A delicate coming-of-age story that is both elegiac and an ode to craftwork, womanhood, and friendship. Much like the characters in Cross-Stitch, Barrera and translator MacSweeny have yet again come together to craft another gift to treasure. One of my favorite reads of the year.
Cross-Stitch by Jazmina Barrera, (List Price: $24, Two Lines Press, 9781949641530, November 2023)
Reviewed by Luis Correa, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia
The Berry Pickers is the debut novel from indigenous author Amanda Peters. When four-year-old Ruthie goes missing, the youngest of five in a Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia, her older brother Joe is despondent and the loss of Ruthie haunts the family for fifty years. Meanwhile, a white family in Maine is raising a child named Norma with overbearing and almost suffocating familial love. Norma’s faint memories and dreams of her missing life are confusing until they almost vanish. The Berry Pickers considers lost lives, second chances, and the power of forgiveness.
The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters, (List Price: $27.99, Catapult, 9781646221950, October 2023)
Reviewed by Rachel Watkins, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia
This beautifully retold fable is a celebration of endurance and compassion and a reminder that gentleness and love (and patience) are more powerful than cruelty and hate (and haste). Stead’s innovative style of illustration evokes a classic with bold lines and quiet colors, and his thoughtful tale-telling is unparalleled. A story both timeless and perfect for these times.
The North Wind and the Sun by Philip C. Stead, (List Price: $18.99, Neal Porter Books, 9780823455836, October 2023)
Reviewed by Hannah DeCamp, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia
Most of our beloved classic children’s authors (think Maurice Sendak, Margaret Wise Brown, Shel Silverstein, E. B. White, John Steptoe, and so many more!) have books in the world thanks to efforts of one formidable woman—Ursula Nordstrom. This brilliant biography displays her awesomely unorthodox approach to children’s literature and her wily sense of humor, all while celebrating the unique books she ushered into the world.
Good Books for Bad Children by Beth Kephart, (List Price: $18.99, Anne Schwartz Books, 9780593379578, September 2023)
Reviewed by Hannah DeCamp, Bookseller, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia
The story of two black teenage siblings, one wrongfully over-sentenced to indefinite time in the titular Reformatory (based on the infamous Dozier School for Boys), the other working from the outside (if you could call Jim Crow-era Florida “outside”) to get her brother out. With a father MIA, having narrowly escaped a lynch mob for trying to unionize, and a mother recently deceased (but not 100% out of the picture), every choice and action made by the teens give the book a one-step-forward-one-landslide-back momentum right up to the last page. Due brilliantly plates an equal parts jailbreak and ghost story, both playing by history’s rulebook, pulling no punches along the way, with neither element hindering the other, which is a feat on its own, but to make it edge-of-seat-worthy with an epic showdown-at-high-noon finish is just extra icing on the icing.
The Reformatory by Tananarive Due, (List Price: $28.99, Saga Press, 9781982188344, October 2023)
Reviewed by Ian McCord, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia
Picking up the same one-to-three-page story by Lydia Davis ten times gives the reader ten different experiences, like taking a plate of gourmet food from a fussy child with her right hand, passing it behind her back to the left hand and returning it to the child saying “fine, eat your magic boopie beans” to the child’s ravenous delight. And the beauty of a book full of one-to-three-page, multidimensional gems is that you’ve got a book jam-packed with multidimensional gems.
Our Strangers by Lydia Davis, (List Price: 26, Bookshop Editions, 9798987717103, October 2023)
Reviewed by Ian McCord, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia
This is one of my favorite books of all time. Following Simon and his friends, Rowell’s fantasy centers their fight against the Insidious Humdrum, an evil that’s sucking magic out of the world and Simon is prophesied to defeat (and they’re trying to finish their last year of magic school at Watford). Featuring a ghost story, a love story, and an epic arc, this book has everything a book should have! Inviting queer characters to the forefront of the fight, Simon Snow discovers himself and his limitations, tackles his worst fears, copes with the trauma that comes with being Chosen, and falls in love, working through the pitfalls of a relationship built in the rubble of a war. His journey is incredibly poignant for anyone who has had to face their nightmare and came away scarred, only to discover that wasn’t the end of it. A wonderful, approachable, and shockingly personal fantasy trilogy that’s completely different from what you’d expect, Carry On stole my heart from the first page, and I hope it makes your heart sing the way it makes mine.
