Q Road

Written by: Bonnie Jo Campbell

First line: At the eastern edge of Kalamazoo County, autumn woolly bear caterpillars hump across Queer Road to get to the fields and windbreaks of George Harland's rich river valley land.

Why you should read this book: Everything is about to change in Kalamazoo one fateful autumn day when echoes of the past ripple through the present to reorient the future, and the people living around the oldest barn in the county find their relationships sundered, strengthened, reordered, and reexplained. Rachel, the foul-mouthed, gun-toting teenage bride of middle-aged farmer George Harland loves nothing the way she loves the brown earth of Harland's farm, except maybe young David Retakker, who loves George Harland's quiet, masculine strength as much as he hates his own perceived weakness. Meanwhile, the suburbs encroach on their prospects and their neighbors either want the farm gone or suffer through their own jealousy for everything George Harland represents.

Why you shouldn't read this book: OK, so this is the author's first novel, which takes place fifteen years after her second novel, and focuses on the daughter of the protagonist from the second book, who hasn't been born yet in the novel that could be considered the prequel to the first book, except it was written years later. Got it? No? Go read Once upon a River and then come back.

It

Written by: Stephen King

First line: The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years—if it ever did end—began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.

Why you should read this book: I first read it when I was twelve years old, which I mention by way of defense as I go on to explain that I just finished reading this enduring novel to my fourteen-year-old stepdaughter (by her request) (and also add that, prior to becoming fascinated with King's work at that age of twelve, I was afraid of everything, and this book and other novels of his I read that year, taught me to overcome, at least for the next twelve years, the free-floating terror of my existence). My stepdaughter said, "This is the longest novel we've ever read," to which I replied, "It's the longest novel most people have ever read," but the story of seven kids defeating an ancient evil that lives under their city, enjoys dressing like a clown, makes everyone a little crazy, and eats kids' fear (and other parts) continues to hold a prominent place in the collective conscious by virtue of its unrelenting examination of terror—virtually every trope of terror known to humans in the '80s manages to hit the page. There's something to scare everyone, whether or not you suffer from coulrophobia, including the truly terrifying concepts of racism, sexism and homophobia, in a gripping tale told from multiple points of view.

Why you shouldn't read this book: First, the racism, sexism, and homophobia is pretty extreme, and while King is clearly using it to denote bad characters with bad morality and bad motivations, if you don't personally remember the '80s, you will likely find yourself astonished at the casual use of now-taboo language. Second, like virtually all of King's work, it's ridiculously overwritten and would probably be a better novel with a couple hundred pages edited out.

Anthony Bourdain's Hungry Ghosts

Written by: Anthony Bourdain, Joel Rose, Alberto Ponticelli, Vanesa Del Rey, Leonardo Manco, Mateus Santolouco, Sebastian Cabrol, Paul Pope, Irene Koh, & Francesco Francavilla

First line: Ah, here you are, poor lost soul.

Why you should read this book: Fans of spooky manga and pre-code horror comics rejoice—here is a sumptuous anthology of creepy collected tales (using a frame with a frame device, even) loosely organized around food and eating, and honoring its multi-cultural source material along with the best conventions of the genres that inspired it. In addition to the eight comics presented here, you get five original recipes from the famous chef (food inspired by the tales) as well as an appendix of monsters. And if all of this is not terrifying enough for you, this project is apparently one of the last things Bourdain completed before he took his own life, so, you know, really quintessential horror genre stuff going on right here.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Monsters. Sex. Violence. These words do not fill your soul with thrill and anticipation.

Swing It, Sunny

Written by: Jennifer L. Holm & Matthew Holm

First line: She's just a regular girl in a regular world!

Why you should read this book: I guess I'm reading them out of order but from a stylistic perspective this spectacular book, told in a series of vignettes that come together to present a complete picture, is even better than the previous volume I reviewed. Despite living in a loving family, there is a conspicuous absence in Sunny's life: her big brother has been shipped off to boarding school for bad grades and bad behavior and who knows what else, and even when he's with the family, something is still missing. Sunny lives her life, develops new friends and new interests, and manages to find a way to reach out to her distant, angry brother so he can see some hope for the future.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You don't want any rainbows or rays of sunshine in your life.

Bad Gateway

Written by: Simon Hanselman

First line: This place seems cheap and is OK.

Why you should read this book: It will break your heart, in a good way. It's about a drug-addicted, welfare-cheating witch named Megg; her drug addicted, trust-fund hippie boyfriend cat named Mogg; and the assorted other creatures who flit in and out of their drug haze. Megg's life is bleak, and she is determined to hang on to the bleakness, seeming to put as much effort into staying in a bad place as it would take to get her to a better place, but the volume ends with her going back home to see her mother and, presumably, examine the path that brought her to this bleak place.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Sex, drugs, violence, often all at the same time.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume Three: Century

Written by: Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill

First line: Fraters and Sorors...beloved Frater and Sorors...we are gathered in the profess-house.

Why you should read this book: A magician who definitely isn't Aleister Crowley has a very drawn out plot to create a moon child and usher in the end of the world, something like that, and Mina, Alan, and Lando have to stop this, probably. It will take them an entire century to get to the bottom of things but they all have immortal youth and their opponent can acquire new bodies whenever he feels like it. There's a rock star who definitely isn't Mick Jagger and a guy who travels through time but not space and gives almost perfectly useless advice, and there's sex and drugs and nudity and all kinds of weirdness and of course, since it's Moore, ten million references that will make you feel smart if you get them and confused if you don't.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Still trying to track down a copy of the Black Dossier. Plus this book is kind of a literary mess, padded stylistically but without a lot of story.

George

Written by: Alex Gino

First line: George pulled a silver house key out of the smallest pocket of a large red backpack.

Why you should read this book: I adored this gentle, quiet story about a little trans girl who wants nothing more than to play Charlotte in her school's performance of Charlotte's Web but isn't quite ready to explain her motivations to the world. George is well aware of her own gender, but no one else knows her secret, which basically involves looking wistfully at teen magazines and pretending the girls in the photographs are her real friends. When she works up the courage to share her true identity with her best friend, an entire new world of possibility opens up and she begins to navigate the world according to an entirely new set of rules.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're a hateful, gender-essentialist bigot.