Reviewed by Erin Britton

A haunting psychological drama that explores the rippled effects of trauma, betrayal, and accusation

Principally set during what should be a relaxing Mexican vacation, D.E. Adler’s The Rape of Elliott Roth confounds expectations by delving into the unsettling tension between public success and personal failure.

The initial tragedy belongs to someone else. A ranch hand swerves to avoid an oncoming car. He escapes the incident without physical damage, but the family in the other car is not so lucky. “He surveyed the damage and turned toward the sound of hissing steam and the smell of gasoline. A sudden explosion shattered the stillness and sent a plume of black smoke into the blue expanse.”

While a young girl is thrown from the vehicle during the accident and so avoids the explosion, the other family members are trapped inside. “After the fire died down, the cowboy saw the charred remains of the mother, father, and older brother suspended by their shoulder harnesses.” Critically injured, the girl is flown to Good Samaritan Hospital in Seattle for live-saving surgery.

It is here that Dr. Elliott Roth enters the milieu. A brilliant surgeon and a flawed human being, he is one of the few doctors with sufficient expertise to perform the brain surgery required to save the girl. “The child had a chance of surviving, but with what quality of life remained to be seen.” Deciding that the situation is too urgent to follow the time-out procedure and wait for a CT scan, Elliott begins to operate immediately.

Despite his undeniable skill, perceptions of his conduct in the operating theater will come back to haunt him.

The day after the surgery, Elliott joins best friend Jay “JDub” Walsh and a bunch of others—friends, acquaintances, and strangers—on holiday in Cabo. It’s not really his idea of a fun time, but Jay didn’t give him much choice. “It’s paradise with coral reefs, warm ocean breezes, and the freshest seafood. I’ve been after you like a honey badger. This time there’s only one answer.”

The group is certainly an eclectic one. There are hints of tension between Elliott and Jay’s wife (“Liz Walsh and I had been close for too long to let our friendship disintegrate over something that happened more than a year ago and would seem trivial five years from now.”), and the others seem to be harboring more than their fair share of secrets and lies. Will there really be the opportunity for rest and relaxation?

One thing to note about this story is that the title, The Rape of Elliott Roth, is not named for sexual assault but more in comparison with the literary tradition put forth by Alexander Pope in “The Rape of the Lock,” signaling the removal of something.

The book is narrated from the first-person perspective of Elliott, providing unfettered access to his thoughts and feelings. Saying that, D.E. Adler presents Elliott’s responses and reflections in such a way as to imbue them with a dream-like quality, with guilt and uncertainty echoing through much of what he has to say. Elliott may be convinced of the truth of his account, but others will likely be far less certain.

Elliott has low expectations regarding the trip to Cabo, but in this regard he is proven wrong by two opposing points of view. On the one hand, the holiday proves far worse than he could have imagined, providing the backdrop to his quite spectacular emotional unraveling. As the days pass and the need to return to reality looms, he has to confront the fragility of his façade and the long shadows of past events.

On the other hand, the vacation feels positive in a strange way, freeing Elliott from the mask of stability and solidity he has worn for decades. He faces up to various struggles and traumas from the past, and he finally recognizes the need to take a stand against the wrongs of those who surround him. He even manages to form a romantic/emotional connection, which though not without complications, does expand his horizons.

And Elliott is not the only holiday-maker desperate to avoid facing deep-seated damage, both their own and wounds caused to others. Beneath the illusion of camaraderie, when not occupied with swimming, snorkeling, and fine-dining, long-buried resentments simmer among the group, giving rise to a charged atmosphere of suspicion. As memory and desire collide, the boundaries of consent and accusation blur.

At both the personal level and more generally, The Rape of Elliott Roth wrestles with themes of guilt, loyalty, and the cost of remaining silent. Elliott’s moral ground becomes shaky as the accusations that surround him gather steam. Adler doesn’t offer him easy absolution; instead, there is the uncomfortable reality that some wrongs leave indelible scars and require more than apologies to heal.

