My birthday month has come and past. Have I caught up on my reading goal? No. How is the writing going? It’s going. The highlight of this month was absolutely attending ALA AC 2022 in Washington D.C. with one of my best friends, Elliott, as part of the Zine Pavilion. Many zines were peddled, authors met, and despite the masking, things felt normal. I also accomplished holding a plank for a minute straight! It’s been a good time.
This month’s blog interviews were:
- Maya Deane debuted with her trans retelling of the Iliad, Wrath Goddess Sing
- Andrew Joseph White debuted with a trans YA horror, Hell Followed With Us
July has three authors interviews in store for me and all the ARCs from ALA arrived at my doorstep.
ARCs
- Jackal by Erin E. Adams (adult, horror)
- A community-focused Hereditary meets The Ritual
- A young woman goes home for a wedding and her goddaughter goes missing in a way eerily similar to the disappearances of Black girls throughout the decades
- Forthcoming author interview on 10/4/2022
- Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey (adult, horror)
- A young woman goes home to settle the estate of her deceased serial-killing father and ailing mother
- The house is definitely haunted, it’s not just a metaphor for her father’s crimes
- Forthcoming author interview on 7/19/2022
- Lure by Tim McGregor (adult, horror)
- A small coastal town is beset by a mermaid and something like Armageddon ensues
- Reminded me of The Lighthouse meets The VVitch (a Robert Eggers movie, basically)
- Forthcoming author interview on 7/18/2022
- Self-Made Boys by Anna-Marie McLemore (YA, historical fiction)
- A trans retelling of The Great Gatsby where Jay and Nick are trans and Nick and Daisy are Latinx
- Layered, complex, and nuanced with a happily ever after
- Wrath Goddess Sing by Maya Deane (adult, fantasy)
- Achilles is a trans woman and chosen by the gods for greatness
- Leans into the ferocity of the original myth while doing a great job showcasing many types and definitions of womanhood
- Author interview went up on 6/7/2022
Audiobooks
- Extasia by Claire Legrand (YA, horror, 2022)
- Finally, a good cult book about a post-apocalyptic village which has stern gender roles and a girl who joins a coven shortly after ascending to sainthood
- The ending didn’t really work for me, but the mix of horror and magic is incredible
- The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron by by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind (adult, nonfiction, 2013)
- Enron is a company that started off in energy but then got into trading and creative accounting
- Consequences are deeply personal but also far-reaching, with ripple effects that last even today
Physical Copy
Flowers for the Sea by Zin E. Rocklyn (adult, horror, 2021)
- A pregnant refugee is on the run from a flooded land across a monster-infested sea
- Features unsettling language that is intimate, precise, and claustrophobic
Manga
- Creepy Cat Vol. 3 by Cotton Valent (slice-of-life horror comedy, 2022)
- Flora gets a patron who traps her and we discover the secret to her art (sort of) and get way more cat mischief
- The most linear of the volumes so far
- Mieruko-Chan Vol. 5 by Tomoki Izumi (science fiction seinen, 2022)
- Yuria investigates Shindou Romm’s ghost tours which might be equal part grift and ghost hunting
- The female friendships here continue to be among my favorite
Jo Writes Fantasy 