debut novels can have a story that doesn’t border on being a rip-off. That being said, I do remember liking some of Ashing-Giwa’s prose. Thankfully, she’s worked on both of those fronts, creating an original story to go with said prose, and the prose itself has been leveled up significantly! Ashing-Giwa had such a vibrant way of describing the imagined world of Newearth and the many people within it, so much so that I could easily see myself walking through its war-torn jungles. Her dialogue is snappy without being corny, and her metaphors added a poetic flair to an often bloody and dreary landscape. The King Must Die is a marked improvement from Ashing-Giwa’s debut, fleshing out what I felt lacked in her writing on the first time around.

Whenever I say that an adult novel is a good transitory novel between YA and Adult age groups, it always seems backhanded. I guess that’s because literary circles still turn their noses up at YA for the most part. Listen—even though I’ve aged out of the target audience, I read a fair amount of YA (although adult novels have eclipsed them), I write YA, and I have a deep respect for it as an age group (it’s not a genre!). There’s a difference between YA (novels that genuinely portray the complex emotions of teenagers and their circumstances) and YA (tropey slop banking on the latest fanfiction/TV trends). And I think there’s something about The King Must Die that felt like it could be an excellent book to introduce older teens to more adult genre fiction. Sure, the kill count and amount of blood in general is very much adult, but Ashing-Giwa hits that balance between the political intrigue that’s more present in Adult novels with the character drama that I associate more with YA. It has the fast pace that I associate with some of my favorite YA sci-fi romps that I ate up in high school, but with a level of maturity that would have been lost on me at that time. It’s difficult to balance this kind of complicated worldbuilding and politics while also having this character drama, but The King Must Die had both in spades.

The main part that felt YA (affectionate) to me was the character dynamics. The dynamic between Fen and Alekhai is a classic YA setup; she’s a runaway rebel, and he’s the heir to the empire she wants to destroy. Will sparks fly? …no, evidently, but they did make for some seriously compelling character dynamics. I appreciated that, although there were multiple opportunities for Fen to be paired off with any number of characters, all of them were platonic, and they still gave me that juicy, delectable drama that’s usually only reserved for romances. Fen had such excellent chemistry with Mettan, Sinjara, and the other rebels, but what stood out the most was her relationship with Alekhai. I love a good redemption story for a villain, but it’s even more impressive given how much that Ashing-Giwa establishes about him that honestly…shouldn’t be that redeemable. But his development over the course of the story culminated in something so emotional, and the slow cracking of his shell from a ruthless, indestructible royal to someone who only wanted love in return was incredibly poignant.

The King Must Die is still sci-fi for sure, but I’d place it somewhere in the nebulous category of space fantasy. There are some elements that solidly ground it in science fiction: the alien Makers and their terraformed planet, for one, but also some of the technology. However, much of the action that we see on the ground was very fantasy, what with battles waged with intricate swords and quarterstaffs. I loved the strange, often horrifying beasts that we encounter throughout, though I would’ve liked explanations about how they fit into the ecosystems; we get a lot of tidbits of creatures that supposedly went extinct centuries ago, but are showing up for…reasons, and are never brought up again. As a whole, there were a handful of holes in the parts of the worldbuilding that didn’t relate to a) the politics or b) the terraformed Newearth, but for the most part, the world of The King Must Die was a compelling one without a doubt.

In general, I liked the ending and the epilogue; on a more technical level, Ashing-Giwa is excellent at writing battle scenes that really pump up your adrenaline. Some of the imagery, as well as Askrynath’s dialogue, reminded me of the final battle in the throne room in Hellboy II: The Golden Army, which, if you know me well, is a compliment of the highest order. Conceptually, I like how the ending and epilogue resolved—through selflessness and collective community work, the empire was dismantled and a more fair system was set up on Newearth. However, it felt wrapped up far too neatly. An empire that size—especially one with the backing of incomprehensibly all-powerful aliens—doesn’t crumble in a day. I wanted to see more of the messiness of rebuilding a new world in the ashes of the old one—the transition just felt too clean to be realistic. To be fair, The King Must Die is already pushing 500 pages, so I get it if that didn’t make the final cut. Nonetheless, it was a satisfying ending—just too satisfying for my liking, and for the tone of the story itself.

All in all, a sci-fi adventure that balanced genuine political critique with fast-paced action and dramatic, snappy dialogue—it’s rare to find a book that succeeds with both. 4 stars!

The King Must Die is a standalone, but Kemi Ashing-Giwa is also the author of The Splinter in the Sky and the novella This World Is Not Yours.

Today’s song:

That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!