Adler’s storytelling is taut and measured, echoing the surgical discipline of Elliott. Every encounter, flash of memory, or moment of silence feels deliberate, included to peel back another layer of his psyche. Adler also excels at emotional restraint. The unsettling core of Elliott’s emerges gradually through glances, half-formed admissions, and the friction between what characters reveal and what they conceal.

The setting—sun-drenched Cabo—provides a clear contrast to the darkness that unfolds. It’s an environment suggestive of escape and rejuvenation that instead becomes reflective of Elliott’s fears and failures. Rather than offering a sanctuary, the holiday becomes a trap, with the warmth of the sun and the companionship giving way to suspicion and tension. The presence of the others also means that Elliot’s private collapse becomes a public spectacle.

The Rape of Elliott Roth is an emotionally difficult story to process. It is part psychological thriller, part cautionary tale, and part moral inquiry. Much of it takes place at the messy boundaries between guilt and innocence, making it difficult to differentiate fact from fiction and determine who—if anyone—to trust.

Thank you for reading Erin Britton’s book review of The Rape of Elliott Roth by D.E. Adler! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Samantha Hui

A moving story about how a family tree can weather any storm as long as its roots are nurtured

“In one day, just like that, Naomi, Ana, and Johan, the first generation, was gone.”

Generation After Generation by Heather Gafkay is a historical novel that explores themes of love, loss, and survival during unprecedented times.

The novel traces the lives of multiple generations, showing how the decisions, traumas, and triumphs of one generation reverberate through the next. Themes of resilience, identity, and the moral complexities of human relationships are central to the story, highlighting the ways people cope with unimaginable horrors while still seeking connection and hope.

The novel follows the thorn-ridden, intertwined family tree of the Folsom and Stein families across more than a century. From their origins in Jerusalem and Germany, through the atrocities of World War II and the Holocaust, and into the present day, readers witness families torn apart by war, daring escapes from death camps, and the painstaking process of rebuilding shattered lives in the aftermath of tragedy. At its core, the story shows how secrets, sacrifices, and acts of courage shape both family legacies and individual identities, while emphasizing the unbreakable bonds of love and the resilience of the human spirit.

Gafkay structures the book across multiple generations, with chapters alternating between key characters and time periods from the first generation’s early struggles, to the post-war experiences of the second generation, and eventually to the present-day consequences for the later generations. This structure allows readers to see how historical events ripple across time and influence personal decisions.

The book succeeds in portraying not just the external horrors of war, but also the psychological effects on survivors, including survivor’s guilt, isolation, and the messy, sometimes morally complicated ways characters cope with trauma. The relationships are deeply human, fraught with infidelity, dishonesty, and complex emotions, but these elements feel authentic given the extreme circumstances the characters endure.

“‘That is the pathway that will lead you to your last steps for those that had to take it.'”

While the novel is compelling overall, the graphic depictions of violence and explicit sexual content can make it difficult to read at times. The scenes that bluntly depict the gruesome abuse and deaths during the Holocaust are blunt, intense, and may be unsettling for some readers. Additionally, the narrative occasionally relies too much on exposition, and the passive voice can slow the pacing, making certain sections feel more like a historical recounting than immersive storytelling.

“At first Conrad felt guilty helping the enemy. He felt like a betrayer. But then helping the Americans became easier when Conrad realized that you can’t betray your country if your country has already betrayed you.”

Generation After Generation is recommended for readers who appreciate earnest historical fiction that does not shy away from the harsh realities of human experience. This is a moving and ambitious novel that successfully blends historical drama with rich, character-driven storytelling. Exploring family, resilience, and the legacy of trauma, this novel is sure to leave a lasting impression, reminding readers that the past continues to shape the present and that hope and love can endure even in dark times.