Carry On by Rainbow Rowell, (List Price: $19.99, Wednesday Books, 9781250806918, July 2021)
Reviewed by Shae Jordan, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia
While We Were Dreaming sits well on the shelf ‘midst Trainspotting, Stand By Me (er, The Body) and Requiem for a Dream, those disturbing yet nostalgic tales of the rise and fall of childhood chums slumming down life’s yellower brick roads, but what makes this kaleidoscopic coming-of-age collection really stand (by me) out is the punch-in-the-gut pivotal point of turning 13 in East Berlin, 1989. The pre/post Wall stories run out of chronological order, so the cast of characters are at times 8-year-old Pioneer Scout cutups, any-agers getting out of prison for the Nth time, preteens caught on the wrong team’s side of a football riot or stealing their first (of many) case of beer, yet constantly bailing each other out of any messed up situation their messed up situations situate them in. The emotion varietals are all over the map, multifaceted and always well-played.
While We Were Dreaming by Clemens Meyer, (List Price: 20, Fitzcarraldo Editions, 9781804270288, September 2023)
Reviewed by Ian McCord, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia
This poignant story paints those subtle shifts from childhood to adulthood for Rose as she spends time at a lake house with her parents, who are going through a rough patch, and her younger friend Windy, who suddenly seems immature. It’s a quiet story, full of melancholy and growing pains, but still so lovely and achingly honest.
This One Summer by Jillian Tamaki, (List Price: $18.99, First Second, 9781596437746, May 2014)
Reviewed by Julie Jarema, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia
At times heartwarming, others heartrending, this tender work from Washington is delectable. Lust, hunger, grief, and a longing for belonging squeeze up against the forces that seek to tear us apart, but, what Family Meal serves is a generous familial communion made up of the people we love and those who, despite our flaws, love us back. A restorative novel to be shared, undoubtedly set to bring its readers together.
Family Meal by Bryan Washington, (List Price: $28, Riverhead Books, 9780593421093, October 2023)
Reviewed by Luis Correa, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia
An August 2023 Read This Next! Book
The Lost Library by Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass is a middle grade mystery that celebrates the power of a good book. Evan has grown up in a town without a library and none of the adults talk about the fire that destroyed such a beloved place. A librarian, a cat, a few ghosts, and a handful of mice put in motion an unraveling of a collective puzzle that may make you gasp! Highly recommend.
The Lost Library by Rebecca Stead, (List Price: 17.99, Feiwel & Friends, 9781250838810, August 2023)
Reviewed by Rachel Watkins, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia
Eric Larocca’s newest novel Everything the Darkness Eats weaves cosmic horror with small town prejudice into a tale of creeping dread. Larocca never shies away from the gruesome or the traumatic and weaves these darkest parts alongside love. This Connecticut town is neither cozy nor warm, and is instead full of mysterious and bizarre disappearances, unrestrained bigotry and the dark effects of its most powerful resident Mr. Crowley. Interweaving two resident’s attempts to uncover and stop the horror, Larocca forces his characters to reckon with what means the most to them and to what lengths they’ll go for closure, revenge, and love. Perfect for fans of Clive Barker and other cosmic horror.
Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca, (List Price: 16.95, CLASH Books, 9781955904278, June 2023)
Reviewed by Mikey LaFave, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia
An engrossing and necessary work of memoir, queer perspective, and groundbreaking from examining a history of abuse through a series of prismatic episodes dissecting road trips, meetings with parents, Disney villains, and gaslighting. Stumbling through each new layer you delve deeper into the unshakeable, irrational hold of abuse. At times what seemed like romance transforms in the next page into folklore, raw emotion, queer theory, criticism, and horror. I am immensely grateful for the work Carmen Maria Machado has done in writing as generous a book as In the Dream House.
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado, (List Price: $18, Graywolf Press, 9781644450383, December 2020)
Reviewed by Luis Correa, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia
Through the eyes of precocious 9-year-old protagonist Oskar Schell, Foer grapples with questions like why do tragedies happen, how to handle loss and grief, and how to keep going. As he asks these impossible questions, he takes you through a kaleidoscope of a quest through points in history and through New York. It’s a tale of loss and searching, but also light and hope.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, (List Price: $16.99, Mariner Book Classics, 9780618711659, March 2006 2023)
Reviewed by Julia Jarema, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia
Ross Gay is an ambassador of pure joy—not the sugar-coated, roll-your-eyes kind of happiness, but the subversive, wink-and-nod kind of delectation. Whether he is comparing clusters of harvested sweet potatoes to snuggled bunnies or finding beauty at his aunt’s funeral, Gay’s eye for the oft-overlooked wonders of life is unrivaled, and his conversational, familiar delivery is perfection. Each tiny essay in this beautiful book digresses again and again, which, no surprise, makes it all the more delightful. Do we need a book of more delights? Yes, yes, yes. This book is a ray of sunshine, a juicy peach, a warm hug, a sunflower growing out of a crack in the sidewalk.
The Book of (More) Delights by Ross Gay, (List Price: $28, Algonquin Books, 9781643753096, September 2023)
Reviewed by Hannah DeCamp, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia
