June 2026's Burgoine and Pearl-Rule reviews

Author 'Nathan Burgoine posted this simple, direct method of not getting paralyzed by the prospect of having to write reviews. The Three-Sentence Review is, as he notes, very helpful and also simple to achieve. I get completely unmanned at the idea of saying something trenchant about each book I read, when there often just isn't that much to say...now I can use this structure to say what I think is the most important idea I took away from the read and not try to dig for more.

Think about using it yourselves!

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IN THE ARMS OF MOUNTAINS: A Memoir of Land, Love, and Queer Resistance in Red America by COLE NICOLE LeFAVOUR

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Rural America deserves more than an elegy: A powerful story of hope, resilience, and political resistance where you least expect it, from Idaho’s first openly LGBTQ+ lawmaker

Cole LeFavour was 11 years old when their hippie parents moved the family to a guest ranch in Idaho. Hours to the North, as the LeFavours unpacked pots and pans, Richard Butler dreamed of establishing a white separatist nation. It’s here, in one of the reddest states on the map, where Cole learned to raise ducklings, hike the wilderness alone, and build political resistance where you least expect it.

This is the story rural America deserves to tell—and that the rest of the country needs to hear. Follow LeFavour’s journey from their 2-mile walk to the school bus along a dirt road to their monumental election as Idaho’s first openly queer state senator. Cole recounts anti-apartheid protests in Berkeley, the solitary life of a fire lookout, and the gravitational pull of unexpected romance and loss. In the Arms of Mountains is a memoir with dirt under its nails and heart on its sleeve. It shatters the carefully constructed “monolithic heartland” myth and rewrites Hillbilly Elegy’s bleak epitaph.

Haunting, hopeful, and full of fight, Cole’s story reminds us of what’s possible when we look beyond red and blue, right and left, to meet each other at the edge of the wild.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I liked this read just fine. I was more interested in the author's journey to becoming an Idaho state legislator than their family history, but both held my attention.

Seeing myself in their life's journey was not simple, but my curiosity pulled me along, and I ended my read feeling "here's someone I think would not like me personally but would be interesting to chat with at a cocktail gathering."

Beacon Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) politely holds out a hand expecting you to put $17.95 in their palm for an ebook.

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Under the Water by Paul Pen (tr. Simon Bruni)

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: What does the perfect family have to fear most? The perfect stranger.

From the outside, Frank and Grace seem to have the perfect family. He’s a loving husband, she’s a devoted wife, and together they have two happy children. But appearances can be deceiving. A strange series of misfortunes has left them an unexplained break-in, a catastrophic accident, and a bizarre poisoning that’s left Grace feeling especially unnerved. Packing up their RV for a move across the country, they’re ready for a fresh start, expecting to leave all their problems safely behind.

Then one night on the road to their new home, the figure of a young woman emerges from the darkness, causing them to swerve off the road. The injured stranger says her name is Mara. Miles from help, they invite her to stay. But Mara is hiding a secret. And she is not the only one.

Was it all just another inexplicable accident? Or have they opened the door to an escalating family nightmare designed to tear their perfect world apart?

I CHECKED THIS BOOK OUT FROM THE PRIME LENDING SERVICE.

My Review: Another creepy suspense story from Paul Pen, one that strongly hints at supernatural stuff without tipping its hand. Audrey's my kinda lass, irritatingly opinionated and highly judgmental and not smart enough to hide it despite being smart enough to know she should. Hello daughter of my cloning.

The way it all unravels as the parents' "perfect marriage" unsurprisingly fails the stress test of moving cross-country to escape something rather than make something was fun to watch, if predictable. I don't see classic written all over it but I'm not mad I read it.

Amazon Crossing (non-affiliate Amazon link) asks you for $2.49 for the Kindle edition. Good value for your dollar IMO.

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Desert Flowers by Paul Pen (tr. Simon Bruni)

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Rose and Elmer have created an idyllic sanctuary for themselves and their five daughters in Mexico’s Baja California desert. Out there in the middle of nowhere, blissfully cut off from the burdens of modern society, they’re free to raise their beautiful family…and preserve its secret.

And they’re never giving it up.

Then a young hiker named Rick comes looking for a place to stay. It’s just for the night, he says—but long enough for Rose and Elmer to fear they’ve made a horrible mistake. As the stranger grows more intrusive and more suspicious, the couple know they must do what they can to protect themselves. What they don’t know is that Rick has a secret, too. Soon, home and family will prove to be as cold and dark as the desert nights. And even with so many places to run, there’s still no escape from the past that binds them.

I CHECKED THIS BOOK OUT FROM THE PRIME LENDING SERVICE.

My Review: Very much a Paul Pen uneasy-making story. Rick is a faceless menace with a name but no characterization to speak of. Elmer and Rose are stock characters that evoke "weirdo Murrikinz" to European eyes; it goes unexplored how these two norteños got to Baja California without considerable attention being paid to them.

I do not recall a single thing about any of their daughters. Nothing. A story to pass some time, but if I'd paid for it I'd be frothingly furious.

Amazon Crossing (non-affiliate Amazon link) is "only" asking $3.99 for a Kindle edition.

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The Light of the Fireflies by Paul Pen (tr. Simon Bruni)

Rating: 3.25* of five

The Publisher Says: A haunting and hopeful tale of discovering light in even the darkest of places.

