Anthropologist Garth (Food in Cuba) offers a piercing ethnographic study of the power dynamics and misunderstandings that plague “food justice” nonprofits operating in Los Angeles’s predominantly Latino South Central neighborhood. Exploring the question of what happens when primarily white, well-off activists decide to solve food-related problems in places they don’t live, she shows that it typically leads to insulting interventions (such as teaching women how to cook unseasoned chicken) and assimilationist assumptions—i.e., that eating healthy means eating like white people. (“[We’re] here to... get them to stop eating things like tortillas... and eat things like Brussels sprouts, kale, broccoli, you know healthy food,” one nonprofit executive director states.) Having spent 12 years embedded in the L.A. activism world, Garth is able to follow individual activists’ journey toward disillusionment—a number of them, like one who begins to perceive her organization as a “revolving door of ‘fancy’ master’s graduates who never stayed long enough to do anything substantive,” eventually decamp for more “grassroots-oriented” movements that they feel are genuinely addressing the root causes of food inequity, like the anti-gentrification and “land justice” movements. This casts a harsh light on the professional nonprofit world and provides a nuanced window into mechanisms of power within lefty activism circles. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 04/17/2026 | Details & Permalink

A middle-aged Englishwoman seeks fulfillment while reflecting on her choice not to have children in the insightful if diffuse debut novel from picture book author and illustrator Haworth-Booth (The Last Tree). As the unnamed narrator enters menopause, she revives a childhood obsession: “Horses began to return to my thoughts at the same time that change began to happen in my body.” She answers an ad to become a “sharer” of a white and black horse owned by another woman (the “true mother”), tending to the horse a few days a week. In between caring for the horse, writing children’s books, and attending a residency, she looks after her neighbor’s children, who she refers to as “not-my-daughter” and “also-not-my-daughter.” As the months pass, her relationship with the horse blossoms from a chosen chore to something deeper and more sustaining. Stretches of self-reflection are punctuated by chipper emails from a child-free friend who espouses the wonders of their lifestyle: “What’s your favourite thing to do instead of the school run?” Some readers will find themselves wanting more from the fragmentary narrative, which often leaves thoughts half formed, but Haworth-Booth ably captures early middle-age disquiet and the soothing balm of animal companionship. Fans of Sheila Heti will appreciate this. Agent: Ed Wilson, Johnson & Alcock. (May)

Reviewed on 04/17/2026 | Details & Permalink

Former public defender Galvin Almanza debuts with a hard-hitting investigation of problems facing the U.S. criminal justice system. Opening with her own experience as a teen defendant luckily granted a second chance by a compassionate judge whom she positions as an outlier in an overloaded, unequal system, the author goes on to methodically survey the justice system’s flaws, including understaffing that overwhelms both prosecutors and defenders, false confessions elicited by police interrogations, inaccurate forensic science, and judicial bias (which can be as mundane as “a judge’s favorite sports team los[ing]” leading to “harsher sentences”). Drawing on stories of former clients, she emphasizes that “the process is so bad that everyone gets punished” regardless of whether they’re guilty, like one client wrongfully accused of “an elaborate insurance scheme” after getting a date wrong when her car was stolen, resulting in years of court dates and a job suspension. At times, the ineptitude Galvin Almanza exposes is mind-bogglingly disconcerting, as when she recalls having to wear loud bangle bracelets in order to ensure that a notoriously distracted judge paid attention. The latter half covers possible solutions, including a successful program in Denver that sends out “behavioral health clinicians and paramedics” rather than police to handle certain cases. This trenchant and surprisingly hopeful explainer outlines not only how the system is broken but how to fix it. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 04/17/2026 | Details & Permalink

Music casts listeners into reveries that can bring people together, according to this tepid treatise. Margulis (On Repeat), director of Princeton University’s Music Cognition Lab, argues that music reliably provokes daydreams about memories or imagined scenarios with astonishingly specific themes that are commonly shared among listeners. For example, when she asked students who had never heard Richard Wagner’s prelude to his opera Die Walküre to document their thoughts while listening to it, many of them wrote about pirates on stormy seas, as befits Wagner’s menacing, minor-key string passages. These collective daydreams, she writes, depend on context—humans attach deep emotional significance to music heard in high school and as infants—and on culture. (While American undergrads associate atonal classical music with horror movies, Dong tribesmen in China tend to call to mind happy outdoor excursions.) The communal nature of musical daydreams makes music a social glue, Margulis contends: national anthems unite countries, and talking about shared musical memories can help build a close-knit office culture. Margulis explores many curious examples—the musicality of baby talk, the impact of music on LSD trips—but offers few truly novel conclusions. The result is a mostly unsurprising take on what it means to be immersed in music. Photos. (May)

Reviewed on 04/17/2026 | Details & Permalink

In Shetterly’s breezy sequel to Pete and Alice in Maine, magazine writer Alice attempts to move on after her husband Pete’s infidelity, while recovering from cancer treatment. Accompanied by her daughters—angsty 13-year-old Sophie,and sensitive eight-year-old Iris—she travels to France, where she’s been commissioned by a magazine to write a story about camping. A tale of roughing it this is not—though the trio do occasionally pitch a tent, they spend most of their time sleeping in comfy rooms, swimming, and sampling luscious cuisine, while Alice falls for a hunky innkeeper. Though Shetterly dutifully divides her attention among the four family members, including a small section on Pete plodding along back home, this is primarily a story of Alice’s midlife crisis. A late drama involving Sophie seems tacked on for the sake of suspense, and Shetterly’s depiction of Alice can feel muddled, as when she attempts to elicit sympathy for Alice without examining the character’s tendency to neglect her daughters while out having fun. Shetterly is at her best when describing with affection and pleasure the food, scenery, and cheerfully welcoming residents of France. Flaws aside, this offers an inviting view into a lovingly evoked setting. (May)

Reviewed on 04/17/2026 | 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