In the linked stories of Jennifer Sears’s uncompromising book "What Mennonite Girls Are Good For", sexual abuse and mental health issues beleaguer a devout family. The stories orbit Ruthie, who spends her 1970s-1980s upbringing in... Read More

Kate Eichhorn’s "School Yearbook" is an illuminating study of the meanings and uses of yearbooks—“semipublic documents” with surprising cultural and political value. The Yale Banner, circa 1841, is widely considered the first... Read More

Ana Paula Pacheco’s "Pandora" is a startling, bold allegorical novella about pandemic-era hazards to women. COVID-19 upends literature professor Ana’s life. Her classes and her friendship with Alice, with whom she plans a pornography... Read More

In Diana Xin’s playful story collection "Book of Exemplary Women", characters navigate relationships and religious mores while enduring hauntings. These short stories focus on family bonds, marriages, and Chinese American families.... Read More

Leah Altman’s bold memoir-in-essays is about reclaiming her Native American identity after a transracial adoption and traumatic upbringing. Following the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, the book reports, up to 35% of Native American... Read More

The earnest, spirited essays of "Queer Communion" highlight the contradictions and unexpected blessings of squaring queerness with Christianity in Appalachia. Herein, thirteen authors muse on family ties, shifting identity, and rejecting... Read More

Noting that only 40 percent of nations have ever had a woman leader, Kate Graham’s plucky biographical essay collection Run the World like a Girl introduces women politicians who beat the odds to work for equality. The book contains... Read More

Janis A. Fairbanks’s reverential family memoir recounts her Native American childhood in Minnesota, wherein love outweighed poverty. Fairbanks belongs to the Fond du Lac band of the Lake Superior Chippewa people. She grew up the fourth... Read More