Amber and the Hidden City

Written by: Milton Davis

First line: One more goal, that's all they needed.

Why you should read this book: Amber's upset that her parents are sending her to private school in the fall, when all her friends will stay in the public school system, but those worries evaporate when she's summoned by her beloved grandmother for what she believes will be two heavenly weeks at the beach. It turns out that Amber's grandmother actually wants to take her to a secret and magical African city, where Amber must use her newfound ability to read people's true intentions and select the next leader of her grandmother's people. Now Amber, her grandmother, and a handsome young warrior are being pursued across the planet by people who will do almost anything to keep Amber from her hereditary responsibility.

Why you shouldn't read this book: My edition needed a vast quantity of editing. I also felt like the romance aspect of the story was a bit forced.

Mind of My Mind

Written by: Octavia Butler

First line: Doro's widow in the southern California city of Forsyth had become a prostitute.

Why you should read this book: Doro and Anyanwu's offspring have multiplied, so that many of their descendants are strong and stable, including Mary, a young woman on the verge of breaking through to her adult power. When Mary does come into her talent, she inadvertently creates a psychic pattern that allows her to draw other family members to her, and to help the latents—miserable members unable to stabilize their abilities—mature and become fully functional. Mary's ability, which enslaves her people while it strengthens them, threatens Doro's hold over his own experiments, and a showdown is inevitable.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Not as much enforced breeding and senseless death as the last book, but some.

A Choir of Ill Children

Written by: Tom Piccirilli

First line: We move in spasms.

Why you should read this book: A thick and grimy tapestry of southern gothic intrigue, this book begins with Thomas, a man plagued by history, his own personal experiences and the lives of the ancestors who came before him and left him alone with a giant house, a sizable fortune, and the care of his three brothers, conjoined triplets joined at the forehead. Murder, suicide, and accidental death creep through his story like Spanish moss and rising water, alone with a strange cast of colorful locals and equally colorful out-of-towners. There's a phantom dog-kicker, a mute girl, a bevy of swamp witches, ghosts, monks, and coked out grad students, combined with dangerous weather, and the weight of the world's expectations in this weird and wonderful story.

Why you shouldn't read this book: The morality of Kingdom Come is likely not your morality.

Wild Seed

Written by: Octavia Butler

First line: Doro discovered the woman by accident when he went to see what was left of one of his seed villages.

Why you should read this book: In a vast, sweeping epic spanning two continents and several lifetimes, Doro, an immortal creature whose power to possess human bodies has taken him far from his human roots three thousand years in the past, discovers Anyanwu, a shape shifting healer, who, at three hundred years old, may be the key to Doro's quest to breed a race of superhumans. Anyanwu, who has known tyranny and loss, relishes her autonomy and is reluctant to bend to Doro's power or submit his experimental breeding program, but as the centuries pass, their relationship becomes deeper and more complex. This gripping novel is the first of a four-book story arc known collectively as the Patternist Series.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Content warning for a seriously abusive relationship.

Body Music

Written by: Julie Maroh

First line: Whenever people talk about love/It's always "never" and "always"

Why you should read this book: A graphic novel in the form of a collection of flash fictions about sex, love, and relationships that transcend the banal, heteronormative Hollywood ideals, it's the emotional equivalent of a series of swift one-two punches to the heart. Queer, trans, disabled, polyamorous, young, old, fat, confused, uncertain, the characters that tumble through this volume feel fully fleshed and really realized, despite having only the space of a few pages to play through their romantic dramas. Lovely, fast-paced, honest, raw, warm, and rewarding, this is book for people who believe in love in whatever form it takes and maybe don't mind shedding a tear or two for the sake of literature.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You think heteronormative Hollywood ideals are the only romantic ideals. 

Ramona and Beezus

Written by: Beverly Cleary

First line: Beatrice Quimby's biggest problem was her little sister Ramona.