Thank you for reading Samantha Hui’s book review of Generation After Generation by Heather Gafkay! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by John M. Murray

A ragged, razor-sharp collage of vignettes that skewers performative outrage, colonial legacies, and the modern hunger for validation

The Philistine and the Prophet is presented as a two-sided record, each side made up of compact, self-contained pieces, blending satire, reportage, and confession. The narrator is an ironic, self-aware aspiring writer who drifts through bars, airports, conflict zones, and domestic rooms while cataloguing hypocrisy and private shame. Marron intentionally fractures narrative into short sketches so tone, repetition, and juxtaposition carry the book’s argument and affect. The tracklist format invites sampling and return visits so motifs reverberate across the volume.

The first half mercilessly lampoons vanity, influencer culture, and the theatre of public outrage. Sharp sketches such as “Passport to Validation” expose travel as a prop and social approval as a hollow currency, while barroom set pieces show how moral posturing substitutes for responsibility.

As the book progresses, satire yields to sorrow: later vignettes dwell on veterans’ aftermaths, rubble, and private grief, so the collection balances mockery with the actual human costs that mockery risks trivializing. Momentum comes from tonal contrast and accumulation rather than a single linear plot.

Marron’s chief accomplishment is voice. The narrator can pivot from rough mockery to candid vulnerability within a single paragraph, which lets brief pieces carry surprising emotional force. Particular standouts include the barroom debates that interrogate faith and hubris, catalogue passages that force moral accounting, and focused sketches that make single moments feel consequential. The short-form architecture keeps the pace taut while recurring images and refrains create an emergent arc that rewards attentive reading. Cultural references function as pressure points rather than mere name-dropping, which sharpens the book’s moral aim.

The book’s relentlessness is both a blessing and a curse. Frequent profanity and extended invective are deliberate tactics, but repetition can desensitize and blunt impact over the long run. Several tender moments—an older writer’s decline and small acts of contrition—would have benefited from quieter development instead of immediate return to irony. Readers who prefer tidy resolutions or extended character arcs should approach the collage form prepared for provocation rather than consolation. The vignettes almost demand to be read aloud with a friend and argued over with the debate helping to locate sincerity amid satire. Its finest moments sting because they compel a reply now.

The Philistine and the Prophet is combustible, messy, and frequently exhilarating. It will reward readers who want satire that refuses to be polite and a voice willing to bruise. Marron offers no tidy consolations with his closing bonus track reading as both instruction and lament while insisting that awareness without engagement is vanity.

Read this book if you want to be provoked into thought and into action. The vignettes will bruise complacency and reward readers who respond. This is not comfortable reading but might be necessary reading for anyone who cares about complicity today.

Thank you for reading John M. Murray’s book review of The Philistine and the Prophet by Alejandro Marron! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Chelsey Tucker

A fun, thought-provoking collection that brings old tales to new life in unique fashion

The Witch’s Apprentice and Other Stories explores the worlds of well-known fairy tales by coloring in the empty spaces with unique re-imaginings. Throughout this collection, the author seeks answers to questions like, “Why did Jack and Jill need that pail of water in the first place?”

There are five reimagined tales in all, with each one being told in its own way. The visual structuring of the short stories works well. Before each story there is a question page with a reference to a classic fairy tale along with the question that started the unraveling of the reimagined story. There are also themed icons used as breaks within the stories (i.e. a broomstick for the wicked witch or a spindle for sleeping beauty) that add a nice whimsical element—essential for a fairy tale collection.

“The Witch’s Apprentice” is from the perspective of the Wicked Witch of the East’s younger cousin. This first person account of what was happening in Munchkinland prior to Dorothy’s arrival is a more serious and detailed view into the Oz universe. The ending of the story provides a twist that introduces another classic into the mix. This is definitely in contention for my favorite story of the book.

The second story, “Denying Hamelin” is a short poetic telling of what happened in a town whose children were all led away by the Pied Piper. A rather grim tale, it bounces back and forth between a conversation of great consequences and prose describing the toll of those consequences. The execution is excellent.

“The Honor of Emperors and Thieves” adds depth and tension to a world based on the tale of the Emperor’s New Clothes. While captivating the reader with a love triangle, Garg drops in a reference to “Magic Beans,” a nod to yet another great fairy tale. The references don’t stop and neither do the delicious breadcrumbs.

