Book Review

Cecilia Gentili writes of being dirt-poor, a dysfunctional relationship with her parents, and sexual abuse. At times one wonders how she managed to escape with her life. But it’s not a downer of a book—Faltas is funny, and tells its story with charm and grace.

With sharpness and ephemerality that could only have been harnessed via cliquey 13-year-olds, Dizz Tate writes a class-act debut about the divine knowledge of girlhood, the claustrophobia of adolescence, secrecy and the curious need we have to observe and be observed.

Great poems move different people in different ways. Nobel-poet Wisława Szymborska’s pieces trace a reliable arc from simple seeds, through surprise development, and land in the subtle neighbourhood of the sublime.

Told in fragmented, rapidly oscillating points of view, Refugia muses on the insufficiencies of language in the face of a vast and unexplainable island.

A look into small-town life with a magical air, The Animals reminded me a little of my own travels through some of Ontario’s tourist destinations, and even the game Night in the Woods.

In a series of stories mostly set in modern-day South Korea, Bora Chung writes of heads coming up out of toilets, robots that fall in love and unexpected pregnancies. Her stories read like parables, where decisions made for business’s sake have long and supernatural repercussions.

Contagious Imagination contains a collection of rigorously researched essays and artistic texts that reify Lynda Barry’s teachings. Like Barry’s own idiosyncratic work, it touches on memory, relationships and the everyday.

Sarah L. Taggart’s remarkable debut plays with being a psychological thriller, working in elements of a love story. Never patronizing or judgmental, what sets Pacifique apart is how Taggart writes about mental health.

Orwell, Joyce and Austin could barely get jobs, never mind publishing deals. Stephen Marche asks: “Why would it be any different for you?”

Visually distinct with a whimsical, costume-ish quality to character designs, there’s a comfortable tone of strangeness throughout Blind Alley that would feel at home in EarthBound or Twin Peaks.

Rolli’s poetic voice is often likened to e.e. cummings’ light verse, chiefly in how he toys with syntax and nonsense. But there’s a keen sardonic edge, too — think of Shel Silverstein and Hilaire Belloc.

The setting gives DeForge plenty to work with: the mechanics of a fungus-based internet; samplings of new lunar artforms; interplanetary and intercellular voyages. And of course, there are the birds themselves, in all their grand and ridiculous plumage.