For his whole life, the boy has lived underground, in a basement with his parents, grandmother, sister, and brother. Before he was born, his family was disfigured by a fire. His sister wears a white mask to cover her burns.

He spends his hours with his cactus, reading his book on insects, or touching the one ray of sunlight that filters in through a crack in the ceiling. Ever since his sister had a baby, everyone’s been acting very strangely. The boy begins to wonder why they never say who the father is, about what happened before his own birth, about why they’re shut away.

A few days ago, some fireflies arrived in the basement. His grandma said, There’s no creature more amazing than one that can make its own light. That light makes the boy want to escape, to know the outside world. Problem is, all the doors are locked. And he doesn’t know how to get out…

I CHECKED THIS BOOK OUT FROM THE PRIME LENDING SERVICE.

My Review: The first of Spanish writer Paul Pen's books that I read. It's a bit more like Room than I expected; it's dark and dreadful and worryingly claustrophobic.

Would've been a full four stars for eerie, entirely gorgeous prose...except that brisk, brusque ending that ties a neat little bow on the backside of a shambling, messy orc of a story.

Amazon Crossing (non-affiliate Amazon link) would like $4.99 for the Kindle edition.

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This Never Happened by Mempo Giardinelli (tr. Rhonda Dahl Buchanan)

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In this autobiographical novel, a journalist witnesses the hot-off-the -presses editions of his own books thrown onto a bonfire of books. The date is March 24th, 1976, the day of the coup d'etat that led to the overthrow of the Isabel Peron presidency in Argentina and 18 years of terror known as "La Guerra sucia" or The Dirty Wars" in which 30,000-plus are still unaccounted for.

Fearful for his life and those of his wife and children, the narrator must find a way to navigate the highly volatile and murderous world under the boot of La Junta, in hopes of saving himself and his family; but first he has more important business to attend to—his mistress, with whom he's been having a scorching love affair—and finds himself grappling with several major dilemmas and very real dangers confronting him as he works his way out of this lethal maze.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: In just over 200 pages, a future as dark as any Orwell dreamt up, as grim as Fahrenheit 451, is limned from the author's lived past. It's a bitter draft to swallow...especially the book-burning scene.

I might have swallowed it with better grace had the author not larded in a tacky, creepy cheating episode and never explored its emotional resonances; it felt like a cheap ploy to engage my worst, most prurient feelings. Stalled at three and a half stars instead of the full five I was heading for.

Schaffner Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) needs a mere $11.99 to grant you access to the ebook.

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The Bridge: An Annotated Edition (1st Edition) by Hart Crane (annotated and with an Introduction by Lawrence Kramer)

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Now in paperback, with a new preface and clear, reader-friendly annotations that unlock Crane’s landmark poem.

Hart Crane’s modernist masterpiece The Bridge has steadily grown in stature since its 1930 publication. Once dismissed by influential critics as a noble failure, a view that hardened into conventional wisdom, it is now widely regarded as one of the major achievements of twentieth-century American poetry. The poem unites mythology and modernity to reckon with the promises, kept and broken, of American experience.

The Bridge is challenging in the best sense, exacting and ultimately rewarding. Beloved yet often misunderstood, it threads indirect and finely grained allusions through period-specific references to 1920s life that can elude contemporary readers. Crane’s elaborate compound metaphors braid disparate sources, making the poem’s movement at times hard to track. Its topical and geographic markers call not only for identification but for explanation. Without specialized knowledge, much of it not readily available even online, many passages remain opaque.

Until now, there was no single, convenient resource to help readers unlock Crane’s vision. This book is that guide. Its detailed, far-reaching annotations make The Bridge fully accessible, whether you are a scholar, a student, or a devoted reader of poetry.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I am not "...a scholar, a student, or a devoted reader of poetry," so I had no business reading this queer poet's great edifice of thought. I loved the Walker Evans photos, and appreciated Lawrence Kramer's erudite and informative annotations, but it took me from October 2025 until now to finish this #PrideMonth read.

He might be one of gay history's "might have been great"s but I simply could not care less about poetry no matter how hard I try.

Fordham University Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) requests and requires the surrender of $23.99 for an ebook. You do you, Boo.

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A Dangerous Sky: A WWII RAF M/M Romance by Sebastian Haig

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Two fighter pilots. One secret that could destroy them both.

England, 1940.

The sky over the Channel is filling with enemy aircraft, and every sortie could be a pilot’s last.

Flight Lieutenant Tom Ashford has survived long enough to know the rules: keep your men alive, keep your emotions buried, and never let anyone see what truly matters to you. War is ruthless to weakness and even more ruthless to secrets.

Pilot Officer Callum Fraser arrives at the squadron young, capable, and determined to prove himself in the brutal air war over southern England. Under Tom’s steady command, he learns quickly how to fight, how to survive, and how thin the line between courage and fear can be when the sky fills with fire.

But danger isn’t confined to the cockpit.

In the quiet spaces between missions—fog covered village lanes, silent barracks after midnight, and the lonely miles of the Sussex countryside something begins to grow between them. What starts as trust between pilots becomes something far more dangerous: a connection neither man can deny, and neither can afford to be discovered.

Because in wartime Britain, loving the wrong person can destroy a career… or worse.