The adaptation of Jack and Jill seems to be set in the United States during the 1950s, “The boys couldn’t stop talking about Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra, and Jack would have dared anyone to say that the Yankees could be beat that year.” This adds color and personality to the otherwise straightforward nursery rhyme.

Some stories take elements of original versions, and others, the original is only a building block of a forward-looking iteration. For example, with “The Beauty Before She Sleeps,” the author uses one of the oldest versions of the story as inspiration with the 1634 Italian version “Sun, Moon, and Talia,” with Talia being the name chosen for the princess.

Each story has a different vibe and they all could pass as stories from five different authors. The variety from story to story makes it feel like the collection goes by in the blink of an eye. The thought experiments before each story set up each story well, but they al can be enjoyed without having background knowledge of the source material.

Like so many of my favorite fairy tales, these stories are not necessarily child-friendly in the modern sense. Teens and adults will eat up these stories that are grim in nature and brimming with nuance.

Thank you for reading Chelsey Tucker’s book review of The Witch’s Apprentice and Other Stories by Ekta R. Garg! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Shelby Zwintscher

A heart-wrenching, tenderly hopeful story of the love, loss, and lessons that rise out of a cancer diagnosis

For years Millie has depended on herself and herself alone. Grinding away at work and keeping the world at an arm’s length has been the best way to get distance from the past that still haunts her.

As a senior manager at a large accounting firm, Millie doesn’t have time to waste making another visit to the emergency room, but her stomach pain is horribly persistent. She is anxious to receive a diagnosis, a prescription, and an okay to get back to the grind. But the grind comes to a screeching halt when Millie is diagnosed with cancer.

Millie can handle this on her own, she has to. That is—until she physically cannot. After missing an appointment due to chemo side effects, the hospital calls her estranged mother and Millie has no choice but to return to the town she grew up in: St. Bell, Maine.

For Millie, returning to St. Bell means facing a past she’s spent years trying to bury. St. Bell is where her broken family ran to in order to escape the grief of her sister’s death. It’s where her father’s abuse darkened her and her mother’s days. It’s where her mother became hardened and detached, no longer much of a mother at all. But it’s also where she experienced her first love and, with it, immense heartache.

“For so long, I lived with a brokenness inside of me. A shattered heart I tucked away into a darkened and sealed-off place. But Mother’s arrival and my return to St. Bell illuminated the painful memories I spent years ignoring.”

The Past That Made Us is a story of hope despite the odds: cancer, trauma, and stubbornness. The complexities of rekindling broken relationships and the newfound hope that flourishes out of hardship are all written with breathtaking detail and thoughtful prose. I was so wrapped up in this novel, it even made me cry. Twice!

The characters represent the wonderfully painful rollercoaster of being human. Throughout the story we witness Millie’s begrudging growth and the ripple effect of that growth on relationships she thought were long lost. Every character feels as though they have walked out of real life and onto the pages.

The Past That Made Us balances the plot, medical information, and character development with great care. The steady creeping in of hopeful undertones is what elevates this heartbreaker of a story most. We need hope, and we get it. We’re taken exactly where we need to be by story’s end.

“My diagnosis follows me like a skulking ghost everywhere I go. My physical scars are a beacon of my fight. But no one recognizes the internal scars cancer leaves in its wake. The ones hidden deep. The ones that hurt the most.”

You should pick up The Past That Made Us. It’s sad and it’s hopeful and it’s a ton of things in between. It’s going to stick with me for a long time.

Thank you for reading Shelby Zwintscher’s book review of The Past That Made Us by Kelly Marks! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by John M. Murray

A darkly funny, deeply introspective novel about memory, family, and the uneasy work of healing a life derailed by loss

Recovering Maurice follows Maurice Obster, a 59-year-old economics professor who has lived a life shaped by unresolved grief, guilt, and psychological wounds.

