Book Review: A Guide For Murdered Children

New year, new you, new thrillers! Coming up is A Guide For Murdered Children by Sarah Sparrow. Full disclosure, I got an advanced epub copy through Netgalley.

You are either going to love or hate this book.

The first half of the book is focused on setting up the premise; children who were murdered can possess the bodies of recently deceased adults, and exact vengeance on their murderer. They do this with the help of a Porter; a still living adult who can guide them through the process and provide moral support in a AA-type setting. Psychic alcoholic and disgraced cop Willow Millard Wylde (yes you read that right) digs up a cold case that he couldn’t forget, unbeknownst to him that the victims have returned to solve their own cases.

Some readers will be frustrated by the slow build. Sparrow takes her sweet gentle time getting to the point, and if you find her prose charming, in the first half at least it’s a fun, if macabre ride through Wylde’s scumbag past and that of the world of ghosts he refuses to want to understand. And if you don’t like it but hang on anyway, the premise is so original that half the tension comes from the fact that you haven’t read anything like this before, and you don’t know where it is going. I honestly really did enjoy the writing style in the first half, but Sparrow clearly struggles with resolution in the second half.

Unfortunately, while the premise is brilliant and new, many individual elements feel far more cliche. The villain has a unnecessarily long and utterly boring maniacal monologue, that, despite him crooning over a character I genuinely like who was at his mercy, I felt myself wishing he’d just shut up and murder the poor guy already. There are tired stereotypes about the mentally disabled that are as boring as they are offensive. The list of character names, like Willow Millard Wylde, Adelaide, Pace, etc sounds like a list of baby names compiled by a soon-to-be parent deadset on finding the most unique names possible and passed off to a panicking partner who helpfully suggests “Annie” and “Daniel” to balance things out. The way the women are written makes me somewhat suspicious that this is yet another case of a male author assuming a female name in the hopes of getting attention in the wake of Gone Girl. No one knows who Sarah Sparrow is yet, but I couldn’t help but wonder when Willow got a hot girlfriend decades younger named Dixie Rose.

A Guide For Murdered Children has a fantastic premise from an author who has real talent. The problem is Sparrow needs an editor who is willing to take a machete to whole sections of work and pluck the good parts out of the long, regurgitated mess that is the second half.

A Guide For Murdered Children will be published on March 20, 2018 and available wherever fine books are sold.

Megan “Spooky” Crittenden is a secluded writer who occasionally ventures from her home to give aid to traveling adventurers.

Women's Libation! Is A Tall Drink Of A Book

When I was in university, our women’s resource center would have a charity event every year called Women Who Rock. It was, essentially, a band show at a bar that featured female music groups of all sorts, and the bar also sold drinks with amazing names like Menstruation Sensation. When I finished reading Women’s Libation! Cocktails to Celebrate a Woman’s Right to Booze by Merrily Grashin, my immediate reaction was to mail a copy to each of my former volunteer mates. Finally, more inclusive drink names we could use!

Women’s Libation is in essence, a cocktail recipe book with illustrations and a page explaining the punny drink name. Feminists of yore are honored for their work, and moments in feminist history are marked. Nothing revolutionary, but it wasn’t meant to be. If you’ve never mixed drinks before, Grashin has you covered with a basic overview of the tools you need, methods to know and some common ingredients.

There are a few missteps here; not all the women in the book are exactly deserving of a cheers or a drink. Aung San Suu Kyi is honored with a twist on the Singapore sling, and Coco Chanel with the sangrita Mez Coco Chanel No 5.

Granted, that could just be poor timing as the book was likely completed months before Aung San Suu Kyi refused to speak out against the genocide in Myanmar. Still, this isn’t the first time she’s been quiet about violence against Muslims; the calls for the repeal of her Nobel Peace Prize are only the most recent and forceful criticisms against her. Coco Chanel I’m a bit more puzzled by. Now, there has yet to be any clear hard evidence that Chanel was an active Nazi agent, but there is some reason to believe that she was and at best being a Nazi wasn’t a deal breaker for her. I think if there’s any dispute about whether you are a Nazi, there’s only one drink for you.

Seriously, Chanel should have been bumped and Dorothy Parker honored with a Manhattan. That’s a huge missed opportunity!

Nevertheless, Women’s Libation! is a quirky recipe book sure to tickle your funny bone. While many of the blurbs may just be fact regurgitation, the drawings are adorable and the puns wonderfully groan worthy. As for the recipes themselves? They are twists on classics, nothing too crazy to make the drink unrecognizable and some like the Our Toddies, Ourselves are in my opinion an improvement on the standard. I didn’t get to test very many of them, but as a former bartender, so many of them looked good.  If nothing else, dear reader, I do believe this is an excellent resource for those bar fundraisers.  Why not replace all the cocktail names for the night?  I guarantee more money will be raised through drinks that way.

Cheers!

Women’s Libation! Cocktails to Celebrate a Woman’s Right to Booze By Merrily Grashin was published on November 7th, 2017, and is available wherever fine books are sold.

Megan “Spooky” Crittenden is a secluded writer who occasionally ventures from her home to give aid to traveling adventurers.

Artemis by Andy Weir Is A Bumpy Ride

Some authors become notorious for repeating themselves. When you read a Stephen King novel, chances are you’ll encounter things that you’ve seen in other Stephen King novels; black people with magical powers, an average looking middle aged schlubb with a smoking hot wife, a writer protagonist, etc. With Dan Brown, well, you’re going to get Dan Browned. There will be assassinations, conspiracies, and the most dubious presentation of fact that a simple google search will refute. Artemis is only Andy Weir’s second book, but after the success of The Martian he seems to be on track to repeat a formula that makes bank.

Jazz is a smuggler living in the moon city of Artemis. After failing to qualify as moon tour guide in an attempt to set up caches outside the multi-domed city, she is offered a very dubious job of committing corporate sabotage — cutting off the city’s supply of oxygen to allow a competing supplier to swoop in and save the day.

For the first half of the book Jazz is our tour guide and explains how a city on the moon could function. This is undoubtedly the strongest part of the book. It’s fun to think about, and fun to have it explained. Jazz in this part is witty, but unfortunately her humour turns juvenile and grating halfway through.

