February Staff Picks

Lib­by says:

“Where has this book been? I have combed the burnout, pan­dem­ic, per­i­menopausal, and labor lit­er­a­ture from the past decade in search of an in-depth, fun­ny, self-aware, and res­o­nant rea­son for the depres­sion, anx­i­ety, and gen­er­al malaise my friends and I feel. Here it is! Cal­houn spent a few years inter­view­ing hun­dreds of Gen X women about their men­tal health. She cites soci­o­log­i­cal and gov­ern­men­tal stud­ies in the same breath as she quotes New Wave song lyrics. For latchkey kids raised by after­school spe­cials who are now nav­i­gat­ing inten­sive par­ent­ing and nonex­is­tent sup­port sys­tems, this book will soothe your aching mind and remind you that you are not alone.”

Mandy says:

“This one real­ly grabbed me. The pro­tag­o­nist (Julia) is in the throes of mid-life, with one child out of the nest, and anoth­er soil­ing it, as they say. At the heart of the sto­ry is Juli­a’s (now estranged) rela­tion­ship with an old­er woman she met when her son was very small and she was strug­gling with moth­er­hood and mar­riage. Add to this a nar­cis­sis­tic moth­er, and you’ve got the recipe for excel­lent domes­tic fic­tion. Great for fans of Lombardo’s ear­li­er The Most Fun We Ever Had and Cather­ine New­man’s Sand­wich.”

Scot says:

“I closed out 2024 and entered 2025 by revis­it­ing the weird and won­der­ful body of work left behind by Charles Wille­ford. In a back­list filled with plea­sures, Mia­mi Blues stands supreme. The first book in a four-nov­el series about down-on-his-luck Mia­mi homi­cide detec­tive Hoke Mose­ley, Mia­mi Blues show­cas­es Willeford’s humor, unique autho­r­i­al voice, and will­ing­ness to upset genre con­ven­tions. The nov­el begins and ends with ​“blithe psy­chopath” Fred­er­ick J. Frenger, Jr., who breaks the fin­ger of a Hare Krish­na at the Mia­mi Inter­na­tion­al Air­port, there­by set­ting in motion a sequence of events that will even­tu­al­ly strip Mose­ley of his badge and gun … and false teeth. Mia­mi Blues func­tions both as a dark­ly fun­ny exam­i­na­tion of aber­rant social types (Frenger, and, to a less­er degree, Mose­ley) and as a police pro­ce­dur­al that turns the genre upside down and emp­ties its pockets.”