Reviews

by Catalina Bonati 4/5 stars ★★★★☆ On Their Frontlines: The Lives of Japanese War Brides Vol. 1 (to be published August 2026) by Marina Lisa Komiya and translated to English by Diana Taylor is a Japanese post-war manga that focuses on the lives of Haru and Yori, two lovers who have been parted by the war and try their hardest to come to terms with their separation and continue with life in war-torn Japan as best they can. The manga starts with a preface by the author which is

by Catalina Bonati Stress in Plants: The Hidden Half (2023) edited by Rishikesh Upadhyay is a non-fiction anthology of shortened scientific papers or essays that revolve around biotic and abiotic stresses of plants and their effects on the plant itself as well as agriculture and environment. This book is not for the casual non-fiction reader. Specialized knowledge is required to understand these essays and as a layman, one must google most things. It starts with an introducto

by Catalina Bonati 2/5 stars ★★☆☆☆ Agnes, We’re Not Murderers! by Jessica Alexander (to be published June 16, 2026) is a short, experimental novel about the spectre of Mary and her haunting of Agnes, a manor, a convent, and an inn. It takes place in an ambiguous Gothic European setting. The book is written in an experimental form that takes its inspiration from Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves. Some of the text is written in red rather than black, and there are footnotes

by Catalina Bonati 2.5/ 5 stars ★ ★ ⯪ ☆ ☆ The Story Eaters of Yamm by Kevin Hincker (to be published 17 June 2026) tells the story of Larry Palczewski, a struggling science fiction writer living at home with his mother. Larry becomes involved with Sky Company, a business urgently hiring science fiction writers to address imagined scenarios of alien invasion. He becomes the leader of the Alien Invasion Cohort, and their inanity provides humor for most of the story. At home, hi

by Catalina Bonati 2.75/5 stars ★★★☆☆ Our Sister’s Keeper by Jasmine Holmes (to be published June 9, 2026) is the story of Thea, who moves with her husband Kid to the prosperous all-Black town of East Cobb, Mississippi, where hauntings, called “groanings”, pursue only the women of the burg. At the same time, Marah works as one of the town’s “carriers,” which is a woman who has been denoted to experience men’s burdens and to take them on as her own, relieving the men of trauma

by Vidya Hariharan Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel Whereabouts (2018) explores a haunting sense of ‘homelessness.’ It was originally written by Lahiri in Italian and later translated by her own hand into English. Lahiri is a Bengali writer raised in the U.S.A. by Bengali immigrant parents, and in 2012 she relocated to Italy. Neither English nor Italian are her primary languages or mother tongue. However, she is at home in both languages. In this novel, homelessness is understood as a