The social science of the book just doesn’t work very well. Nothing is technically illegal, Jazz says. No age of consent, just go too far and you’ll get beaten up for sleeping with a 14 year old or beating your wife. But said abused wife is presumably left with her abusive husband, who will certainly be more careful in making sure no one finds out rather than actually stopping. The pedophile is still free to do as he pleases. And yet the one cop in town is gunning to deport Jazz for smuggling in things like cigars, and she mentions being homeless is illegal. Is it intentional, then, that cigars and homelessness are more unforgivable on Artemis than domestic violence and sexual abuse? Probably not. Weir is here to tell you how a city on the moon could physically function. How it functions socially is far less thought out.

The plot depends on all the characters being super geniuses. Jazz can learn in an afternoon what most people dedicate years of academic study to learn. Artemis’s one and only cop Rudy puts Poirot, Sherlock, and Columbo collectively to shame, solving crimes instantaneously and without effort. Side characters have graphic calculators for brains and whip up solutions within seconds of thinking. This wasn’t terribly irritating in the first half of the book, but in the second half it becomes more and more unrealistic, and then conveniently when the plot needs to thicken they overlook obvious things.

Jazz is also a bit of a emotionally stunted psychopath, almost utterly incapable of empathy. Other character’s motivations are an utter mystery to her unless it’s spelled out for her. Other character’s feelings simply aren’t acknowledged or quickly dismissed. She does not stop to question as to whether the insanely dangerous sabotages she commits might be perilous to the city (spoiler: they are). Mostly, she just snarks at the reader about how attractive she is, how the domes of the city like boobs, and how the reader can stop pretending to know what a niqab is, you ignorant uncultured swine. The whole narration is a conversation between Jazz and the reader, and while at first I was rapt with attention, by the end of her story I was tired and knew she was full of shit. Andy Weir thanks a slew of women for helping him write a female narrator, but I’m not sure why when he just slapped the personality of a male teenager on Jazz and called it good.

Artemis is an entertaining read that suffers from poor characterization and overindulgent exposition. It has an excellent start but in the end when the fate of the city is at stake, I couldn’t help but wish that the entire book was about the first caper. When you know by the third caper that anything that can go wrong will go wrong, it gets a little difficult sitting through meticulous details of welding and the 100th slut shaming joke to get there. 

Megan “Spooky” Crittenden is a secluded writer who occasionally ventures from her home to give aid to traveling adventurers.

Praise Amaat, Ann Leckie's New Book Is Out

2015 was an innocent time, if you can remember that far back. That was what, eighty years ago? Yet I remember it like it was yesterday; the world seemed sane, and Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch trilogy concluded with Ancillary Mercy. It was a bittersweet read, as I just wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Breq and friends. Leckie said she was likely to return to the universe, and lo, she has delivered. Provenance is a new stand alone novel in the same setting, where the conclusion of The Imperial Radch has set the wheels of change throughout the whole galaxy.

Ingray has a hard time impressing her adoptive mother. In Hwae society, the head of the household passes their name onto a selected heir, and Ingray’s brother is shaping up to be first choice. Ingray concocts a scheme that will see her broke, but will not fail to get attention: bust the disgraced Pahlad out of a prison that no one has ever escaped from and find out where e hid the priceless artifacts e had stolen. But that was the easy part; the hard part is a murder conspiracy that gets in the way!

After the events of Ancillary Mercy, at first this book seems like a step backward. The Hwae are far from the Radch, and the civil war there is only a matter of gossip and speculation. The situation that Ingray has found herself in, however, becomes increasingly large-scale as the story progresses. What might have been an inter-family struggle slowly boils up to a simmering threat of war.

And it is a slow boil. Much of the book is discussion between characters about what other characters might possibly be thinking or doing, but it’s okay because Provenance is primarily a mystery wrapped up in science fiction. Ingray is no Poirot, but through conversation she works her way through what the hell is going on and how to move from one crazy plan to another, not unlike how Agatha Christie’s detectives arrived at the truth. Unlike many cozy mysteries, Leckie avoids sticking to any type of formula. The plot seems to be going one way before a amphibious alien piloting a mech drops in on the scene to complicate things even further for poor Ingray, and that’s just one example of the kinds of roadblocks that pop up unexpectedly.

I’ll admit, I really miss Breq and the Radchaai, and practically cheered when a Radchaai side character showed up (then I turned on the kettle because I always think, “You know what would be rad? Chai.”). That said, I’m glad we got to have a look outside the empire, and I’m very glad that Leckie is still playing with gender. The Hwae have three gender classifications, which the Radch evidently still have trouble with. Once a person comes of age, they can announce their preferred gender pronouns. Like in the Imperial Radch trilogy, the primary focus is not on gender at all, but it does play it’s part in the general themes of identity and belonging. Like Breq, Ingray and Pahlad (or is it Garal?) do not know exactly where they belong. While it is acceptable on Hwae to declare gender identity and have it respected, changing names, changing allegiances, and challenging tradition while still honoring the past are central themes of this book. Why, yes, there’s alien politics and mysteries to solve, but as in Imperial Radch, there is more to the story than just fun sci-fi adventures.

The only criticism I have for the book is that Ingray’s motivation for her original harebrained scheme does not align with the unsure, meek girl we spend most of our time with. The synopsis in the book cover describes her as “ambitious”, but for the most part she is coasting on what is expected of her rather than acting out of a desire to win a title. I understand that her mother expects her to take risks, but she puts herself in a huge amount of debt and risks her very position in the family in the first few pages. Ingray is much smarter and collected than she gives herself credit for, but her reasoning for busting Pahlad/Garal out of Compassionate Removal just never seemed in character, especially reflecting back after the ending.

I didn’t love Provenance as much as I did Ancillary Justice, but I loved Ancillary Justice enough to stay up until four am reading. Provenance didn’t keep me up late at night, but I still happily zipped through it in just three days and it is a worthy addition to the universe Leckie has created.

Provenance was published by Orbit and released on September 26, 2017, and is available wherever fine books are sold.  

Megan “Spooky” Crittenden is a secluded writer who occasionally ventures from her home to give aid to traveling adventurers.

The Beautiful Ones: Book Review

Nina Beaulieu is in beautiful Loisail for her first Grand Season, where she’ll try to snag a husband with the help of her cousin, Valérie. She rebuffs most of her suitors, but when she meets telekinetic Hector Auvray, he becomes her favoured suitor. But Hector and Valérie were once engaged, and he has returned to exact some kind of retribution for her faithlessness.

Now, The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia is promoted as a fantasy and a romance, but leans far far far toward romance. In this alternate history, some people are born with psychic abilities; two of our heroes have the power to move objects with their mind. Nina lacks control; it is frowned upon for women to display these powers, and she is labeled a witch. Disappointingly, that is as far as it goes. The focus is on the romance; while Hector helps teach Nina to control herself, and it serves her well in the end, it ultimately is window dressing for a romance novel.

That isn't to disparage the book for being a romance. I’m not a huge fan of the genre because it is often formulaic and I feel like if I read one, I’ve read all of them. The set up for The Beautiful Ones is very interesting, and I was hoping it would break the formula. The first half felt like it would, but in the end I was a bit disappointed. I was hoping that after finding out about Hector and Valérie, Nina would strike out on her own as a telekinetic performer and break barriers down for psychic women. Maybe she’d reconnect with Hector later, maybe Valérie would leave her husband for Hector and renounce the strict expectations that forced her into marriage. When another suitor for Nina shows up, I was hoping he was actually conspiring to fix everything up for poor Nina and then bow out.

Alas, it was not to be. The second half becomes your bog standard romance. Valérie is cold but not completely unsympathetic in the first half, but in the second half she becomes a psychotic villain. Nina is a pure virgin, whereas Valérie is not afraid to use her sexuality to get what she wants. Hector stops being any sort of agent of his own; whatever happens, is because Valérie drives the plot with her mad schemes and Nina decides either not to put up with it, or acts rashly for maximum melodramatics.

In Moreno-Garcia’s favour, Nina is very much like a Jane Austen heroine. She doesn’t sit idly by, and once she knows what she wants she goes for it. I just wish Valérie was more than just your standard romance novel harpy villain, and that the story moved in a more subversive way. At first I found myself comparing it to Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier; both Hector and Maxim de Winter are haunted by their past and unable to let go, and Nina and Mrs. de Winter are standing the shadow of more beautiful, more refined women who are no longer in their love interest’s lives. But wherea Rebecca took an unexpected turn, The Beautiful Ones went down Romance Tropes Lane and took no more turns after that. Nina might have been fairly progressive for a heroine if this was published a hundred years ago, but for the most part in the end, gender norms and conventions were slightly bent but never broken, and justice is meted out in nothing but predictable ways.

I will also say Moreno-Garcia’s prose is wonderful as always. Often with books set over a hundred years ago, there is a temptation for the writer to try to mimic the prose of Austen or other classical writers, and it usually always comes up short. Moreno-Garcia’s narration and dialogue avoid this entirely, and stands on its own. There are no cheap imitations here, at least.

If you are a fan of romance, you might like it better than I did. While I couldn’t put it down, ultimately it ran too long for me and I was disappointed in the end. I’m very picky with romance, however, and you can do much worse in the genre. If you’re just looking for a romance that doesn’t challenge, The Beautiful Ones may be for you.

The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia will be published on October 24, 2017 by St Martin's Press and can be preordered wherever fine books are sold.

Megan “Spooky” Crittenden is a secluded writer who occasionally ventures from her home to give aid to traveling adventurers.

Hellboy: An Assortment Of Horrors

Hellboy has been in the news quite a bit lately, from the roller coaster that was Ed Skrien’s casting as Ben Daimio to David Harbour’s beefcake reveal. Aside from movie news, there has been pieces on how he is a timely hero in an age where Nazis are a thing again, as well as enjoying a slew of new releases this year. The most recent is a short story anthology, Hellboy: An Assortment of Horrors.

If you’re only familiar with Hellboy’s origin story or the Del Toro films, this is an easy book to get into. The stories are stand-alone features and do not draw much on the big events that have unfolded in Mike Mignola’s comics over the years; there are few references to the Nazis, and I don’t recall any mention of the Plague of Frogs, Rasputin or Baba Yaga. There are some quick references, but nothing that will make you feel lost. Even if you’ve only seen the 2004 movie, just keep in mind that in the comics, Liz and Hellboy never date and you’re good to go.

Short story anthologies from various writers are sometimes hard to review, but the quality here is mostly consistent. I only disliked one or two stories, and even then I just found myself speeding through them rather than actively hating what I was reading. It wasn’t so much that I thought they were terrible, just less enjoyable than the others.

Fans of comics know that when new writers take over a character, it’s common to see their personality totally change to fit the new writer’s view. This isn’t the case here. What is particularly lovable about Hellboy is that even when he’s snarky, he’s ultimately a sweetheart. The stories range over the decades and different periods of his life, but each writer nails what makes Hellboy, Hellboy. The Other Side Of Summer by Chris Roberson, for example, takes place in 1950 when Hellboy is five and decides to investigate a haunting with a girl he just met. Most other stories cover cases he takes on as an adult BPRD agent, but it’s really great to see his brief childhood years covered as well.

There is a story or two that seemed to have been written to showcase an original character the writer thinks is cool rather than concentrate on established ones; The Duelist by Jonathan Maberry features a hot young woman named Lilah who is mildly psychic after a few years of dropping acid and we’re supposed to care. The story works just fine without her. It’s not the only story to have an original character, of course, it just feels like a waste of space to read how pale Lilah’s breasts are, and how she folds her arms under her breasts, when we could be focusing on the ghost haunting her town.

There are some great original characters here, mostly by having Hellboy observed from their point of view. Fire Is The Devil’s Only Friend by Michael Rowe does this extremely well, and I think is my favorite story out of the collection. It focuses mostly on a little girl named Hazel, her mother and the mother’s scheming boyfriend. When Hazel is targeted by a child sacrificing cult, she sends out a psychic cry for help that Hellboy picks up on. Hazel and her family aren’t perfect, and she isn’t exactly a cool new character to show off; mostly, she’s a scared and troublesome young girl that Hellboy has to race to save, and it’s genuinely suspenseful and touching.

Other BPRD characters do get some focus. We are treated to two stories all about Liz Sherman, and one focusing on Kate Corrigan, BPRD’s folklorist. Chelsea Cain’s One More Radical Stone Fox follows a teenage Liz Sherman as she runs away from BPRD Headquarters, and it’s one story I wish I could see in comic format. In fact, I’d follow a whole series by Chelsea Cain about teenage Liz Sherman; Mike Mignola writes women well, but Cain absolutely nails a relatable Liz that explores her past and her powers without delving into self pity or unbearable teen angst.

Really, all this anthology was missing was Abe Sapien.

Hellboy: An Assortment of Horrors was published on August 29th by Dark Horse Books and is available wherever fine books are sold.

Megan “Spooky” Crittenden is a secluded writer who occasionally ventures from her home to give aid to traveling adventurers.