Set primarily in the Bay Area and stretching back to Michigan and Chicago in mid-century America, the novel is a fictional memoir with real literary and psychological weight. Maurice’s journey begins almost accidentally—he stumbles across a book titled Trauma and Recovery while riding the ferry home—and this chance encounter becomes the frame through which he begins to re-examine his life. Much of the novel consists of his memories: his upbringing in a house dominated by the health crises of his older brother Emil, his mother Penelope’s anxious perfectionism, and his father Ralph’s quiet resignation.

The novel is structured in four parts—Learning, Hoping, Losing, and Finding—that echo the arc of trauma and recovery. In the first part, Maurice moves through formative childhood experiences, including a crushing disappointment on Bozo the Clown, constant social awkwardness, and the looming medical shadow of Emil’s neurological condition. As Maurice grows, he grapples with isolation, sleep disorders, and obsessive thought patterns—all portrayed with dark humor and painful precision.

The second part follows Maurice as he attempts to find stability through academia, marriage, and a quirky yet sincere intellectual curiosity. The third part deepens the psychological inquiry as Maurice reckons with the breakdown of his carefully constructed adult life.

The final part completes the book’s arc with surprising grace and warmth. Rather than a dramatic transformation, Maurice’s recovery begins with quiet, cumulative realizations: an honest conversation with a former student, the tentative rebuilding of familial connections, and his unexpected return to therapy.

Zelder’s narrative voice is exacting, emotionally honest, and at times mordantly funny. Maurice is not a likable protagonist in the traditional sense, but he is immensely relatable—particularly in his earnest desire to “get things right” in a world that often seems too complicated for tidy resolutions.

The book’s real strength lies in how well it balances psychological realism with narrative inventiveness. The childhood chapters are especially poignant and exquisitely observed. Emil, the brilliant but broken older brother, is rendered with such tragic weight that he lingers long after the scenes end. His mother Penelope is both a source of structure and suffocating pressure—a portrait of mid-century maternal sacrifice with modern psychological complexity. Lines like, “Maurice envied his short-lived chameleon, who, as he understood it, could spontaneously and effortlessly change himself and thus avoid having his discrepancies stand out,” show the precision of Zelder’s language and insight into neurotic psychology.

While Recovering Maurice is often engrossing, its literary density may challenge those expecting a more conventional plot. The internal monologues, while often brilliant, occasionally bog down the pacing. The scenes set in adulthood, particularly in academia, sometimes feel abstract compared to the vivid, emotionally charged early chapters. That said, these narrative choices mirror Maurice’s own disassociation and difficulty connecting with the present—an artistic risk that ultimately works more often than it falters. The novel’s structure, with its nonlinear flashbacks and philosophical digressions, requires patience and attention, but offers rewarding insights.

Recovering Maurice is a stirring, smart, and darkly funny exploration of the long half-life of childhood trauma. It’s a story about how the past burrows into the psyche and how even the most functional lives can be built on unexamined foundations of fear and sorrow. Through careful prose and deeply rendered characters, the narrative shows that mental health is not as simple as sick versus healthy, but as a continuum of struggle, hope, and acceptance. It’s not an easy read, but it is a worthwhile one—emotionally resonant, psychologically astute, and, in the end, surprisingly redemptive.

Thank you for reading John M. Murray’s book review of Recovering Maurice by Martin Zelder! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Peter Hassebroek

A mouth-watering, vibrant depiction of the New Orleans culinary world

At an early age, Chef Laurent Ladnier demonstrated his aptitude for cooking. He also developed an affinity for combining food sources thanks to a French mother, Irish father, a Vietnamese family friend, and of course the American South. He was a prodigy, envisioning a future where he established “true world fusion” in his cherished native city. But this dream withered with the demands of a troubled family, including a father who died at forty, possibly taking his own life.

Laurent is now approaching forty and wary of a similar fate, despite being head chef at the respected Café Bonhomie. It’s owned by risk-averse Gerard, who keeps tyrannical control of his staff and menu. Gerard isn’t open to the kind of innovation simmering inside Laurent, content with traditional Cajun-Creole dishes that cater to the expectations of tourists and a conservative local clientele. This clashes with the mindset of a chef whose:

“. . . passion for the kitchen had melded with my own quirky spirit to produce a love of preparing unique, even completely original dishes. Original to the point of the eccentric, while still delicious. I loved this form of cooking more than decent sleep, financial security, even my own health.”

One Sunday when Gerard is out of town, Laurent creates an alternate menu alongside the regular Bonhomie bill of fare. Other than a rival’s expected petty criticisms, the dishes are well received—and by important people who can open doors. Laurent’s insubordination is inevitably punished, but the gamble spurs the impetus to go all-in with his vision.

It’s an auspicious start with restauranteur Wilson, whose Cayenne Club has been struggling and is ripe for a culinary risk. And the risk does bring challenges and rewards that come frequently and unpredictably. Not only from the restaurant, but also Laurent’s personal life, with his girlfriend and the family drama that continues to get in the way of his career.

Everything is told from Laurent’s first person perspective and what comes through consistently is his passion. We go beyond just hearing of this passion and instead feel it intimately through author Chadwick Wall’s dexterous, loving food descriptions, whether about Laurent’s vision or the creations of others. But we also see it in the admiration he has for this city. The novel’s rich atmosphere mixes the grittier non-touristy parts of New Orleans along with the more affluent ones.

Revitalizing Wilson’s Cayenne Club also makes for some deeply interesting reading material. The interior design, kitchen layout, menu, and of course hiring staff. An eclectic bunch recruited not just for their ability to cook but their creative synergy with Laurent’s vision. For instance one applicant, Brooke, quotes from a (fictional) book called Spirits in Your Kitchen:

“. . . not only humans have spirit and energy. Animals do, and plant life has it. A certain remnant of an animal remains in the meat. Something remains in every vegetable, too, and eating it can influence who you are. Thoughts, behavior. And that a chef can evoke the essence, the spirit of an animal or plant through its presentation on the plate.”

Such pensive asides add depth to further round out Laurent’s expression of his vision. A vision each buys into, albeit in their own ways. The unity of purpose does not neutralize the human factor. The tensions of a team of disparate individuals working together in a hot kitchen are narrated in a way no television reality show can emulate. This feels very real.

Laurent is a (self-admittedly) flawed protagonist who’s often his own worst enemy. His is an intense, complex life even before the novel begins. He’s dramatic, but drama also finds him. There’s little middle ground in that people and events either work for him or against him, including the precipitous incident that drives the conclusion.

The Fertile Crescent is generously seasoned with an always surprising variety of spices of conflict and emotion.

Thank you for reading Peter Hassebroek’s book review of The Fertile Crescent by Chadwick Wall! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Victoria Lilly

A visceral historical fantasy that interrogates the violence and wonder of coming into womanhood

Helaine de Berzé, the only daughter of a 15th-century widower lord, is a prized possession in need of careful surveillance and protection. Disgruntled with her sheltered life, dreading her upcoming arranged marriage, teenage Helaine aches for the tiniest morsel of freedom she can get. When her closest friend Marie begins to talk her into slipping out of the castle to pick flowers for Valentine’s Day, it doesn’t take long to convince Helaine.

Immediately, the girl’s life is turned upside down as she is first assaulted by brigands, then saved by a miraculous intervention of a wildling and a unicorn. The faithful meeting kindles a fiery passion for freedom, and desire for the mythical creatures’ company in Helaine.

However, as the troubles and schemes of the mortal world and her own life collide with the miraculous beings of the wilderness, Helaine’s loyalties are increasingly divided. With internal and external conflicts simmering and blending together, she has to confront her traumas, her desires and duties, or lose both her faith and her heart.

Wild Girl bears the trappings of historical fiction and fairy tales, but it is a thoroughly modern story at heart. Examining issues of women’s autonomy, sexual maturing, religious faith, and intimate violence, it packs quite a lot into its modest page-count. It is difficult to discuss the many thematic threads woven into the story without going into spoilers, but suffice to say, the novel, despite featuring fairy tale creatures, is not escapist at heart. It’s real. It confronts the reader to deal not only with some age-old issues regarding women’s place in the world, but also the ways in which we imagine escape from such issues. In its final act, it confronts the lasting mark violence and betrayal of trust leave on girls and women. Even if escape is possible, one cannot accomplish it unchanged.