Why you should read this book: I skipped over it when I reviewed all those other Beverly Clearly books last July because I couldn't get my hands on a copy, and someone just gave me one, and it's still a delightful piece of work, if only the slightest bit dated (a 2018 parents requiring a nine-year-old to leave the four-year-old to play in a sand pile with no supervision while the older child takes an art class would likely lead to CPS involvement, and what modern parent would simply drop their kids off at another child's house on the invitation of a pre-schooler?). Unlike the other other Ramona books, this story is mostly about Beezus, her exasperation with her sister's rambunctiousness, and her own sense of unease over realizing that she doesn't always love Ramona. While justice isn't exactly served in every case, and the world isn't always fair, sensible, gentle Beezus usually comes out on top, and learns to tolerate her sister.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're the person who calls CPS on the kid playing unsupervised in the sand pile.

Sabre

Written by: Don McGregor and Paul Gulacy

First line: Come out of the sunlight—rise from the burning dawn—stride into the watching noon—hide in the midnight shadows.

Why you should read this book: For historical purposes: this is the first work ever marketed as a "graphic novel" thus disproving the idea that comics were only for semi-literate mouth breathers and five-year-olds. It works really hard to feel generate a sense of edginess and righteousness as it draws a world of the future in which violence and technology has stripped some degree of humanity from the human race. Enter Sabre, a consummate gunslinging anachronism accompanied by a nearly naked, nubile, and naughty companion, and his mcguffin-esque quest to help some people who we never see and whose destiny is not addressed in the context of the story.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Really overwritten, really inexplicable, really hard to plow through.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Written by: JK Rowling

First line: Non-magic people (more commonly known as muggles) were particularly afraid of magic in medieval times, but not very good at recognizing it.

Why you should read this book: Voldemort has slunk out of sight, but Harry has plenty of other problems in his third year at Hogwarts, including being pursued by a large, canine specter of death, attacked by floating, corpsified specters of death, a professor who repeatedly predicts Harry's imminent death, and not having a parent or guardian to sign the permission slip that would allow him to go into town on the weekends. Meanwhile, the vicious killer, Sirius Black, has escaped from the wizard prison of Azkaban, and all the adults are hiding his apparent intent from Harry in the name of protecting Harry from the truth. Armed with his trust cloak of invisibility, which Harry seems incapable of hanging on to for more than five minutes at a stretch despite it being one of the most valuable artifacts on the planet, plus a magic map that reveals more than most maps can manage, and, of course, his friends, Harry will try to survive this book while playing quidditch and passing his third year of school (this book is also notable for Hermione smacking Malfoy in the face).

Why you shouldn't read this book: You still hear the screams of your dead parents. 

A Room Away from the Wolves

Written by: Nova Ren Suma

First line: When the girl who lived in the room below mine disappeared into the darkness, she gave no warning, she showed no twitch of fear.

Why you should read this book: Bina isn't just running away from home, where her mother seems to care more for the feelings of Bina's wicked stepsisters than for her own daughter; she's running to somewhere: an all-girls boarding house in New York City where her mother once spent a summer that has grown to mystical proportions in Bina's imagination. But something strange is going in at Catherine House, something she can't quite put her finger on, something to do with ghosts and secrets and rules and girls who don't want to be there but can't seem to leave and an opal ring that vanishes and reappears with astonishing regularity. Bina doesn't want to leave, but she doesn't know if she can stay, and until she figures out the mystery of the house, and how it connects to her personally, she'll never figure out who she is or what she's supposed to do.

Why you shouldn't read this book: A house full of teenage girls is your nightmare, even without the ghosts.

Red Clocks

Written by: Leni Zumas

First line: Born in 1841 on a Faroese sheep farm.

Why you should read this book: In a muted nightmare America, abortion and in vitro fertilization have been outlawed and adoption is only legal for two-parent households in a book that highlights ways in which women are harmed by anti-woman legislation masquerading as pro-child values. Ro, single and middle aged desperately wants a baby but can't conceive; her teenage student Mattie finds herself trapped in an unwanted pregnancy; Susan has a traditional marriage and a traditional family but feels miserable in her life; Gin, an herbalist with a nontraditional life and worldview, is a woman with the power to help women, may also be the one who pays the steepest price. The personal is political in a novel that highlights how impersonal politics personally impact individuals.

Why you shouldn't read this book: The people who aren't going to read or understand the book are the people who most need to read this book. If you think there's any legitimacy to the phrase "fetal personhood," you probably won't pick it up, but you might learn something about actual personhood if you did.