Rachel Baack

Summary: When author Amanda Bailey starts research for a book about a cult that ended in a mass suicide event eighteen years earlier, she begins to notice holes in the story that the public has been told about the case. According to the press at the time, a group of four men claiming to be angels roped two teenagers into their cult and then convinced them that their baby was the Anti-Christ who must be killed to save the world. The teenage mother of the baby reportedly broke free from the cult’s control and saved her infant, which caused the adult members to despair so deeply that they engaged in a mass suicide, with only one man surviving (and subsequently landing in prison for his involvement in the cult and his conviction for a separate murder). This official story, however, begins to unravel as Amanda dives into her research, and she finds that her digging may just put her in more danger than she bargained for.

I thought that the book was quite compelling, but I was disappointed with the ending.

In this collection of poems, Brandon Som shares the stories of his parents and grandparents—one side descended from Chinese immigrants and the other from Mexican immigrants—and explores what it means for an individual to hold multiple identities, for a family to relate to one another, and for a people to experience injustice and hardship at the hands of racism.

This is a very intellectually challenging collection to read; you’ll definitely want to have Google translate handy. My favorite poems in the collection were “Teléfono Roto,” “Twin Plant,” “My Father’s Perm,” and “Super Mercado Lee Hou.”

From this opera, I have read "Bunthorne's Song: The Aesthete." What follows is a review of that song:

This poem pokes fun at “men of culture” who speak and act in ways that are so ridiculous that they’re mistaken for being marks of culture. Rating: 4.5/5

Summary: Walter Pater claims that classicism and romanticism are not as opposed to each other as people might say. He goes on to define romanticism as a mixture of curiosity and beauty that makes use of strangeness and the grotesque and is present in all ages.

I have read ch. III of On Liberty and a short excerpt from On the Subjection of Women. What follows is my review of each:

• “Of Individuality” (from On Liberty): This chapter by John Stewart Mill argues in favor of personal liberty and freedom to express one’s individuality. Mill gives several reasons that freedom and individuality should be allowed to flourish. Rating: 3/5
• "On the Equality of the Sexes": John Stuart Mill explains the negative effects that male-domination have had on the expression of female thought and character. Rating: 3.5/5

Summary: In this collection of short essays, SG Huerta processes and shares their experiences of racism, queerphobia, abuse, mental illness, and trauma.

Their writing is honest, demonstrating both vulnerability and strength in the face of great difficulty. My favorite pieces from this collection were “I Text My Partner i love being beholden to the delicate feelings of white ppl! At Least Once A Week” and “Post Traumatic Interlude featuring La Llorona.”

Summary: When a man turns up dead in her tea shop one morning, Vera Wong decides that she—being much more fastidious and insightful than the police—will investigate the case. Very quickly, she identifies four suspects and begins trying to uncover any secrets they might be hiding. The problem, however, is that Vera starts to really like this group of suspects-turned-friends.

I really enjoyed this book, but I found the solution to the mystery to be somewhat unsatisfying.

Summary: After Justyce McAllister is—to his shock—handcuffed and treated unjustly by a police officer when he is trying to help a friend, he begins writing letters to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to try to process what is happening to and around him. As the year goes on, Justyce continues to write these letters, detailing his experiences navigating being a Black student in a predominantly white prep school and confronting the realities of racism and police brutality on both a personal and national scale.

Summary: Lexicographer Kory Stamper engagingly reveals to readers the history and current process of creating dictionaries, explaining along the way the ways in which language evolves and is perceived, described, and argued over.

Summary: Mortician Caitlin Doughty relays her first-hand learning about the customs and beliefs surrounding death in various places and cultures around the world, and she explores the ways in which the American death industry might adapt its practices in order to allow mourners to more meaningfully grieve and process the deaths of their loved ones.

Summary: Caitlin Doughty has worked close to death in various capacities for years, and, in this memoir, the relates her experiences and reflections upon working with the dead and the living who tend to them. She shares a behind-the-scenes look at the current practices of death work in America and offers her thoughts on the ways that those practices—mostly focused on distancing the average person from the realities of death—are socially and emotionally damaging. She leaves readers with some ideas about how we might engage with death in healthier ways as a society.

Summary: Stevie Bell thinks she has finally solved the decades-old mystery surrounding the kidnapping of the wife and daughter of her school’s founder, Albert Ellingham. The problem, however, is that danger continues to lurk on the Ellingham campus. Since Stevie has arrived at Ellingham, death and danger have seemed to stalk the campus and those connected to it. Stevie suspects that it’s all somehow tied to the Ellingham case, and she is determined to figure out how.

Summary: Despite having (kind of) solved the mystery surrounding the death of her classmate, Stevie Bell has been pulled out of Ellingham Academy by her parents, greatly hindering her ability to continue her research into the decades-old Ellingham kidnapping cold case. It is not until Edward King, the deeply unpleasant politician for whom Stevie’s parents work, steps in that the Bells allow Stevie to return to Ellingham. His seeming kindness, however, comes with strings attached, and Stevie must balance meeting his expectations while continuing her investigation into the Ellingham case as well as the continued mysterious happenings on Ellingham’s campus.

Summary: In the 1930s, wealthy businessman Albert Ellingham opened Ellingham Academy, a school for gifted students where learning was seen as a game and students were given a high degree of autonomy with regards to their education. Shortly after the school opened, Albert Ellingham’s wife and daughter were kidnapped. His wife was killed, his daughter never found, and the case never solved.

Now, decades later, Stevie Bell has been admitted to Ellingham Academy upon the basis of her interest in and thorough research into the case. She is determined to figure out what really happened all those years ago, and she continues digging into the case as soon as she arrives on Ellingham grounds, all while adjusting to her new school and forming bonds with her housemates. Then, to everyone’s shock, a death occurs on campus, and Stevie can’t help but wonder if it is somehow connected to the Ellingham case.

Summary: Victoria, the daughter of wealthy parents in 1909 London, has gotten herself into some hot water after posing nude for an art class. Vicky wants nothing more than to be an artist, but, following the scandal, her parents have determined to marry her off and see to it that she lives as a respectable woman of society. Not to be deterred, however, Vicky determines to secretly apply to art college, and, as she attempts to build her portfolio, she finds herself becoming entangled with London’s suffrage movement and a working-class boy.

Summary: When a stranger misunderstands an overheard conversation between murder mystery writer Finlay Donovan and her agent, she attempts to hire Finlay, who she mistakes for a hitwoman, to kill her husband. Finlay is of course shocked, but she can’t help being curious, and she soon finds herself more deeply involved in the world of true crime than she ever intended to be.

Summary: A few months after the end of World War II, author Juliette Ashton receives a letter from a pig farmer on the formerly occupied island of Guernsey who found her name and address written in a book that ended up in his possession. Juliette learns from the farmer, Dawsey Adams, that, during the occupation, he and his friends had formed a book club that, despite its creation as a cover for an unauthorized gathering they’d held, ended up becoming an indispensable community of support for its members. Juliette, intrigued, decides that she must meet the book club, and she sets out for a visit to the island that will change her life.

Summary: This book traces the tale of the Roux family through four generations, detailing the devastating effects that romantic love (or something akin to it) has had on their lives. The youngest generation of Rouxs includes Ava, born inexplicably with a set of wings, and her twin brother Henry, who speaks rarely and without being often understood by those around him. This work of magical realism, despite detailing numerous tragedies that have befallen the Rouxs, beautifully portrays the sustaining effect that the love of a family—even a seemingly broken one—can have on its members.

Summary: Molly takes her job as a maid at a high-end hotel very seriously. She is thorough, organized, and hardworking, and she always does her best to do the right thing. She would never have expected to find herself, then, a suspect in the murder of a prominent hotel guest, but that is precisely what happens. In order to clear her name, Molly, alongside friends old and new, works to piece together clues that will demonstrate her innocence.

Summary: When reporter Felicity Staples is assigned to cover the murder of real estate agent Madison May, she can’t help but notice that there is something odd about this case. It isn’t until a run-in with two individuals she believes to be connected to the case—one of whom may even be the killer—that Felicity’s reality is turned upside down, and she learns that Madison has, in fact, been killed multiple times across as many different realities.

I found the book to be incredibly interesting and thought-provoking, but I didn't love the ending.

Summary: When a man turns up dead in an otherwise quiet retirement village, the Thursday Murder Club, formed by four members of a retirement village to do conduct armchair investigations into cold cases, decides to do some real-life sleuthing.

Summary: When Diana Boyle discovers the existence of a directory of wealthy single women being used by the bachelors of England to find wives who will improve their financial situation, she decides not only to confront its author, Maxwell Dean, about his having painted targets on the backs of the women included in it, but also to plan with the ladies how they might use their inclusion in the directory to flip the social script and gain some control over their romantic destinies in a society that would not usually afford women this ability.

Summary: In You Like It Darker, King presents twelve chilling short stories, ranging in subject matter from an otherworldly encounter that leaves its human participants uniquely gifted, to a highway stickup, to a haunting by a pair of infants.

Summary: This short story is told by an unnamed female narrator, who details the development of her relationship with her eventual husband from their meeting, through their courtship, marriage, and birth of their son, all the way to its end. Throughout the tale, the narrator has a mysterious green ribbon tied around her neck, and, as her relationship with her husband progresses, so does his fascination with the ribbon. This narrative is a feminist take on the urban-legend-turned-children’s-story “The Green Ribbon.”

Summary: In a dystopian future, low-level government worker Winston Smith lives under the authoritarian rule of the Party, which maintains control via constant surveillance of its citizenry and war with other nations, as well as regulation of the information its populous can access and the speech they can use. Winston, having grown dissatisfied with the restrictive life he and his fellow citizens must live, begins taking steps to break free from his oppressive reality.