Nobody New – 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!

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!

Tag: Nobody New

Sunday Songs: 3/1/26

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