My July and August in reading

And now, the post you’ve been waiting for: part two of the twenty books I’ve read since the last time I remembered to blog. (I really have to be more on top of things, if only for my own sake.)

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

I’d obviously heard of this book—who hasn’t? But it never occurred to me to read it until a friend got us tickets to the new musical version at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. Which was…a whole other thing, but I’m here to review the book, not the musical. It was my understanding that Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was a true crime story—and it is, sort of. But really, it’s more of a slice of life in Savannah. “I’m a New York journalists and here are all the kooky characters I met in the South.” Sometimes it’s as condescending as that description sounds, and sometimes it’s wildly progressive for a book published in 1994. (Remind me to read The Lady Chablis’ memoir one of these days.) It certainly made me want to visit Savannah—so in that sense, the book is very much a success. I enjoyed it, sometimes in spite of myself.

Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs: A Journey Through the Deep State by Kerry Howley (narrated by Nikki Massoud)

Blew through this humdinger of an audiobook on the drive from Chicago to Louisville. I think I put it best in the mini-review I shared on Bluesky and Threads: “A nonlinear series of observations and reporting on surveillance (government, corporate, and our own), the internet, whistleblowers, censorship, and the bleak absurdity thereof.” Read this book if you want to feel worse about your online privacy than you already did! Read this book if you want to feel terrible for Reality Winner! Seriously, though, you should read it. It was discomfiting, but good.

The Free People’s Village by Sim Kern

Who doesn’t love an alternate timeline? In The Free People’s Village, Al Gore won the 2000 election and declared war on climate change. But this is America, land of the free, home of ruthless capitalism. So the aforementioned war doesn’t go as you’d expect. Years later, narrator Maddie Ryan tells the story of how joining a queer punk band and hanging out at old warehouse/music venue The Lab (located in a majority Black neighborhood) turns into an epic political protest that spills over into Houston and then the country at large. I wouldn’t call the characters lovable, exactly—endearing is a better fit. And the novel really does capture the true nature of leftist organizing, in all its frustrated idealism. I recommend it.

Log Off by Kristen Felicetti

Calling all Millennials: this YA novel is written in LiveJournal entries. Set during the 2000-01 school year, Ellora Gao’s blog entries cover the typical teenage stuff—awkward moments, musical obsessions, budding romances—as well as memories of the mother who abandoned her as a child, her complicated relationship with Brian, her mother’s boyfriend who stuck around to care for her. But most important, of course, are her friendships, and the aspects of life that threaten those friendships: eating disorders, bad boyfriends, going to college, etc. I was in a writing workshop with Kristen years ago, and I’m delighted to finally see this book out in the world.

Rainbow Black by Maggie Thrash

I saw the words “Satanic Panic” on the back cover of this novel, and that was really all the convincing I needed to buy it. I was expecting a horror story—but actually it was a huge bummer. I mean that as a compliment. We all know that in reality, the Satanic Panic was a hysterical nightmare that ruined countless lives. Rainbow Black grapples with that reality via fiction. Lacey Bond’s parents, owners of a small daycare in New Hampshire, are falsely accused of Satanic ritual abuse and jailed. Lacey and her older sister are left to fend for themselves in a world that sees them as pitiable at best and evil at worst. Even name changes, even flight, even murder—even time can’t truly save them.

Bring me the Head of Quentin Tarantino by Julián Herbert (translated from the Spanish by Christina MacSweeney)

What a title, right? The title story is indeed about the leader of a Mexican drug cartel demanding the filmmaker’s head—and it’s written very much in the style of a Tarantino film. Many of Herbert’s stories seem like something Tarantino would adapt, violent and stylish. Though some may be a bit too esoteric, like the story where an artist discovers music inside his teeth—much of the piece is literally written in the form of musical notation. If you can handle the brutality of Tarantino films, you’ll probably like this collection.

Thomas Merton: In My Own Words by Thomas Merton

As an ex-Catholic who moved to Kentucky, I felt like I had to read Thomas Merton at some point. When I was attending my recent writing residency at the Loretto Community, I found this small collection of Merton’s work next to my bed. Convenient! Here’s the thing: this book was boring, but it wasn’t Thomas Merton’s fault. Merton is clearly a good writer. But the editor was trying to compile snippets of all Merton’s writing specifically pertaining to being a monk. As such, it was extremely repetitive. But it was a decent sampler of Merton’s work, and I do plan on reading more someday. (Side note: the other monks at Gethsemani had to hate Thomas Merton, right? Oh yeah, real contemplative life you’ve got there, talking to journalists all the time and publishing a zillion books and traveling the world. And that was before the affair with the nurse!)

Death Valley by Melissa Broder (narrated by the author)

I’ve read Broder’s novel The Pisces, so I knew this little novel about the fear of death and anticipatory grief was going to get weird—and it didn’t disappoint. When our narrator arrives in the California desert to “work on her next book” but actually escape the ICU unit where her ailing father has been teetering on the edge of death for long enough to divide his time there into distinct eras, she goes on a hike and promptly climbs inside a Saguaro cactus, which isn’t even supposed to grow in the Mojave, let alone contain her husband as a small child. As someone who has lost both parents, Death Valley captures the surreality of the experience well.

A Prayer for Travelers by Ruchika Tomar

This novel could best be descried as noir, except it takes place in the desert, and the grizzled detective is a young woman traumatized by the terminal illness of her stoic-to-a-fault grandfather/adoptive father, and further traumatized by a violent experience she had with the femme fatale, her best friend, who later disappears without a trace. During her quest to find her missing friend, she makes a lot of mistakes—but what else do you expect from a grizzled detective in a noir? This book was sad, but good.

The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You: Stories by Maurice Carlos Ruffin

I picked up this short story collection when I was visiting New Orleans in 2021, knowing that I could open it one day and leap back into the city. It worked perfectly. I hate to say “these stories are a love letter to New Orleans” as the sentiment is so cliché, but it’s true. But they’re a love letter to the grittier, truer side of the city, still rebuilding from Katrina, spurning and taking advantage of the tourists in equal measure. I think my favorite story was “Ghetto University,” which was a bleakly funny take on O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi.” Love to see all the flash fiction in this collection, too—it’s nice to get a breather between the longer ones.