As the Battle of Britain intensifies and losses mount, Tom and Callum must decide what they are willing to risk in the air, and on the ground.

Because some battles are fought at thirty thousand feet.

And some are fought in the heart.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Blandly competent. WAAAY too long. Unmemorable prose, a subtitle that's a log line, a synopsis that's ridiculously overcomplicated and simultaneously portentous and uninformative as well as clearly designed to be read on a smartphone...not much thrilled me about this read except finishing it.

Which I did, so there are 2.5 stars.

Sebastian Haig (non-affiliate Amazon link) only wants $3.99 for the Kindle edition, so if you need to fill a few hours....

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The Grand Couvert by Eoghan Brunkard

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: One man trying to survive the revolution. One man trying to climb out of the gutter. One cat trying to kill them both…

Edouard Laurent is a young man struggling to survive in a tumultuous Paris during the dying embers of the Revolution. He was a hesitant participant in a chateau burning and has been conscripted to the Republican army. So, when Ivo Armel, a power-hungry official offers the chance of a pardon if Edouard retrieves a mysterious relic, Edouard and a strange team of adventurers set off. Unknown to them, they are being pursued by a small feline, who believes himself to be the Comte of the chateau Edouard helped reduce to ashes.

Will Edouard and his friends unravel the mystery of this relic and its significance to Armel’s revolution? Can the Comte endure terrible wine, worse lovers, and the indignity of repeatedly getting his head stuck in glasses while in pursuit for his vengeance?

A highly comedic, heartwarming and oddly, historically accurate novel by Eoghan Brunkard, author of ‘Clementine Lane’, of the trials of surviving late 18th century Europe.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: "Ivo" and "Armel" are Breton saints...the latter spent the end of his life defeating a dragon burning up a Breton forest, the former a sainted abbot who championed the rights and care of the poor; on the nose much, Author Eoghan? It was a fun read for me. I cheered when the comte died, and thoroughly reveled in his afterlife as a stray cat.

I liked the read because I was sent to Holy Scripture aka Wikipedia to test my knowledge of Revolutionary France while giggling. It wasn't paced that well, some scenes too long; but overall I'd be glad to read Author Eoghan's next book.

He only wants (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) $4.99 for a Kindle edition which feels reasonable to me.

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The Seduction by Sara Torres (tr. Mara Faye Lethem)

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Unspoken tensions simmer between two women under the heat of a Catalan summer in this internationally bestselling, erotic, and quietly radical portrait of queer desire.

In a sun-drenched house on the Catalan coast, a young, queer photographer arrives to capture the portrait of a celebrated writer. But what begins as a professional collaboration slowly unravels into something more intimate and unsettling—a charged exchange of glances, silence, and shifting emotional boundaries.

The photographer, unnamed and quietly observant, is drawn to the writer’s enigmatic presence, her self-possession, her power. Over shared meals and quiet routines, the difficulty of understanding the desire of the other begins to obsess the narrator. As the summer heat thickens, so too does the unspoken tension between them, heightening the photographer’s insecurities and her perception of her own flaws. When a third woman arrives, an old friend with blurred boundaries, the fragile connection begins to unravel. Is this seduction, or projection? Intimacy, or illusion?

Told through lyrical, introspective prose, The Seduction is a poetic, slow-burn exploration of the complexities of seduction between women, intimacy, queer longing, and the quiet ache of unfulfilled connections.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: "Lyrical, introspective prose" is code for "pretty-sounding, too-long sentences telling a shaggy dog story." This is lovely to look at stuff that's in no hurry to tell you a story.

I kept reading, finished the book, because it might not've taken me much of anywhere new but it picked the most scenic route to get there that I could even imagine.

Atria Books/Primero Sueno Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) needs $12.99 before you get to read your ebook.

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Dearly Departed by Chip Pons

Rating: 3.9* of five

The Publisher Says: Hope is a dangerous thing for gods. Even former ones.

From the highly beloved author of “contemporary romance magic” (Christina Lauren) Winging It with You comes a Hades-inspired gay rom-com, in which the former god of the Underworld turned grumpy funeral director must find a loophole in the Immortality Retirement Act that banished him to Earth, until the florist next door who sees life in full bloom begins to unravel all his carefully laid plans.

Hayden Harlow, once the mighty Hades, has spent centuries quietly resenting his fall from immortality. Stripped of his godhood by the allegedly irreversible Immortal Retirement Act, he now runs Harlow and Sons Funeral Home—a front for his eternal sentencing among mortals, and a bleak reminder of the purpose he’s lost. Still, he’s determined to claw his way back…if only the Fates at City Hall would stop toying with him.

Enter Levi Wilder: a florist with an artist’s heart, an infectious smile, and a gift for finding beauty in life’s messiest moments. When Hayden storms into Levi’s shop to complain about a bouquet of sunflowers—an offensive choice for a funeral, in his opinion—their worlds collide. Hayden is all restraint and shadows; Levi is all sunshine and charm. But beneath the clash lies an undeniable spark neither can ignore.

As their connection blossoms, Hayden finds himself caught between the life he once knew and the bright future Levi dares him to imagine. But trusting Levi means risking the walls he’s kept in place all these years—and it’s not just his heart on the line. Because in the threads of fate, one choice can change everything.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Sweet, adorable meet-cute/grumpy-sunshine gay rom-coms are *perfect* summer reads. This one was just a shade too twee for my brooding cynical "heart" or whatever scar-tissue Frankenthing replaced it. There's more spicy racy stuff than I expected, but it was well done so I rolled with it.

