Spanish forger and revolutionary Urtubia (1930–2020) recounts his life and crimes in this enthralling autobiography. Beginning with his early years growing up in Basque country, where poverty was a “spur to creativity,” Urtubia makes clear that his own political commitments as an anarchist are grounded in his youthful experiences of working alongside his family and community (“The keystone of existence is doing right by one’s neighbor”). Urtubia’s early life seems a whirlwind: conscripted into Franco’s army but discharged for his involvement in a smuggling scheme, Urtubia ended up in Paris, working as a stonemason by day (he worked on “the magnificent Gallimard Bookshop”), and printing pamphlets and documents for radical left-wing organizations by night. He transitioned to forging paychecks for striking workers, and, eventually, to a large-scale counterfeiting operation. As much a craftsman as a revolutionary, Urtubia describes his processes in evocative terms: he worked overnight teaching himself to produce “top quality photoengraving” while “making sure no evidence was left behind.” Soon Urtubia’s outfit was producing books of checks by the hundreds of kilos: “Without violence... we had come across a source of funding for all revolutionary... movements across the globe.” Urtubia was eventually caught and arrested, but released due to lack of evidence. The author’s unique voice, irascible and wise, adds a great deal of charm to this meandering memoir. It’s a wonder. (Dec.)

Reviewed on 12/06/2024 | Details & Permalink

Grumley’s riveting sequel to Deep Freeze successfully steers the series into full-tilt sci-fi madness. After dying in a freak bus accident, U.S. Army veteran John Reiff was revived as part of a covert research program that altered his DNA. Twenty-three years later, Reiff has been frozen again and stored in a cabin in Utah. His body is removed from storage by a group of his apparent allies, who also make off with the machine that brought Reiff to life. They’ve retrieved Reiff because he’s become a subject of interest for a shadowy group of power brokers called “The Nine,” whose members want to know if Reiff’s freezing had any adverse effects. If not, they plan to freeze themselves to survive a mysterious event. Once Reiff’s rescuers bring him back to life, they learn he may be connected to a bizarre discovery involving space travel, which carries massive implications for the future of the planet. Grumley tosses a lot of balls in the air, but he juggles them all nimbly, keeping the plot’s many surprises well concealed without sacrificing pace. Blake Crouch fans will love this. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 12/06/2024 | Details & Permalink

This middling novel in stories from Matthews (Shaky Town) traces a screenwriter’s ups and downs in Hollywood. Dale Davis likes to describe himself as faded rather than failed (“Poets can fail. Screenwriters can’t fail, the bar is set too low,” he says to a fellow writer and drinking buddy in the title story, set in 2008). In “Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others,” Davis gets the chance to direct his own script, a remake of Sam Peckinpah’s 1974 film Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia in Nicaragua, where the 1987 production is interrupted by insurgents and canceled by the studio before he can finish. His bad luck continues with the writers’ strike the following year, as he loses his agent and resorts to teaching and ghostwriting to make ends meet. In “Desperate Times, Desperate Crimes,” set in 2010, Davis tries to sell a remake of the 1972 blaxploitation movie The Thing with Two Heads, claiming the story of a terminally ill white surgeon who transplants his head onto the body of a Black man is the “lesson in race relations the country needs now.” The tales of Dale’s losing streak become repetitious, though some of them pop with life. Lovers of Hollywood lore will get a kick out of this. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 12/06/2024 | Details & Permalink

Mount Shasta, Calif., high school senior Izumi Tanaka is a normal 18-year-old American girl: she enjoys baking, watching Real Housewives, and dressing like “Lululemon’s sloppy sister.” But Japanese American Izzy, conceived during a one-night stand in her mother Hanako’s final year at Harvard, has never known the identity of her father. So when she and her best friend find a letter in Hanako’s bedroom, the duo jump at the chance to ferret out Izzy’s dad’s true identity—only to find out he’s the Crown Prince of Japan. Desperate to know her father, Izzy agrees to spend the summer in his home country. But press surveillance, pressure to quickly learn the language and etiquette, and an unexpected romance make her time in Tokyo more fraught than she imagined. Add in a medley of cousins and an upcoming wedding, and Izzy is in for an unforgettable summer. Abrupt switches from Izzy’s perspective to lyrical descriptions of Japan may disrupt readers’ enjoyment, but a snarky voice plus interspersed text conversations and tabloid coverage keep the pages turning in Jean’s (Empress of All Seasons) fun, frothy, and often heartfelt duology starter. Ages 12–up. Agent: Erin Harris, Folio Literary Management. (May)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

Kelkar’s (Bindu’s Bindis) novel features Oceanview Academy middle schooler Sonali, whose stoicism contrasts with her love of Bollywood movies’ melodrama. Stuck in a Los Angeles home with constantly arguing parents and her sensitive nine-year-old brother Ronak, Gujarati American Sonali, 11, tries to make sense of her world through the Hindi movies she’s seen all her life. Ever since an earnest public attempt five years ago to stop her parents’ fighting led to widespread embarrassment in front of family, Sonali has resolved to hide her emotions and do her best to ignore her parents’ arguments. But her efforts prove futile when her parents decide to try the “nesting” method of separation, where they take turns living in the house with Sonali and Ronak. The contemporary narrative takes an entertaining fabulist turn as Sonali’s life begins to transform into a Bollywood movie, with everything she feels and thinks made apparent through her “Bollywooditis.” Sonali’s first-person perspective is sympathetic as she navigates friendship and family drama, and Kelkar successfully infuses a resonant narrative with “filmi magic,” offering a tale with universal appeal through an engaging cultural lens. Ages 8–12. Agent: Kathleen Rushall, Andrea Brown Literary. (May)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

