Many novels center on friendship as well, including Leanne Toshiko Simpson's debut "Never Been Better," which introduces Dee, Matt and Misa, who meet in a psychiatric hospital and forge an intimate bond as a result. But when Matt and Misa get engaged, Dee's secret pining for Matt sends her in a tailspin.
At Matt and Misa's destination wedding at a resort with an open bar, Dee weighs the contradictory costs of her feelings while navigating awkward encounters with her meddlesome sister as her emotional wingman. Humor abounds in this story that also sensitively explores issues of mental health and recovery.
Something That Scares You
This category provides the perfect opportunity to explore one of the biggest genres of the moment: horror. Horror is undergoing a sea change rich with diverse representation and thematic relevance that plumbs the depths of real-world adversity.
Try Indigenous writer Stephen Graham Jones, who just wrapped up his acclaimed Indian Lake trilogy. In the first book, "My Heart Is a Chainsaw," we meet the snarky, slasher film-obsessed Indigenous teenager Jade Daniels. The setting is Proofrock, Idaho, the site of a mass murder years before at the summer camp nearby. Jade has the sneaking suspicion — maybe a death wish — that history is poised for a repeat. The final girl couldn't possibly be Jade, could it?
Bonus: You can ask your horror-related questions of Jones in person when he appears
in conversation with Sadie Hartmann, aka Mother Horror, at the Central Library on Wednesday, July 24, at 7 p.m.
Environmental
As the most requested category by last year's Book Bingo players, Environmental offers many opportunities to read locally.
Seattle author Madeline Ostrander's 2022 book "At Home on an Unruly Planet: Finding Refuge on a Changed Earth," tells the stories of four communities on the front lines of the climate crisis, including Pateros, Okanogan County, which experienced devastating fires in 2014 and 2015.
Through these stories, she posits that reexamining how we live and learning to see the Earth as our home might create ripple effects of community resilience. If we enter into the right relationship with our homes and grapple collectively with how climate alters our shared landscape, might we undo or fend off some of the damage?
Find more reading suggestions at www.spl.org, or submit a question at www.spl.org/Ask.
Re-published with permission from the Seattle Times.
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