I'd give four stars if Levi hadn't demanded emotional openness without offering to accept his own behaviors as occasionally over the top. It's not lethal but it niggled at me; Levi can be demanding but Hayden can't feel some kinda way about it...?!

G.P. Putnam's Sons (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) requires a fare of $12.99 to get on the ferry across the story-Styx.

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Queerleaders by Olivia A. Cole & Ashley Woodfolk

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Two cheerleaders find themselves inconveniently tumbling head over heels for each other in this satirical, sapphic teen rom-com that’s Bring It On meets She Drives Me Crazy.

Oak Haven High doesn’t have cheerleaders—it has queerleaders.

It’s a fun coincidence that every new varsity cheerleader since Davie Cathee took the squad by storm three years ago is—or soon comes out as—queer.

But when a rumor sparks that this season, newly minted captain Davie has been specifically recruiting queer members only, Davie is accused of “discrimination” against straight students. She’s given an ultimatum: recruit a straight athlete for the team or the funding for their competitive cheer season will take a major tumble.

Enter Kendall Hayes, the edgy, mysterious new girl. When Davie sees that Kendall has a boyfriend, she quickly convinces her to join the squad. Problem solved.

Until she finds out that Kendall’s actually bisexual…and newly single.

Now Kendall and Davie are faced with having to keep those details under wraps until nationals, which only gets more complicated when they start falling hard and fast for each other. Can Kendall go back in the closet long enough to save the squad? Or will Davie find the courage to love her new crush out loud, even if it might mean the end of the queerleaders?

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Adorable! And, as a YA novel, so chock-full of quality representation it bulges. I'd hand this to my granddaughter without batting an eyelash.

I myownself am old enough to see through to the plot beats so wasn't deeply engaged; great for the sixteen and unders and you won't pass out from boredom pre-reading it but it's not for us.

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) says, "$10.99 please" at checkout.

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Bromantasy by Máire Roche

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Two heroes. One brain cell.

BROMANTASY is a cozy, queer fantasy about the mortifying ordeal of being known by your totally platonic best friend and the epic quest that might force you to confront the truth.

Fellas, is it gay to kiss your bff while on a quest through the forest you’re unqualified for?

Juniper O'Reilly is good at only two things: demolishing a pint of mead and finding the perfect skincare routine. Everything else—taking care of the farm, bartering for goods, any sort of manual labor—falls to Juniper’s best friend, the absurdly capable, endlessly patient Mo Elmthorn.

But when Juniper accidentally volunteers them both for a quest to kill a fearsome monster, he knows he’s finally gotten in over his head. Juniper hates camping, he hates the dark, and there’s no way all these foraged mushrooms are going to sit well in his stomach. One thing he doesn’t hate? How good Mo’s thighs look in his questing pants—he doesn’t have time to think about that, though, with a monster to hunt and their futures on the line.

But monsters come in all shapes and sizes. When Juniper and Mo realize that the terrifying beast they’ve sworn to kill is just a scared little girl torn from their family, they’re off to find not only the true villain of the story, but maybe even a happy ending.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: The humor's a little obvious for my taste. I don't think the set-up is as cute as more sentimental readers will. The fantasy trappings wore thin very soon because they felt very inconsistent to me.

If you like the publisher's comps up top, or that orc/coffee shop thing, maybe you'll get a kick out of this one, too.

G.P. Putnam's Sons (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) asks $12.99 for an ebook.

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This space is dedicated to Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50, or "the Pearl Rule" as I've always called it. After realizing five times in December 2021 alone that I'd already Pearl-Ruled a book I picked up on a whim, I realized how close my Half-heimer's is getting to the full-on article. Hence my decision to track my Pearls!

As she says:

People frequently ask me how many pages they should give a book before they give up on it. In response to that question, I came up with my “rule of fifty,” which is based on the shortness of time and the immensity of the world of books. If you’re fifty years of age or younger, give a book fifty pages before you decide to commit to reading it or give it up. If you’re over fifty, which is when time gets even shorter, subtract your age from 100—the result is the number of pages you should read before making your decision to stay with it or quit.

So this space will be each month's listing of Pearl-Ruled books.

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Dreams in Which I'm Almost Human: A Memoir (35%) by Hannah Soyer

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Dreams in Which I’m Almost Human is a genre-defying memoir of disability, identity, and desire that fuses lyricism, myth, and medical truth to explore what it means to live and love a body defined by others.

At eight years old, Hannah Soyer had no choice but to undergo an intensive spinal fusion surgery, in order to keep her lungs from eventually collapsing. Fourteen years later, she chose another treatment for her neuromuscular condition: regular drug injections into her spinal fluid. But what does “choice” really mean, and how much weight do our choices hold?

In taut, lyrical chapters, Dreams in Which I’m Almost Human confronts and communes with bodily autonomy, medical and sexual consent, traveling abroad in a wheelchair, caregiving and caretaking, appreciating the natural world, family history, bedtime stories, fantastical creatures, Irish poetry, and the limits and wonders of language and love. A bold collection of genre-bending essays, this memoir is an investigation into what we (and our words) are capable of, as we yearn to make sense of our relationships to ourselves, each other, and the worlds we inhabit.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I like lyrical prose, I batten on queer identity stories; I had to nope out of this one after I read:

What I mean is, in the words of Jenny Boully, "why is it that I have feet and yet still refuse to flee?"