When she was six, Justice Kasric watched her blue-eyed merchant father play chess with the Faerie King. Now 15, Justice believes the event was merely a dream. She spends her days yearning for adventure, watching from the sidelines while her 16-year-old sister Faith, as slender and golden-haired as Justice but not as curious, becomes the toast of Victorian London society. One night, however, their father shatters their comfortable lifestyles when he forces the family—Justice, Faith, their younger brother Henry, and their constantly medicated, distant mother—into a locked carriage that takes them to a shadowy mansion. Justice’s discovery that the Faerie have invaded the human world and are targeting her family gains further urgency when she learns that her parents are on opposite sides of the conflict. Together, the Kasric siblings—including older brothers Benedict and Joshua—must find a way to save their family. While characters lack depth at times, and insufficient historical details don’t fully evoke the Victorian setting, Klaver’s (the Supernatural Case Files of Sherlock Holmes series) rich, lyrical descriptions augment the fantastical source material in this engaging series starter. Ages 13–up. Agent: Lucienne Diver, the Knight Agency. (May)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

Nine years before this novel begins, eight-year-old best friends Esme Randal and Kayla Price snuck out of their cabin at Camp Pine Lake in Texas. They swore never to discuss the terrible events that followed, but when the girls, now 17, return to the camp as counselors-in-training from their hometown of Lewisburg, Pa., that proves easier said than done. Someone begins sabotaging camp activities, and ominous—and increasingly public—threats appear, referencing that fateful summer. The only other person who knows Esme and Kayla’s secret is a local girl named Lillian Campbell, whom they left to fend for herself that night in the woods. They’re loath to voice their suspicions of revenge lest they get in trouble or look bad in front of hunky fellow counselors Jake and Olly, but as events escalate, they realize they may not have a choice. Narrating from Esme’s increasingly apprehensive first-person perspective, Preston (The Twin) pays homage to classic summer camp slasher films. The underdeveloped, predominantly white cast relies heavily on stereotype, and the clichéd tormenter’s motive feels unearned, but horror fans will likely appreciate this paranoia-fueled tale’s gruesome, shocking close. Ages 12–up. Agent: Jon Elek, United Agents. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

Inspired by her own family’s refugee journey from Vietnam to Hong Kong, Văn’s (If You Were Night) spare picture book, powerful in its deliberate simplicity, follows a black-haired, pale-skinned child as they, their guardian, and two younger siblings join other asylum seekers for a perilous maritime voyage. In a third-person voice, Văn anthropomorphizes objects, relaying their wishes: “The dream wished it was longer,” one spread reads, as a balding, mustached guardian holds the protagonist close, and a guardian with a bun rouses the second child to dress them. “The clock wished it was slower,” the subsequent pages read, as the two children tearfully hug their mustached guardian goodbye. The narrative continues as the now family of four make their way onto the boat and beyond. A final-act switch to first-person perspective drives home the journey’s personal nature. Intricate, lissome fine-lined art by Ngai (Dazzle Ships) recalls classical Asian compositions, Japanese woodblock prints, and an evocative sensibility in a gradated, surrealistic color palette. A seamless interweaving of elegant prose and atmospheric art marks this affecting immigrant narrative. Back matter includes heartfelt author’s and illustrator’s notes. Ages 4–8. (May)

Correction: A previous version of this review misquoted the book's text.

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

In a straightforward picture book debut by Meloy (the Apothecary series), a red-orange octopus is “happy in his cave,” until a human, portrayed as a pale hand, tricks the cephalopod into occupying a glove and subsequently takes him to “a glass house that wasn’t a cave.” Though the octopus is offered interactive tests and activities—including building blocks, a jar to unscrew, tight passages to navigate, and a camera to photograph visitors to his aquarium home—his days lack differentiation, and the pining octopus soon devises an intrepid plan to return home. The sympathetic prose is rhythmic, allowing readers to see the octopus’s perspective at every step of the process: of the glass house, “There were no waves. No little shivery ones. No big tumbling ones.” Sala (Green on Green) contributes vibrant art rendered in gouache, watercolor, and pastel on paper; particularly effective are spreads of the sinuous subject’s ocean life, with its richly varied flora and fauna. The Finding Nemo–esque adventure follows a predictable arc, but the tender narrative is gratifying and may serve as an effective jumping-off point for discussions about animal captivity. Ages 3–7. (May)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

Josie, a light brown–skinned child with a cotton candy–esque cloud of pink hair, has difficulty falling asleep because she sees “monsters in the dark” every night. When her father gives her a Scary Snapper—a flashlight he promises will transform monsters “into something not scary at all”—Josie soon discovers the real objects behind many of her fears. Punctuated with “SNAP!”s throughout, Downing’s narrative about braving the unknown is well-paced as Josie shines her beam on frightening sounds and shadows in turn, revealing them to be household mainstays such as a coat rack and a sleeping cat. But when Josie’s Snapper doesn’t work on one particular monster, she discovers newfound courage in a satisfying speculative twist. Machado’s digital illustrations feature a soft-hued palette; cool tones effectively capture the nighttime mood, while the flashlight’s goldenrod beams of light turn nightmarish silhouettes to warmer-toned reality checks. Ideal for bedtime reads, this picture book debut will resonate with readers who might be afraid of the dark, a salient reminder of the power they hold within themselves. Ages 3–5. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink