Book of the Day Roundup: March 20-24, 2023

Ancient Night

David Bowles
David Alvarez, illustrator, author
Levine Querido
Hardcover $18.99 (40pp)
978-1-64614-251-4
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon

In this unmissable mashup of Mesoamerican origin tales, enterprising Rabbit determines to refresh the moonglow each day, hauling the luminous nectar of a mystical agave plant skyward to do so. Opossum, dazzled by the glow, determines to steal some nectar for himself. Earth is subsumed by darkness. To rectify his error, Opossum treks through the underworld in search of fire left by the gods. The breathtaking illustrations exude light themselves as these two clever creatures work toward friendship––and their titles as Guardians of Light.

MICHELLE ANNE SCHINGLER (February 27, 2023)

Flux

Jinwoo Chong
Melville House
Hardcover $26.99 (352pp)
978-1-68589-034-6
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon

A man struggles with past trauma and an uncertain future in Jinwoo Chong’s novel Flux.

A few days before Christmas, Brandon is laid off, falls down an elevator shaft, and blows it with both his boyfriend and a new girl he likes. In the midst of this bleak midwinter, a ray of hope emerges: an offer of employment from a new company, Flux, that promises to deliver renewable energy for all. But the job is not what it seems, and Brandon soon finds himself doubting his memories and his sanity.

The nonlinear narrative soon turns into a twisting labyrinth that folds in on itself and never quite straightens out again. Brandon, who goes by several names throughout his life, has suffered many losses, all of which occurred around Christmas. Along with more material losses, he grapples with his fading sense of identity: though he’s half Korean, he feels his connection to that side of his family slipping away as the years go by. Even his love for Raider, a hard-boiled 1980s detective show, does not offer the comfort that it did before its star was accused of domestic abuse.

As Brandon gets closer to the truth about his new job, he also realizes that his life has been a series of events gone wrong—“what ifs” that could have been his had the world been just a shade different, just a degree more merciful. With the truth about Flux exposed, he decides whether his life as it stands is worth saving, or if he is willing to risk everything on a desperate gamble to remake the world as he believes it always should have been.

Flux is a novel about who gets to decide what is reality and what is not.

EILEEN GONZALEZ (February 27, 2023)

Whistleblower

Kate Marchant
Wattpad Books
Softcover $12.99 (408pp)
978-1-989365-08-3
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon

In Kate Marchant’s novel Whistleblower, a young journalist chases a story about a revered football coach’s misconduct.

Laurel is a junior at Garland, a southern California college, who believes herself to be forgettable. The Daily, the newspaper she reports for, is restrained by its faculty supervision. But the choice between risking the paper’s funding and investigating the truth is easy for Laurel. Her instincts prompt her to look into harassment allegations against Coach Vaughn. She uses social media to reach out to a woman with a story to tell, and she learns about the coach’s drinking habits and an off-campus assault.

Then Laurel meets the team’s popular quarterback, Bodie, who is genuine and good-looking. Her interview with him is pivotal. She is torn between her growing attraction to Bodie and her commitment to gathering the facts to break the story, while Bodie has sincere, conflicted responses to the fact that his mentor’s reputation is unraveling. They come to a gradual, shared understanding of the situation over class group work and run-ins with each other; though they face frustrations, they’re also enticed by the sweetness of their connection.

Football culture, game day fervor, and the alcohol-infused gatherings that surround both complicate matters. Meanwhile, the book’s #MeToo themes are handled with measured outrage. Laurel and her fellow women reporters press forward despite their fears of repercussions—and Laurel’s discomfort with the fact that the volatile situation puts her in the spotlight. Her friendship with a second-stringer on the team is a more upbeat feature.

With a potent message about standing against injustices, Whistleblower is an lively novel in which a college reporter and a football star confront a coach’s secrets.

KAREN RIGBY (February 27, 2023)

Crying Wolf

Eden Boudreau
Book*hug Press
Softcover $22.00 (232pp)
978-1-77166-808-8
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon

In her searing memoir Crying Wolf, Eden Boudreau enacts a reclamation of herself and her strength after a debilitating rape.

Boudreau, the married mother of three boys, is a bisexual, sex-positive woman engaged in a “kink-forward lifestyle.” After reckoning with her husband’s infidelities, she agreed to a polyamorous relationship that improved her marriage. However, on a first date with a man whom she met via a dating application, she was brutally raped.

Although Boudreau reported the rape to a local hospital, she was reluctant to go to the police or tell her family and friends about the assault. She expected to be judged for her appearance and unconventional lifestyle. Nevertheless, she began sessions with a therapist and met with a detective to explore the possibility of justice. When she was told that only 4% of rapists are convicted at trial, she edged further toward despair, drinking and using drugs.

The book’s chapters are taut with dread. Boudreau shares her childhood memories and exposes episodes of anxiety and neglect that rendered her eager to please others. Her mother was depressed and often adrift in her bed; she hid her sister’s cigarettes in her Easy-Bake Oven so she wouldn’t get in trouble and later covered for her more serious addictions.

Boudreau’s early passion for writing and reading turned out to be key to her recovery. On the advice of her therapist, she took up her pen and joined a writing retreat with a literary idol. In the end, she weighed the potential shame of going public with a trial against taking charge of her own story and how it would be told. Crying Wolf is the result of that choice: a battle cry for women who have survived assault.

SUZANNE KAMATA (February 27, 2023)

By Water

The Felix Manz Story

Jason Landsel
Richard Mommsen, illustrator
Sankha Banerjee, illustrator
Plough Publishing
Softcover $19.95 (144pp)
978-1-63608-053-6
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon

Drawing on historical records and imaginative recreations, By Water is the graphic biography of a leading figure of the Radical Reformation.

In the early sixteenth century, Felix Manz, a Swiss Anabaptist, protested against the baptism of infants, believing that one needed to make a conscious choice to become a Christian. The view was not popular among the establishment, though. After a betrayal by a former ally, Manz and his fellow Anabaptists were threatened with imprisonment and death by drowning—seen as an ironic punishment for those who refused to have their children baptized or who conducted adult baptisms.

Here, Manz is developed as a fearless crusader for his convictions—the ultimate heroic figure. This dramatization of his story is tense, compelling, and informative, with thorough explorations of the differences between one religious group and another told in an exciting narrative style that delivers information as a seamless part of the action.

The artwork’s detailed lines and soft pastel colors make for a sublime combination, and the unique single- and double-page spreads rival the beauty of the centuries-old historical artwork sprinkled among their pages. The appendix includes text from several documents of the era as well as an illustrated guide to the people covered, a timeline, and a bibliography.

By Water is a remarkable graphic novel about the life and death of a notable Christian reformer.

PETER DABBENE (February 27, 2023)

Barbara Hodge
March 24, 2023