The next paragraph enumerates the experiences the lover has regarding the beloved, and I literally could not stop sobbing. I'm not happy with how my Young Gentleman Caller left things between us, and was hopeful when I got a text from him; the conversation I'd hoped for was not forthcoming, and I still feel raw. Sorry Author Hannah, I just can't. Maybe later...?

Red Hen Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) will need you to cross their palm with $9.99-worth of silver before granting your wish to become one with this sky-mermaid's being.

THE DISCO AT THE END OF THE WORLD, moonbases and alien motherships inside discoballs...WILD!

THE DISCO AT THE END OF THE WORLD
NATHAN TAVARES
Titan Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$9.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: An alternate 1970s science fiction romance blending first contact and queer counterculture in the Los Angeles disco scene, perfect for readers of Vajra Chandrasekera and Victor Manibo.

In 1977—a world where America launched its space program shortly after WWII—Mitch Ward is a grunt in the US Spaceguard. Stationed in a backwater base on the Moon, his only friend is Gloria, who performs "Lady Moondust" for fellow soldiers, until he's briefly reunited with Flynn, a love from his youth who has never been far from his heart.

Following a visit from an unseen, terrifying but also maybe euphoric being, Mitch and Gloria find themselves quickly discharged from the Guard, and sent back to Earth. Moving to Los Angeles to chase their dreams, the duo scrape by, dancing between joy and defiance at the discos in a rapidly changing city that's unwelcoming to those who don't fit the Golden Age of Hollywood standard.

But when Flynn crashes back into their lives, he comes with a warning. He claims to be the host for a traveler and emissary of a utopian civilization, who has caught notice of Earth. This civilization is either the source of humanity's salvation—or its destruction. And they're on the way.

With the strange new powers blooming in Mitch and Gloria and Flynn's motives perhaps as hazy as those fog-filled LA dance floors, it's up to this community of disco-loving misfits to stand up for what is beautiful and right. And save those who maybe wouldn't do the same for them.

They're not going down without a fight—and one hell of a party.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I'd give it four stars just for the Mothership being a disco ball.

As it was, I gave it four stars because the chilling terribleness of a 1970s Reagan presidency coming as a natural development of Ronnie's disgusting authoritarian conversion in the 1950s, ushering in a repressive crackdown in place of Stonewall...well, it was a seasick feeling of "are we *sure* this didn't happen?"

I spent less time pondering Flynn's freaky-deaky...um, alteration?...than the alternate history elements. In fact the aliens were not particularly convincing to me, in that their role in the story felt less than integral to my sense of what should happen next. I found the ending flowed from their presence, so it wasn't joltingly out of place...just wasn't what I'd've preferred.

The Metronomes substitute for the christian nationalist horrors of our time quite neatly. Substituting one set of soi-disant judges for a different one is a wish-fulfillment move. It's like thinking the grade-school "how would you like it" argument on steroids...unconvincing, flimsy, and ultimately self-defeating. I'm not raving like I would be had we stuck to our alternate history premise, but honestly...I was having fun, so I unpuckered and got the pleasure the story I was reading offered me. I left the pining for something else on the dance floor with the fifth star.

THE MAKE-BELIEVE: A Memoir of Magic and Madness, the long walk back to Reality from toxic fantasyland

THE MAKE-BELIEVE: A Memoir of Magic and Madness
HANNAH MURRAY
The Dial Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$13.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: He sat me down in a chair and he told me, in no uncertain terms, that magic was real.

This is the true story of a spiritual awakening that turned into a mental breakdown. At the age of twenty-seven, an actress joins a wellness organisation and falls in love with its leader. She is sectioned for a psychotic break and diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

The Make-Believe is a deeply personal account of these events. It is a wild ride, a searching attempt for understanding and a call for radical empathy. Lyrical and playful, exploring light and dark, it takes readers on a journey to the edges of reality, to a seductive and dangerous world where magic seems possible.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: First things first: the acting career of Author Hannah is not foregrounded. This is not a celebrity BTS tell-all. Game of Thrones happens in the background.

Some of y'all are now gone, largely uninterested in this story; honestly I think that's a good thing because there's no reason to try to interest those seekers in this quest. What makes it a good read is exactly that: Author Hannah is on a quest, a search for...something...but like most of us, she's frustrated by the amorphousness of questing without a target. The goal of any quest is to get somewhere, find something, achieve stuff.

Is it? Should it be?

The cautionary tale of Author Hannah's bilking at the hands of those who purvey certainty ought to put paid to that wrongheadedness. Her eventual psychotic break, leading to a bipolar diagnosis is truly the heart of her story. I'm deeply empathetic with the terror of psychosis because I've been there myself. Nothing on Earth can compare to that terrifying, unmoored awareness of reality being...conditional, absent even, as you try to navigate living without being able to feel the rootedness of touching truth.