The story is jam-packed with plot, worldbuilding, and thought-provoking themes, and for the most part, it does its job flawlessly on these fronts. However, this leaves less room for character development beyond the protagonist. I wanted more of Helaine’s relationship with Marie, her only true friend, as the relationship’s contradictions and emotional tension are among the most impactful elements of the novel. Every scene with the two is charged with tenderness, resentfulness, grief, and loneliness, yet feels too short given how emotionally dense they are. Helaine’s cousin Lady Agnes is another compelling secondary character that I wanted more of.

Thematic issues explored in the novel are treated with varying degrees of subtlety throughout the book, which might not be to every reader’s taste. While some issues are weaved organically and neatly into the story, occasionally the narration stops to explicitly state a thesis or offer an opinion.

Overall though, the story explores heavy subjects with a level of nuance and ambivalence not often found in mainstream fantasy. Whatever answers the heroine finds by the end of the story are neither definitive nor simple, and that is a welcome breath of fresh air.

Wild Girl is an honest, moving work about the traumas and tragedies of coming into womanhood, but it’s also about the beauty of it. A passionate, wild, sometimes chaotic story, it bears the same spirit of maturing of its main character. Like a young girl’s dreams meeting the reality of adulthood, there is much promise in it. I will be keeping an eye on the author’s future works in the series and recommend you do the same.

Thank you for reading Victoria Lilly’s book review of Wild Girl by Jehane Spicer! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Lauren Hayataka

She didn’t lose her faith—just her place in the room.

Katherine Elberfeld’s An Umbrella Made for a Man is a tender, raw, and quietly furious excavation of one woman’s spiritual calling—and the institutional and intimate betrayals that nearly silence it. With poetic precision and a fierce commitment to emotional truth, Elberfeld offers a story that feels less like fiction and more like revelation.

Set in the 1990s, the novel follows Irene Maxwell, a divorced mother of two boys, as she answers the call to become an Episcopal priest. But ordination, Irene soon realizes, isn’t a culmination. It’s the start of being dismissed in every way that matters. She’s touched during interviews, spoken over in meetings, and left out of conversations entirely. Sometimes the sexism is overt—a hand on her leg, a crude joke told at her expense. Other times, it’s quieter: a glance that glides past her, a parishioner who turns away mid-sentence to speak to the male rector beside her. It’s not that they say no. It’s that they act as if she isn’t there at all.

What defines An Umbrella Made for a Man is its presence, one that oozes with ache for recognition. Elberfeld leans into the textures of Irene’s life—the rocking chairs that sway like invisible fingers across a porch, the smothering posture of a clergyman’s legs splayed just inches too wide, the cool recognition that even clergy shirts are made for someone else’s body. The writing is lush, lyrical, and layered with unease as it drifts between the past and the present. Time is porous here; trauma echoes forward, longing stretches backward. And beneath it all simmers a single, persistent truth: Irene is utterly alone.

Her loneliness is not incidental—it is chronic. A twin that never formed, a dog taken from her, a friend’s hands she cannot feel in the dark. A family member who touched her under the watchful eyes of parents who did nothing and allowed everything. Even in rooms full of colleagues, lovers, or parishioners, Irene’s isolation is palpable. Elberfeld paints her loneliness not as melodrama, but as spiritual fact—woven through the liturgy, the gender politics, and the institutional silence that leaves Irene gasping for air in her own vocation.

This is a quiet story: one that simmers with sacred rage—a woman’s fury made holy through clarity and compassion. Irene’s anger is not an outburst or spectacle. It is private, focused, and unrelenting. And it becomes the seed of something transformative. The novel doesn’t ask what happens to women who get angry? It asks what could happen if we stopped telling them not to be? Irene’s eventual creation of Welcome, Inc.—a space for women who have endured sexual harassment in the workplace—emerges not despite her rage, but because of it.

Elberfeld refuses the trope of the hysterical woman or the sanitized survivor. Instead, she grants Irene—and herself—the full range of feeling: grief, longing, indignation, and tenderness. Even the structure of the novel reflects this complexity. And when the narrative shifts from Irene’s story to Elberfeld’s own, the quiet hum beneath the novel becomes unmistakable: this is rooted in lived experience. In the author’s own words, “They didn’t know what to do with me in seminary.”

An Umbrella Made for a Man is about the slow undoing of a world: a church that refuses to bend, a woman who refuses to break, and a system that never protected her to begin with. It is about silence and the cost of speaking. And it is about what remains when nothing else does: a woman who dares to say, I am still here.

Thank you for reading Lauren Hayataka’s book review of An Umbrella Made for a Man by Katherine Elberfeld! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Eric Mayrhofer

Contradictions, uncertainties, guilt, and memory abound on the Texas-Mexico border in this meditative novel.

Pillars of Creation: A Quest for the Great Name in a Nietzschean World sounds like it should be the title to a ponderous doorstop of a book filled with momentous emotions and epic undertakings. In a sense, it is. Here, the epic doesn’t unfold on a battlefield, but inward, as Carlos Nicolás Flores’s characters grapple with the Mexican and Chicano culture they feel slipping away as they live on the America side of the U.S.-Mexico border. On the other hand, the book feels everyday, with its emotions untangling in between casual conversations about Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or the ebbs and flows of sativa-dominant Tezca high.

Readers will find that these contradictions define Pillars of Creation, making it at once an immersive slice of life and a compelling meditation on uncertainty against the backdrop of today’s quixotic immigration system.

Written in the second-person point of view, the novel centers around Yoltic, a young man with aspirations of becoming the next great Hispanic writer, on par with Bolano. After all, “The New York Times recognized him as one of the great writers of all time, along with Jorge Luís Borges and Gabriel García Márquez. And he never even graduated from high school. ‘If he could do that,’ you argued, ‘why can’t I?'” He experiences intense bouts of productivity, a flow state in which he produces entire novels, only to discover that his works come to nothing. And even though he doesn’t see his lack of formal education as a roadblock to artistic greatness, it is a source of guilt. Flores writes that “not only did you lose your government grants and loans [from university]…you dishonored [your father] by squandering what little money he had saved with so much sacrifice.”

While Yoctil’s professional prospects seem dead on the vine, his lover Marfil seems to be a beacon of stability. Even though their romance doesn’t immediately spark, she sticks in his mind. Once they unite and their relationship blooms, Pillars of Creation follows them as they navigate, at once together and silently, what they lose by having to flee across the border to evade violence and achieve their dreams.

The second-person viewpoint, problematic in other books because of its tendency to confuse readers, works here on a thematic level. As people of the border, Yoctil, Marfil, and their friends and family both remember and mourn their identity. A duality is inherent to both their geography and their identity, and Flores’s syntactical choice here insists on making the reader—forced into the characters’ shoes—to ask, “Who am I?”

The book’s focus on casual conversation and tender moments, punctuated by memories of violence, guilt, or self-loathing, also helps its contradictory tone achieve surprising suspense. At one point, when driving to pick up medication for Yoctil’s father, Yoctil and Marfil find themselves in a restaurant that becomes commandeered by an unseen crime lord’s enforcers. Instead of spraying bullets in a violent warning, the enforcers are all smiles. They say, “Our jefe has traveled a long way. And he would like to invite all of you to be his guest. Eat, drink, all you want…Norte americanos, Americans, welcome to Mexico. We want you to return to your country with good memories of our food and hospitality. So, please enjoy!” It’s an ominous threat in a veneer of generosity, and it works so well because it’s written with the same deliberate tone as the smaller, more intimate scenes around it. This deliberate tone and pace is rewarding but admittedly slow-paced.

But what Pillars of Creation spends its time on is compelling, and the liminal state of being it represents on the U.S.-Mexico border is a textured contemplation in a time when some voices would rather flatten and dehumanize immigrant cultures and experiences.

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