Final Girls - Book Review

Quincy Carpenter does not think of herself as a Final Girl, a name the press has given to her and two other girls who became the sole survivors of horror movie-esque massacres. After that terrible night at Pine Cottage, her memory is repressed and that is just fine with her. She’s got a successful baking blog, a loving boyfriend, and an endless Xanax prescription. But when Lisa, the first of the Final Girls, is found dead, Quincy’s world is turned upside down. The third Final Girl Samantha Boyd shows up on her door step, and soon Quincy finds herself forced to remember what happened that awful night.

Final Girls by Riley Sager is a tribute to slasher films. There is no relation to the film The Final Girls, in case you were wondering. If you’re not familiar with the genre, usually the only survivor at the end of the film is a girl, often a virgin or someone who lost her virginity shortly before the end of the movie. There’s a lot to be said about the Freudian implications of the trope, but Final Girls doesn’t really address it. Instead, the focus is largely on the mystery of what happened at Pine Cottage, and Quincy’s difficulty in acknowledging the past.

I hope you like baking, because there’s a lot of it in the book. In fact, the first half of the book is very slow. Like the slasher films this book takes it’s cues from, the protagonists are largely bland and unlikable and you wait anxiously for someone to finally be killed. Quincy is particularly bad about connecting the dots, and moping in purple prose internal monologues.  Her fiance Jeff exists solely to remind her that she’s supposed to be normal now and never deal with her trauma. Sam is the only one who is interesting, but you can tell she’s bad news because she dresses in punk fashion. I know my thrillers well enough to know that punk and goth is usually code for a weirdo or a villain, and other outdated stereotypes.

I felt also there was a fundamental issue with the idea of the media labeling the three girls as Final Girls. The world Quincy lives in must be a kinder one than we live in, because massacres are depressingly common in the US. Quincy says she cannot relate to survivors of sexual assault and other crimes, but there’s no mention of her reaching out to survivors of school shootings or misogynistic rampages. Either they don’t exist in the world, it was just not thought about. In this world, however, victims are usually forgotten or largely ignored and do not become celebrities. Many of us can list off many serial killers and mass murderers, and obsess about what drove them to murder, but rarely can we name a single victim. We deify murderers, not the people and certainly not the women that survive them.

The book picks up towards the end and to its credit, after a point I couldn’t put it down. There are twists and turns and red herrings, a few I called and a few that surprised. The way the pieces fit together with so many coincidences feels unsatisfactory, but there’s enough foreshadowing to prevent it from feeling completely cheap; it’s just too neatly tied together. Speaking of foreshadowing: flashbacks in a novel, even one that wants to be a slasher film, should be illegal. I know, author! I was there, I read it! I don’t need to read it twice!

It would be remiss not to bring up the fact that Riley Sager is the pen name of a man. “Riley Sager” seems to have been chosen, according to The Guardian at least, as a marketing ploy to be the next in the line of Gone Is The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo On The Train With All The Gifts. If so, it does suck that marketing sees successful female authors in the thriller category and decided to stage this as the next one. It’s especially shameful since it is utterly unnecessary; The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo started this “Girl” thriller title trend, and it was written by a man and enjoyed success because of it. There was simply no need! I actually enjoyed Final Girls better than I did The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Which isn’t saying much, but it’s something.

While Sager is not bad at writing women, finding out that he’s a man makes some things make more sense, like the amount of baking without any talk of cleaning the huge mess baking makes, or the awkward sex talk between two female characters. There’s no Cool Girl speech here, and that’s fundamentally what marketing this book under Riley Sager misses; Flynn is partly popular because she has the perspective of a woman. It isn’t to say that men can’t write women well, or shouldn’t try. But you can’t slap an unisex name on something and hope it’ll sell out of feminist demand for female authors.

That said, if you’re a fan of slasher films, and can put up with a slow start, it won’t be a bad Halloween read. If you were looking for a sort of analysis of the final girl trope, and what it means, you are actually better off renting Behind The Mask: The Rise Of Leslie Vernon.

Final Girls by Riley Sager was published on July 5, 2017 by Dutton and is available wherever fine books are sold.

Megan “Spooky” Crittenden is a secluded writer who occasionally ventures from her home to give aid to traveling adventurers.

Critical Hits & Misses #275

• The New York Times has a worthy list of books to remind children--and adults--what friendship means. Check it out! 


• Speaking of the New York Times and book lists, a conservative publisher is now refusing to consider NYT book sales as a source, so its conservative authors can no longer lay claim to being "New York Times Bestsellers." That's kind of a big deal in the publishing world. This all comes from accusations that NYT favors liberal books over conservative ones. I mean, I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that 'liberal' books sell better overall, right?

For today's musical hit, we have the live performance by Lady Gaga of "Scheiße" at Fenway Park

Today's critical rolls: Books are the subject of the day, so what are some of your favorite books these days?


Critical Writ has a super-duper strict comment policy that specifies a single rule above all others: we reserve the right to ban you for being a terribad citizen of the internet.

Kind Nepenthe Is A Tale Of The Perverse - Book Review

With Halloween only two months away, you’re going to have to select your October reads soon! To help you select this year’s offerings of spooky reads, I volunteer as tribute to read as many horrors and thrillers as I can humanly stand. Let’s look at Kind Nepenthe by Matthew V. Brockmeyer.

Rebecca Hawthorne really didn’t want to come to Homicide Hill, but recent work troubles and an eager boyfriend, Calendula, made her accept drug dealer Coyote’s job offer to grow marijuana. Her daughter, Megan, comes with them to live off the land in Humboldt County, but Rebecca begins to worry as Megan starts to obsess over death and ghosts. I have to admit I picked this one up for two reasons: my husband is from Humboldt County, and I am also someone’s creepy, macabre daughter named Megan.

“Homicide Hill” is Brockmeyer’s version of Murder Mountain, a real spot in Humboldt County with a sordid history of drugs and murder. While “Murder Mountain” is a better name, it’s understandable that Brockmeyer would want to create his own mythology from scratch, especially since some of the real life murders there are very recent and unsolved. Some elements are there; the real Murder Mountain was once home to a pair of hippie serial killers, while Homicide Hill is the resting place of one long dead serial killer and his victims. It’s obvious what he is taking inspiration from, but does not feel exploitative at all.