There's nothing more comforting in that situation than having certainty gifted to you from outside. The wellness cult Author Hannah found was giving her value for the money they took from her in the form of terra firma, a firm ground to attach her questing mind to. It wasn't honest or real so coming unstuck was inevitable...but her crisis led her to the solidity of a diagnosis that snapped her into focus. The reason for her continuing failures to reach solid ground were finally clear: bipolar disorder clouds every single perception until the sufferer can't see which thoughts are grounded and which are vaporous fantasies.

Author Hannah's telling of her journeys to harbors that end up being whirlpools is harrowing. It's honest...as far as it goes. I'm still not clear how her parents, who come in for plentiful blame, were so dreadful because it's simply told to the reader that they were. Given the results as embodied in Author Hannah herself, I'd say the perception of them as horrific human beings might just be an artifact of her genuine mental illness that she's going to spend a lifetime unraveling and integrating into her ever-developing tapestry of healthy perceptions. An actress of her achievements does not spring from nowhere. It's a question that's unaddressed and it constantly niggled at me as I read.

This is a very sobering walk with a lost soul who found her way back, and would like us to know how, and why, she took it as well as tell us how to come back if we come unmoored too.

THE MESSI EFFECT: How the Global Legend Changed the Future of American Soccer, The Athletic journalist provides the archival data basis for future fans

THE MESSI EFFECT: How the Global Legend Changed the Future of American Soccer
PAUL TENORIO
St. Martin's Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$15.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: In The Messi Effect, Paul Tenorio, national soccer writer for The Athletic, who has spent more than a decade breaking news and providing critical insight into the power and politics of the sport, draws on his numerous high-ranking sources inside Inter Miami, American soccer, and overseas to bring readers behind the scenes and chronicle the last act of Lionel Messi.

The Messi Effect takes you inside the locker room as Messi’s arrival turned a last-place team into a global phenomenon, and into the Major League Soccer boardroom as league owners debated how to leverage Messi’s arrival to shape the future of the league and sport in America. From his cinematic debut goal to his first trophy with Miami and across two more transformative seasons, Messi’s impact was immediate and enormous. His pink No. 10 shirt became the world’s best-selling jersey, MLS stadiums sold out in city after city, and Inter Miami’s valuation soared past $1 billion.

This is a book about one man's legacy in a rapidly growing and changing game. It's a story about the business of sport and how a player can be both athlete and economic engine. It’s an inside look at how the business of MLS evolved historically and in real time after the legend’s arrival. And it's the story of how a GOAT rides off into the sunset, the choices he makes, and the aftereffects of his greatness for future generations.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: At 39, Lionel Messi owns the World Cup scoring all-time record: 18 goals at the FIFA World Cup, the most by any player in the tournament's history. He's amassed his record over the course of six appearances; the sixth-place scorer with 13 all-time World Cup goals achieved twelve of those thirteen in one World Cup in 1958. We are, in other words, talking about the absolute pinnacle of the sport's possibilities.

Lionel Messi won't keep his record, most likely, as a 27-year-old Paris native called Mbappé is tied for fourth in this astoundingly talented pool of athletes with a long career ahead.

Bear in mind this data is being spouted by a midcentury-modern old queer guy who loves baseball since the 1969 Miracle Mets shat on the Orioles in game seven of the misnamed World Series, grew up in the fatherland of high-school football mania (Friday Night Lights was a documentary, people), and eschews all television...and I still know this stuff. Soccer has come a very very long way in the US since 1994 when MLS was first organized after the first-ever US-hosted World Cup.

Author Tenorio traces the growth of the sport through the lens of Messi's career. As a huge media market, the US has been the Great White Whale of soccer forever. It's been the Messi years that have turbocharged the sport's rise here. Politics, logistics, demographics, marketing are all discussed by sports journalist Tenorio as he brings all the relevant developments and history together for future fans.

As with all human endeavors, the gigantic oceans of cash sloshing into the World Cup's governing body has led to breathtaking corruption and appalling capitulation to moneyed interests' importuningsfor more and more and more of a share in the pilf. There has never been another way for it to be, so of course it's what's happening now. (Eg, the water breaks making Fox/Disney very very very rich.) Author Tenorio doesn't gloss over greed. Messi's career as his lens means he's got a lot of time-relevant data about scandals galore. The FIFA Peace Prize, anyone?

A lovely gift for your newly minted soccer/football fan, one that will catch them up on why the US seems finally-at-last to be getting on the global sports train. I will not be dull, if this read is any indicator.

THE ONE AND THE NINETY-NINE: Forging Identity in the Age of Social Contagion, your words aside Religion is not a good answer to Society's ills

THE ONE AND THE NINETY-NINE: Forging Identity in the Age of Social Contagion
LUKE BURGIS
St. Martin's Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$15.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 3.25* of five

The Publisher Says: How to become yourself without losing everyone else.

We’re living in a time when it’s harder than ever to become a whole person—and to stay in authentic community. Some people dissolve into their group identities and lose themselves entirely. Others withdraw into ephemeral, online collectives they can float into and out of without consequence. Both are symptoms of the same a fragmented sense of self in an age of social contagion. This fragmentation is more than a personal crisis—it’s the soil in which hollow and often dangerous mass movements take root, offering counterfeit belonging to those desperate for meaning.

