The Pursuit of Love
The best sweets always have a pinch of salt, and this is why, I suspect, Nancy Mitford’s 1945 novel, The Pursuit of Love, has endured—despite being, at first glance, the literary equivalent of a bowl of whipped cream. British aristo Linda Radlett is on a madcap hunt for true love, but it’s the late 1920s and then the 1930s, and the world is growing darker by degrees. Anything and everything is fair game for Mitford’s gleeful satire: I nearly guffawed out loud one night while reading of Linda’s father’s furious war with his maids over the proper handling of fireplace ash, but also let out a very guilty laugh when Linda declares, “Left-wing people are always sad because they mind dreadfully about their causes, and the causes are always going so badly.” As Mitford prances from Linda’s eccentric childhood to the glittering London of the Bright Young Things, and then onward to Spanish refugee camps and a delightful idyll in Paris, she provokes and charms in equal measure, all the way down to her daring, arched eyebrow of an ending.
—Savanna Walker, Managing Editor
Hunger’s Bite
Packed with vampires and secret agents, and with a central, driving mystery set aboard a Titanic-era cruise liner, Hunger’s Bite by author-illustrator Taylor Robin has all the makings of a perfect treat. I recently rediscovered the utter delight of graphic novels. Robin is a master of utilizing color, emotive expressions and personable character designs to convey the horror and humor of a story. Emery Botwright, son of the SS Lark’s captain, and Neeta Pandey have been best friends since childhood. The pair grew up together sailing up, down and across the Atlantic since Neeta’s mother became Emery’s live-in nanny. The SS Lark sets sail on what they think is another typical voyage to New York City, but they quickly learn otherwise when the working conditions of the staff, including Neeta’s older brother, nosedive under the supervision of Mr. Honeycutt, the ship’s new owner. When the mysterious, charming vampire Warwick Farley quite literally rocks the boat, tensions arise between the best friends, the workers and the ship’s management. The narrative and art are highly entertaining, yet Robin doesn’t shy away from weaving complicated moral questions about greed, loyalty and socioeconomic class differences into Hunger’s Bite. I hope it’s not inappropriate to say I devoured it.
—Hailey Pankow, Associate Editor
The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn’t a Guy at All, Vol. 1
People talk a lot about the big emotions of first love—the thrill of connection, the gut wrench of doubt, the bliss of feelings reciprocated. We don’t talk nearly enough, though, about the big emotions of reading the first romance you can see yourself in. For high school-me, that was a web comic, “Band vs. Band,” about the lead singers of rival bands. I cried when the pink-haired singer of the twee band first identified her feelings for her enemy as attraction, singing “It doesn’t make much sense / me thinking you couldn’t / like a bad girl might / but a good girl wouldn’t.” Nothing I’ve read since has recaptured that fizzy tenderness—until The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn’t a Guy at All, Vol. 1 by Sumiko Arai, translated from Japanese by Ajani Oloye. Known to its many fans as “the green yuri” for its distinctive vibrant accent color, this girls love manga follows high schoolers Aya and Mitsuki, who both love rock music. Aya has a crush on a masked, hoodie-wearing record store employee, and has no idea that the object of her interest is the girl she sits next to in school. Over the course of the series, Aya and Mitsuki become friends and then fall in love. It’s every bit as sweet and surprising as it was the first time.
—Phoebe Farrell-Sherman, Associate Editor
I Hope This Finds You Well
Kate Baer’s I Hope This Finds You Well is a delightful work of erasure poetry—when a writer takes an existing text and blacks out or erases most of the words to reveal a new poem formed by the words left behind. Her source material is a variety of original texts, from weight loss ads and political spam emails to comments on social media photos and heartfelt letters from fans. The most satisfying poems arise from rude Instagram direct messages from men challenging Baer’s feminism. For example, in “Re: Fat Girl Smiling in a Bathing Suit” the sender requests an interview while passive-aggressively questioning Baer’s choice to post photos of herself in a swimsuit without asking her husband’s permission. Baer turns this rude message into beauty, leaving us with: “my / husband / sees / my / body / and / gives / Thanks for the opportunity to / know Her.” Boom! I love the way she turns messages intended to be harsh or snarky on their heads, making meaningful retorts from the sender’s own words. Each of Baer’s poems is like a square of dark chocolate—a rich, complex nugget of truth that can be savored on its own but keeps you returning for another bite.
—Larissa Roach, Head of Advertising & Partnerships