Kind Nepenthe works best as a gripping drama with the conflict between dreams and the shitty reality at the center. Rebecca, Calendula, Coyote and Dan are not bad people, but they make terrible decisions one after another that leave them only shitty options. Some of Rebecca and Calendula’s troubles feel a bit contrived; after the first pay day, why doesn’t Rebecca rent an apartment in Eureka and take another job while Calendula stays to grow the weed? Why doesn’t Rebecca homeschool Megan at all? I felt the horror elements could have been cut altogether and more focus put on the very real problems that they all had. A great deal of thought is put into the logistics of growing and selling weed, but simple matters like Megan’s truancy gets shuffled away for unnecessary spookiness. Not much of the horror is actually scary and just feels like a diversion from the good parts. The little boy ghost feels cookie cutter, and let’s just say that any scene that involves a man getting eaten by a monstrous vagina isn’t scary, it’s hilarious. After that it was just hard to take any of the supernatural parts seriously.

This is Brockmeyer’s first novel, but he has published several short stories and has a creepy pasta following. I bring this up not to accuse him of being an amateur; his prose is fine, and the book is miles ahead of many horror novels I’ve read. I do think many of my gripes with this book comes from elements that would be fine in a short story, but do not necessarily work in a novel format. The supernatural scares feel unnecessary, and the ending just feels too sudden and an unsatisfactory way to leave characters that I’ve spent a whole novel getting attached to. In the end it feels like the characters were pushed off of Plot Cliff rather than brought to an organic ending that does them justice.

Kind Nepenthe by Matthew V. Brockmeyer was published by Black Rose Writing on July 27, 2017, and is available wherever fine books are sold.

Megan “Spooky” Crittenden is a secluded writer who occasionally ventures from her home to give aid to traveling adventurers.

My Best Friend's Exorcism - Book Review

My sister is also a voracious reader, but growing up we didn’t have similar tastes in books. I liked Animorphs, she liked Goosebumps. She loved Nancy Drew, I loved Redwall. We both read The Babysitter’s Club, but she was a Kristy fan while I wanted to be Claudia. There wasn’t really anything we could bond over until in our tweens when we got our hands on Fear Street.

My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix is a nostalgic trip for anyone who experienced the eighties, but for me it reminds me a lot of Fear Street Cheerleaders (my favourite thing ever from R.L. Stine).  The story centers around Abby and Gretchen, two best friends whose relationship is put to the test in 1988, when Gretchen starts acting strangely. She just isn’t herself, and Abby suspects a number of things; a bad trip, problems at home, and even sexual assault. In fact, it’s not just that Gretchen is strange; very odd things begin to happen when she is around. By the time Abby realizes her friend might be possessed, their friends are hurt and Abby has little time left before the demon comes for her.

My Best Friend’s Exorcism, for the most part, relies on pop culture references and tropes to tell its story. For about two thirds of the book, the story goes as you pretty much suspect: the scares get increasingly horrifying; friends turns against friends in misunderstandings; and parents and authority figures do not believe and actively impede their attempts to fix their problems. The scares are genuinely good and frightening; without spoiling anything, there’s one in particular that revived a irrational fear I had as a child, that I had forgotten about until now. Thanks, Hendrix!

It’s all by the numbers until the last third of the book, which saves it from becoming boring and predictable. I did feel that it leaned too hard on tropes before that point, risking the reader getting a little fed up with just how much the world is against Abby. Once Abby approaches the exorcist, however, it becomes far more than just another nostalgic homage to all things eighties.

Below there be mild spoilers!

One common trope in exorcism stories is that a girl is possessed, usually by exploring the occult, and a man must drive the demon (who is often sexually deviant) out of her to save her. There’s a lot of sexist baggage to unpack there! First, it denigrates occult practices like fortune telling and mediumship that are mostly practiced by women. Tainted by these evil feminine practices, the girl/woman becomes sexually perverse and must be stopped by a Church father. The demon in exorcism tales can often be read as multiple dangers of modern society: feminism, free love, new religions, and independence from traditional patriarchal religion.

 Without spoiling too much, My Best Friend’s Exorcism is the first exorcism tale I’ve read that did not totally rely on a man to save the possessed; the power of friendship, not the power of Christ, compels you. Neopagans and Spiritualists may also rejoice; the source of Gretchen’s possession does not come from ouija boards or dabbling in magic. There is a lot of reference to the Satanic Panic of the 80s, but very little concretely ties into the plot.

The surprise twist is a breath of fresh air in the genre, and to me that more than makes up for the derivative parts of the narrative that drives us there. My Best Friend’s Exorcism is a fun, gross, heartwarming tale of friendship in the 80s, and I challenge you not to cry when you read the last paragraph. I now know what I’m getting my sister for Christmas!

My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix was published by Quirky Books in May 2016, but that amazing paperback cover was released July 11th 2017.  It is available wherever books are sold.

Megan “Spooky” Crittenden is a secluded writer who occasionally ventures from her home to give aid to traveling adventurers.

Strange Practice Heals Your Summer Woes

We’re in the thick of summer now, and if you’re anything like me you’re filling up on Hellboy and Castlevania, because in the heat of summer all I can think about is death and horror. It really can’t just be me, because on top of Castlevania, we got the release of Strange Practice by Vivian Shaw. It could not wait for the Halloween season, no, we need a book to remind us that relief is just a month or two away.

Greta Helsing is a doctor to the supernatural, inheriting her clinic after her father died. Among her patients are mummies, werewolves, demons, ghouls, and vampires. Greta loves her work, but a serial killer stalks the streets of London, and humans are not the only thing it is preying on. When the vampire Varney is viciously attacked by a group of cultists, Greta realizes that this is more than your standard vampire hunter. She and her small group of supernatural friends work to investigate the cult and put an end to their reign of terror.

If you insist that vampires are unequivocally monsters not to be romanticized, this is not the book for you. The book does not glorify abusive romance or spend too much time on the melancholy of being a vampire. Rather, the vampires are just so nice and gosh darn eager to help. They do not kill their victims, they do not use their mind control abilities for evil, and their biggest problem is that after all these centuries it just gets a bit dull. Ruthven particularly is less vampire and more Greta’s immortal rich friend who is eager to smother her and anyone he meets with generosity and home cooking. Varney is more morose, but utterly harmless.

Another curious fact about her group of friends is that she has surrounded herself with a harem of men, and no other woman besides Greta is of any importance. Greta mourns her father, but as far as I recall there is no mention of her mother. The only other two mostly-human named female characters are her assistants at the clinic, who cover for her while she investigates the mad monks. They do not have much personality or purpose besides the logistics of running the clinic. Aside from one motherly ghoul who barely speaks, Greta is completely surrounded by men who fawn over her. While Fass is a father figure, the other men in her entourage remind me a bit of characters in a dating sim. I couldn't refrain from taking bets with myself on who she would end up with. (I was, as it turns out, completely right.)

That might give you the impression that this is a light, fluffy read, but not so. It just may or may not be your cup of tea. The world Shaw builds is intriguing even if the vamps lack bite; the idea of a doctor for supernaturals is just too ticklish and Shaw takes great pains to make it all so believable. In between developments, Greta attends to mummies who need body parts replaced, demons with asthma, and ghouls with depression. I have no idea if any of Greta’s medical talk is accurate, but it is certainly convincing to the lay reader without feeling overwhelmed with jargon. If you’ve ever read a good sci-fi whose science you didn’t completely understand, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

In fact, structure-wise my only criticism is the pacing. The book feels a good fifty pages too long, as much minutiae is explained that doesn’t really need to be. Whole scenes could have been cut, and the ending overstays its welcome after the climax we slowly clawed our way to. That is in part intentional: Shaw’s strengths lie in the witty banter between Greta and her friends, but not much so on mystery or action. Either more action or a shorter book would have improved the experience.

Once we get over the lack of much that is actually morally grey (let alone pure evil), Strange Practice offers a spoopy summer read. Frankly, there should be more books like it: if the weather isn’t quite ready for fall horror reads, Strange Practice will whet your appetite for monsters until it is seasonally acceptable to binge read Dracula late at night.

Megan “Spooky” Crittenden is a secluded writer who occasionally ventures from her home to give aid to traveling adventurers

Critical Hits & Misses #236

• In case you were living under a rock, Marvel Studios released Spider-Man: Homecoming this past weekend to some serious box office sales. Over at The Hollywood Reporter, Ciara Wardlow discusses her appreciation for the film and its depiction of "nerd schools."


• Over at Medium, Veronica Chambers talks about why she reads comic books, and the importance of reading for pleasure. 

For today's musical hit, we have Bikini Kill and "Rebel Girl"

Today's critical rolls: Did you see Spider-man: Homecoming this weekend? What did you think? If not, are you planning on seeing it, or just waiting for another Marvel film?


Critical Writ has a super-duper strict comment policy that specifies a single rule above all others: we reserve the right to ban you for being a terribad citizen of the internet.

Critical Hits & Misses #195

• So, thanks to the Atlantic, I just discovered a thing called ASMR. The Atlantic story discusses ASMRtists on youtube, and the emotional labor they perform to bring millions of people comfort and anxiety-relief. Fascinating stuff. 


• YourStory has a list of five books on feminism that Emma Watson wants you to read! Hey, who am I to argue on books with Hermione Granger?

For today's musical hit, we have Ana Tijoux and "Somos Sur"

Today's critical rolls: Have you ever heard of ASMR? Do you listen to these videos to soothe anxiety and help you sleep? Tell us about your experience. And if this story is the first time you've ever heard of ASMR, what do you think of it?


Critical Writ has a super-duper strict comment policy that specifies a single rule above all others: we reserve the right to ban you for being a terribad citizen of the internet.

Brimstone Is A Tragic Ghost Story You'll Love

Alice Dartle is a young, bright medium who travels to Cassadaga, Florida to join the Spiritualist church and hone her powers, happy to be among an accepting community. But she dreams of a man who is haunted by fire, a very real man in nearby Ybor City. Tomas Cordero is a hero of the Great War, who returned home to find that his wife had died in the influenza outbreak. He picks up the pieces of their life together and reopens his tailoring business, but something is not right. Fire has an unfortunate habit of spontaneously breaking out in his house, and they’re only getting bigger and more threatening.

Brimstone is Cherie Priest’s latest, and while I have not loyally read all of her novels, she is my favorite go-to author for when I want a good story that won’t drag me down emotionally. I wouldn’t call her writing fluffy, but it’s often fun, humorous and self aware. If you’ve just read something that hurt your heart, pick up a Cherie Priest novel. It’s always quality light reading.

Brimstone is far more serious in subject matter than most other Priest novels I’ve read, but she still refuses to drag the reader down. Cordero’s war memories are explored in hints and in small pieces; in the plain facts of the terrible weapon he used but not the gruesome painful details in how he deployed it. The light touch does not diminish his experience at all, but treats it with the respect it deserves and leaving much to the reader’s imagination.  The story itself is tragic; his dear wife Evelyn is dead and apparently haunting him through fire.  But the story never becomes so heavy that the reader can't enjoy it, never did I felt that a scene was so raw that I had to power through it.

When I mentioned to a friend that I was reading this book, she read the description and said “Oh, manic pixie dream girl fixes damaged war veteran?” I can now assure her and you, dear reader, that this is absolutely not the case in this story. Alice is very much a relatable character, despite her powers. She is young, impatient, easily bored, but warm, loyal and ultimately just wants to use her powers for the better good. If any character is close to the trope, may I suggest Felipe, the magical pixie dream chihuahua who may just be the real star of the show.

The build up of the plot felt top heavy. There was a lot of character development early in the book; Alice and Tomas do not even meet until after the halfway mark. The true menace was unveiled very close to the end, and although there was some clever foreshadowing early in the book, it’s one of those mysteries where I figured out half of the puzzle before the characters did. Even if I didn’t, I don’t think the big bad would feel very satisfactory; if you’re not familiar with the history this character comes from, it might mean very very little to you. It happens to be a historical subject I’m familiar with, and even then...I thought it was the obvious choice, to keep this review light on spoilers. I didn’t feel let down, but I felt the book could have been longer to flesh out the investigation into the matter better.

Regardless, Priest’s prose really shines here. My favorite book from her so far had been Bloodshot, which is a fantastic vampire novel but at some parts the comedy fell flat; the narrator (or Priest) had a habit of beating a joke to death that just really wasn’t that funny. Really, Cheshire Red, why are you so obsessed with tucking? While Brimstone has moments of levity and Alice’s narration particularly bursts with humor at times, it never feels immature or that Priest is too in love with her own jokes. Again, I liked Bloodshot; it’s a super fun book you should definitely check out, but in contrast you can really see how Priest has developed and improved as a writer. If you’re reading this, Ms. Priest, would you consider revisiting vampires with your improved skills? Please? The genre could really use your talents once more.

Brimstone by Cherie Priest was published by Ace Books and is available wherever fine books are sold.

Megan “Spooky” Crittenden is a secluded writer who occasionally ventures from her home to give aid to traveling adventurers.

Hunger Makes The Wolf Leaves You Hungry For More

I’m not going to lie, I picked up this book solely for the cover. Woman with an eye patch, motorcycle, and a fistful of flame? Hell yeah, sign me up!

Hob was an orphan plucked out of the sands of Tanegawa’s World, a desert planet owned by the TransRift corporation. She is saved and raised by Old Nick, leader of the mercenary Ghost Wolves that serves the mining and farming towns trying to scratch a living on a strange planet. After finding the body of Nick’s brother in the desert, Hob exposes a TransRift conspiracy that is covering just how strange the planet truly is.

The big comparison everyone seems to be making to this book is that it’s Dune, but with biker gangs. The setting is similar to Dune's in that Hunger Makes the Wolf takes place on a desert planet and some characters have access to odd mystical powers. There may be more similarities that could be picked up by someone who read Dune in the last decade, but I think ultimately the comparison sets the book up as something of a disappointment. While politics plays an important part of the plot, it pales in the light of strong character development and awesome action moments.

The first half of the book, personally, was a drag to get through. I have a rule that if I’m not enjoying a book by page 100, I stop reading. Far too often I gave bad books a chance and felt like I wasted my time at the end of them. I stuck with this because while I wasn’t itching to find out what happens next, I can’t say I disliked it. It just felt dull and flat in places and I couldn’t really see where it was going.

The second half picks up with more characters being introduced, and I found that irritating at first. A new Vice President from TransRift is installed, and so is a corporate spy who ends up a major character. This felt off—halfway through is very late in the game to introduce a perspective character, but ultimately the payoff works.

After some major events that I thought failed to impress (including the revenge plot of a character we barely saw), Hob transforms into an absolute badass. It isn’t a sudden change in her character that is unwarranted; the development is organic as Hob steps up to the plate to become the person she was always meant to be—the person she was pushed to be. By the end, I absolutely loved Hob. She isn’t your generic action female, she is no femme fatale and she is no Mary Sue. She has flaws and blind spots, and the unique flavour of a Western heroine on an unforgiving planet.

I also love the contrast between Hob and her best friend Mag. Hob smokes, dresses in men’s clothes and swears like a sailor, but being masculine isn’t what makes her badass. Mag, on the other hand, is feminine, sews and dresses in skirts—she even has a damsel in distress moment early in the book, but it serves for her own development far more than Hob’s. Hob and Mag compliment each other and never is one held up as better than the other.

Hunger Makes the Wolf looks to be the first in a new series, and while I was lukewarm at first I am eager to find out what happens to Hob in future installments. If you pick this up, I urge you to stick with it. Despite setting up for a sequel, the ending is satisfying and feels rather self-contained; should the worst happen and no sequel comes, this book is good enough to stand on its own.

Hunger Makes the Wolf by Alex Wells was published on March 7th, 2017 by Angry Robot, and is available wherever fine books are sold.

Megan “Spooky” Crittenden is a secluded writer who occasionally ventures from her home to give aid to traveling adventurers.

The Stars Are Legion: Book Review

What was the last book you read that had no female characters? Was it The Hobbit, or 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea? Are you struggling to remember if there were any women in Moby Dick? Did you even notice that when you reading?

I feel it may be necessary to say that I’m not suggesting that these are bad books because they have no women, but merely that it’s hardly commented on, or noticed at all. But then comes along The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley, a book in which there are no men.  That immediately brings a lot to the table that the reverse situation rarely does.

The story follows Zan, a woman with no memory, and Zayd, who protects her from ever recovering it. They are seeking to save the Legion, a mass of world ships that is slowly decaying as they fight one another to survive. Zan knows little else except that she needs to conquer the rogue world Mokshi, and there lies her answers and her memory.

The Stars Are Legion is a brutal space opera. The world ships are organic, and if you are squeamish you might not be happy with the amount of body horror and general amount of bodily fluids this book describes. As a squeamish person myself, however, it was uncomfortable but never totally unreadable. The Legion is a horrible place to be, and most characters are various degrees of villains rather than heroes. It’s grimdark, but thankfully does not take a turn down Edgelord Drive and instead allows moments of levity to lift the mood. It’s not all bad here, and the world is worth saving.

The middle of the story does drag a bit, with Zayd held captive and Zan sent on her real journey through the levels of the world with a rag tag group of misfits to help her find her way back. The journey feels like a device used to get these characters to work together and build camaraderie, rather than necessarily illuminating much about the nature of the world ships. We also only get to see three planets in total in the entire book; it’s hard to picture the mass of the Legion when we don’t see much of it, and travel between the three planets is quick even though we’re told they’re actually far apart. There isn’t quite the sense of of a huge mass of worlds that the premise hinted at.

Despite dragging on a bit and a cheesy villain moment (any use of “we’re a lot alike, you and I” or any of its variants should be banned), the ending is extremely satisfying, which is a little unexpected for such dark stories like this one. Ultimately, this is why I like it so much. It’s gross and violent many times, but it isn’t above having light moments or triumphs or dare I say, optimism. It doesn’t wallow in it’s darkness, but seeks to rise above it.

While stark in the beginning, it’s also easy to forget after a time that all the characters are female. Despite that, I found myself curiously gendering the characters all the same as I pictured them; the action heroes are butch in my mind, and the more political characters like Zayd are femme, despite little description pushing me that way. Like Ancillary Justice and The Left Hand of Darkness, the book forces the reader to examine their own bias when it comes to the depiction of gender and how we imagine the characters. And yet, we don’t really do this with books such as The Hobbit, so what gives, brain? It’s so common to leave women out of the narrative but when the tables are turned, I find myself imagining women where it feels "a man should be."  I don't really like what that says about me, but I can't resent the book for holding up that mirror.

The Stars Are Legion is sure to be a contemporary classic. I would particularly recommend it to fans of Saga, who might need that space opera itch scratched while they wait for the next volume.

The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley was published by Saga Press on February 7th 2017 and is available wherever fine books are sold.

Megan “Spooky” Crittenden is a secluded writer who occasionally ventures from her home to give aid to traveling adventurers.

Critical Hits & Misses #167

• Check out this story on the new breed of children's books, which include transgender teens, blended families, and feminism. This is the future that liberals want!


• We're feeling bookish today, so here's another link for figuring out what kinds of books kids should be reading. Romper lists 14 books that teach kids intersectional feminism! 