The One and the Ninety-Nine is a timely and inspiring exploration of what it means to forge a stable identity in the face of coercion, conformity, and the contagious desires of the crowd. Through compelling and original insights drawn from philosophy, psychology, and personal experience, author Luke Burgis examines how our lives are shaped by the groups we belong to—and how we, in turn, shape those groups. He offers a roadmap for engaging with modern society without losing our unique sense of personhood, and reveals the essential rites of passage and personal challenges that differentiate a life of meaning from one dictated by societal expectations.

People who are able to find their solid self and thrive in the space between the one and the many—who can act with integrity while being part of a community—live freer and more comfortable lives and become models for others. The One and the Ninety-Nine is a call to reject passive conformity, rediscover the depth of personality, and choose a life that is both truly personal and deeply connected.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I don't approve of religion in general; I have an abiding bone-deep dislike for christians in particular, as a gay man with no interest in "overcoming my sinful nature" or whatever other nonsense "They" spew at me to coerce me into feeling a need to placate "Them" by behaving in a way comfortable to "Them." So when the author admitted to being a christian in the first few pages of the book, I set it aside with no intention of finishing the DRC.

I'm very worried about the undesigned social experiment we as a society are running in the form of algorithmically-mediated social media. I don't trust the tech scum to design the algorithms with the betterment of a person, but a bottom line, as its goal. Ample evidence of the role greed plays in the industry makes me all but positive no attention is paid to human needs when designing systems used by all of us.

Those two prior things are causally linked. I finished reading The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI (qv) and got more urgently agitated by what I read there; I recalled the DRC of this book, dealing with forming an authentic self. I opened it back up to see what I could glean.

Lots of christian nonsense. Parables and Bible quotes galore. Stating that (in his opinion, to be fair stated as such) people are more selfish now after *heavily*implying* the reason is we're more secular/less christian. Which...well...who's selfish, my dude? the people doing their best to navigate the world in ways you don't like, or you for saying your religion has The Answers to making people better and more empathetic? (Leave aside The Troubles, in the Ireland where you start your book, were an intra-christian spat that's half a millennium old.)

So no, I'm no big fan of his, nor did I think his shepherd/sheep needing rescue framing was anything other than seriously condescending.

But.

He's correct. The education system carefully indoctrinates us to accept Authority and seek conformity. It's a real thing, intentionally designed to do what we see around us: create sheeple. It's been done by his co-religionists for millennia now, to equally destructive effect, not ever acknowledged or examined by him. It's a giant problem for every society throughout time. Cohesion good, public morality good, conformity and scapegoating bad. Since christianity is a major source of both pressure to conform and assigning blame onto Others (those who don't pray like you, sexual-behavioral minorities, the Devil) I think it takes big brass ones not to examine *that* in great detail while quietly assuming the adding-back of religion will go a long way to fixing the very real problem he's identified.

I admire you, Brother Luke, for being so vulnerable and forthcoming about your experiences with your father's dementia. It was very moving. It was a long struggle, of course, and from the inside must've felt interminable. I do not think it was quite the connective tissue you intended it to be. It was rather more confessional than professional.

I did not, in other words, find solutions I want to support or even effect to the very real, well-stated societal stressors I'm eager to address. It's not likely to fix things by doing yet again things that helped society fracture before now.

THE REVERSE CENTAUR'S GUIDE TO LIFE AFTER AI: How to Think About Artificial Intelligence—Before It's Too Late, latest Doctorow klaxon

THE REVERSE CENTAUR'S GUIDE TO LIFE AFTER AI: How to Think About Artificial Intelligence—Before It's Too Late
CORY DOCTOROW
MCD x FSG (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$11.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: Whether you want to criticize, kill, or use AI, you have to get through the hype and uncover the real story.

Start with labor: in automation theory, a centaur is a person who chooses to use technology to help them do the things that matter to them. A reverse centaur is a person who has been conscripted to serve as a helper for a machine, at an inhuman, machine pace: a driver made to deliver all day long, nonstop; a warehouse worker made to work without food or bathroom breaks; a programmer made to crank out impossible amounts of code. As Doctorow says: it's not enough to ask what the technology does—we have to understand who it's doing it for and who it's doing it to.

The intended audience for AI hype isn't the people who are forced to use AI. The AI show is a performance staged for bosses and investors. Investment bankers claim AI will to be worth more than $16 trillion: a number that only makes sense if AI replaces vast swathes of the wage-earning human workforce. To justify that level of "value," every story about AI must be presented as inevitable, world-changing disruption. Even the tales of the robot apocalypse are a calculated attempt to bolster the fearsome power of AI.

Anything that can't go on forever eventually stops. When the AI bubble bursts, what will we salvage? Is there something in the wreckage that everyday people will find useful? In The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI—as he so successfully did in Enshittification—Doctorow recounts both how we found ourselves in this dire situation and how we can get through it, to a life "after" AI in which the tools work for us, not the other way around.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: The argument I myownself have against "AI" (which isn't and won't be intelligent the way humans are) is financial. There is an AI bubble running right now that's gifted us the utterly brummagem world's first trillionaire. Look a little more deeply into SpaceX's IPO, you'll see how much of it's built on AI (which was partially trained on stolen US Government data via the little dickweeds from DOGE).