For today's musical hit, we have an oldie from the late 80s, but it's one of the "safe" and feminist rap songs that you could jam with your kids to back then, when rap was getting nastier for commercial reasons. It's Queen Latifah and "Ladies First"

Today's critical rolls: What were some of your favorite childhood books, or books that you read to your kids/students/whatever today?


Critical Writ has a super-duper strict comment policy that specifies a single rule above all others: we reserve the right to ban you for being a terribad citizen of the internet.

Critical Hits & Misses #166

• The Guardian has a pretty neat article that examines how dystopian science fiction written by feminists, from as far back as Mary Shelley and maybe even earlier, have predicted the future beyond their moment in time. A really fascinating look at feminist sci-fi!


• Maria Ranger at The Valley Vanguard discusses how we really need to stop turning every female character in a comic book into a sex object. We agree. 

For today's musical hit, we have Lorde and "Liability"

Today's critical rolls: Discuss some of your favorite feminist fiction, whether it's sci-fi or not!


Critical Writ has a super-duper strict comment policy that specifies a single rule above all others: we reserve the right to ban you for being a terribad citizen of the internet.

Brother's Ruin Is A Kind Of Magic

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single woman in possession of magic, must be in want of a school of witchcraft and wizardry. Brother’s Ruin by Emma Newman is the first installment of a new gaslamp fantasy series. In 1850 England, Charlotte Gunn is leading a double life. Not only is she a successful illustrator under a male pseudonym, but also a mage who has yet to be discovered by the Royal Society of Esoteric Arts. She works hard to hide what she does and what she is, lying to most everyone but her brother. When she finds that her father owes a great debt, and her brother may also be a mage, she must guard her secrets even more carefully than before—while working to make sure her brother receives the best offer from the magic colleges.

In a post-Potter world, it is prudent to explain to your readership exactly why your mage doesn’t want to go to Hogwarts. Newman does provide, in time, justification for Charlotte’s reasoning, but readers who are still bitter that they never received their letter may have a hard time empathizing with Charlotte. The Royal Society of Esoteric Arts are servants of the Crown first and foremost; these sons and daughters of the Empire may not marry or pursue careers that are not magical in nature. I still felt like that would be a small price to pay to play with magic and be among peers who do not treat you differently because you are a woman, but you do you, Charlotte.

The romance, what there is of it, feels very weak. Charlotte’s fiancé George is a major reason she does not want to join the Royal Society of Esoteric Arts, but she hardly seems to like him and lusts after another man. In a rare reversal of literary tropes, George contributes so little that he could be replaced with a sexy sensible lamp and the plot would lose nothing. It’s fine to have extraneous characters that contribute little to the plot, but as an anchor for Charlotte it’s hard to see the appeal of his sensible nature and mutton chops. She also lies to him incessantly, not only about her powers but also her career as an illustrator and her sleuthing adventures. How can we root for a love interest the heroine doesn't even trust? Magus Hopkins, while not nearly as nice, seems to light Charlotte’s fires higher and I foresee adultery in Charlotte’s future.

Brother’s Ruin is a quick, entertaining read, but ultimately it feels like a prologue rather than the first full book in the series. 183 pages is not a great amount of real estate to map out both plot and world-building, and something’s got to give. We are not informed about the issues within the Royal Society until quite near the end, and even then it’s a lot of telling but little showing, aside from one corrupt Magus whose motivations are still a mystery at the end. There is a lot of potential in the premise this book sets up; I do hope the sequel will be meatier.

Brother’s Ruin by Emma Newman was published on March 14, 2017 by Tor.com. It is available wherever fine books are sold.

Megan “Spooky” Crittenden is a secluded writer who occasionally ventures from her home to give aid to traveling adventurers.

Nasty Women Is Mandatory Reading In This Political Climate

When Trump called Hillary Clinton a “nasty woman” during a presidential debate, it instantly became a meme throughout social media. It also did not take long for merchandise announcing your feminine nastiness was available for purchase. I remember one article at the time saying that the moment was a good one for Clinton that would mobilize feminists everywhere around her and win her the election.

Spoiler alert: Trump won and “nasty woman” became more than just a cutesy phrase on your coffee cup. Now all women in America and abroad had to wonder how their “nastiness” was going to be targeted. Would he follow through and punish women who got abortions? Would misogynists feel emboldened, now that one of their own was elected the most powerful man in the country? Trans women scrambled to get their passports to reflect their real gender, sanctuary cities took a stand, millions donated to the ACLU and Planned Parenthood, and a Kickstarter project was announced: Nasty Women.

Nasty Women is an anthology from 404 Ink, a UK literary magazine. 1,336 backers pledged £22,156, well over it’s £6000 goal. And now that the finished project is available for purchase, and I cannot recommend it enough.

I've read a lot of feminist anthologies over the years. Unfortunately, I have to say it’s rare to find an anthology this diverse; of the ones I read it’s only beat out by such wonderful anthologies such as A Bridge Called My Back where race or other minority demographics is the entire point of the collection. Too often when feminist essays are collected in a volume, there are a few token essays by women of colour and far more rarely, a contribution from a trans woman. The editors of Nasty Women have done a great job curating these essays; most of the authors are living in the USA or the UK, but their voices are myriad and their experiences and identities are diverse.

And their voices are powerful. The women who contributed explore what it means to be a “nasty woman”; that is, a woman that patriarchal norms deem unsuitable and improper. Race, immigration status, transness, disability, weight, faith, pregnancy, punk rock and witchcraft are just some of the facets of “nastinest” explored.

It is raw, it is powerful, and it is sorely needed right now. This book captures the sense of loss so many women felt last November and December, but also the rise of the fighting spirit that saw the Women’s March hot on the heels of Trump’s inauguration, not the first nor the last of loud protests that we have seen since. This is a very peculiar time in history; no one seems to know how stable our government is right now, how long it will last or what horrible policies they can actually get through. Because of this uncertainty, I have no idea how easy this book will be to read years later. Many of the experiences related in this book will surely be relevant, but the overall political worries over Trump and Brexit, if I may be willfully hopeful and naive, may be alleviated in the months to come.  But I can tell you, right now, you want to read this book.

If there’s anything I wish was included was essays from First Nation women. Their fights have been ongoing for hundreds of years, and when we thought we won at Standing Rock, it turns out it was just delayed. Their voices too, are sorely needed.

Nasty Women was published on March 8, 2017 by 404 Ink and can be ordered from their website.

Megan “Spooky” Crittenden is a secluded writer who occasionally ventures from her home to give aid to traveling adventurers.