It really looks a lot like a gigantic pump-and-dump scheme when one reads Author Cory's work as digested and documented in this scathing book. He's been in the trenches reporting on tech matters for what feels like forever. Enshittification, anyone? It must make the guy a crazy person to present his deeply researched, well sourced and informed conclusions to general apathy. It lights fires under some of us, my dude, so please don't stop!

Especially relevant to my eagerness to share this book with all y'all is the centering of "AI"'s intended impact on labor. It's Author Cory's clear statement that the bubble's partly fueled by tech scum's intense desire to destroy any power of workers over their work, the conditions and rewards thereof, and the very nature of employment as reconstituted post-Great Depression. Wealth inequality is something "AI" is designed to entrench.

I hope a skilled human copyeditor went over this book after my DRC was created. There are some amusing errors of fact that, honestly, trouble me a bit, eg referring to trustbusting under FDR instead of his distant cousin TR. Some other errors niggled at me, but...well...consider the subject matter, maybe these sorts of issues are proof positive of the validity of Author Cory's thesis...?

I'm very serious when I say this: reading this book can give you tools to manage your personal interactions with the "AI" being rammed down our unwilling throats to further enrich the riches scum ever to rise to the controlling positions they're now it. It can do this by alerting the complacent or avoidant reader to what is actually at risk in this economic bubble's inflation.

An easy prose style delivers a hard-to-fathom message. It's one of my favorite reads of 2026. Please get one and read it. Libraries are very likely to have copies in stock now. Of course, if you can, making the purchase for your own shelves or devices is the best way to support Author Cory in his quest to wake us all up to the threats...and the opportunities knowing they're there present...to our essential human nature.

BONE OF MY BONE, latest of Johanna van Veen's sapphic historical fiction/horror tales

BONE OF MY BONE
JOHANNA van VEEN
Poisoned Pen Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$19.99 paperback, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Bram Stoker Award–nominee and USA Today bestseller Johanna van Veen unveils a sapphic folk-horror tour de force—perfect for fans of The VVitch and The Salt Grows Heavy. A skull's grin is eternal…

The year is 1635.

Sister Ursula, a young nun fleeing the ruins of her convent, and Elsebeth, a sharp-witted peasant, escape a band of marauding soldiers and disappear into the Bavarian forest. War scorches the land, and no one survives it alone. Amid the devastation, they find something in the arms of a dying man: the gilded skull of a saint.

It is said that if you reunite the saint's skull with her body, a wish will be granted. Desperate for salvation, and each with secret desires of their own, Ursula and Elsebeth follow a ragged map across the blighted countryside. But darkness follows them. A necromancer, drawn to the relic's power. The saint herself, whispering at night. And as the lines between blessing and curse blur, the women must face a harrowing the magic they seek comes at a cost.

At the journey's end, they'll face an impossible choice—one that could tear apart everything they know… or bind them to each other forever.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: There is a period in History with no war. Statistically there must be.

This is not it. As usual, Religion...and religion...are at the heart of the Thirty Years' War that Author van Veen chose as her backdrop for the love between Elsebeth the canny formerly-Protestant peasant and Ursula the Catholic nun. Their meet-cute involves marauding soldiers and an unlikely act of salvation from the usual fate of women in a war. A bond formed then is unbreakable, and it helps that Elsebeth has already lost her religious faith. An odd sort of reward comes to the women for acting on human decency and female solidarity: the discovery of a first-class "holy relic" that both women understand the mythology behind (follow both links to see why that isn't unusual or anachronistic).

At that moment we leave the ordinary world behind. This is now a supernatural tale of pilgrims on a quest to perform an action for a reward. The background is war, violence, and its usual consequences for humanity caught up in it. That's the horror, and as I've said before, the kind of horror I can relate to; the supernatural horror so common in books is not scary to me because I don't believe in the supernatural or, maybe more accurately, in its innate power to act independently on reality. The women must protect the relic they've been charged with safekeeping from a necromancer who wants to use the thing to Perform Eville Acts.

It could as easily be a greedy bastard wanting to disassemble the adornments of the relic for onward sale and profit. Likewise the women's desire to protect the relic could as easily be motivated by their own need to survive, thus making returning the relic to its institutional owners for a presumably significant reward makes sense. Would change nothing, really, but the supernatural edge is used very well to heighten stakes that I myownself found entirely high enough. This is the origin of my half-star reduction in the rating: artificially (to my mind) inflating the stakes.

I genuinely enjoyed the women's love story more than any of the silly supernatural stuff. I got really invested in Ursula and Elsebeth reaching the understanding that their quest gave them the very best gift of all gifts in each others' love. It's a lovely process to follow no matter what other story beats an author uses around it. The love of same-sex couples will always garner my supportive interest in a story (see my reviews of Nicked and Recital of the Dark Verses for other examples). My joy at the women falling in love outweighed any reflexive eye-rolling at the notion of necromantic powers being able to create a kind of zombie-slave of poor Otto, for example.

I'm all in on recommending the read to my fellow queers. Author van Veen is a stylistic writing monadnock. Her eye for what makes a story compelling to a reader, not just a genre addict, is second to none. If you worry about gore and scariness in horror fiction, ,I'll tell you that I found all the trappings of horror less worrying than the awful limning of humanity's viciousness that's inherent in any story set in wartime.

Religion, the big public-facing institution, and its private-practice cousin, religion, come off poorly in this story. So y'all know going in. It's the genesis of the war being fought after all.