When you’ve been writing for long enough, or once you’ve read enough how-to books for writers, you start to notice just how similar all the “different” advice you’re getting sounds. In Damn Fine Story: Mastering the Tools of a Powerful Narrative, veteran writer Chuck Wendig has crafted an irreverent guide to the one thing every writer should be striving for: how to tell good stories.
“Lesbian necromancers in space.” It’s one hell of a tagline, and it’s exactly what it sounds like. The space-faring fantasy debut from Tamsyn Muir, Gideon the Ninth is a tale of intrigue, murder, greasepaint, and … well … Gideon.
The latest in a long line of Instagram-serialized comics that have been turned into books, Woman World by Aminder Dhaliwal makes a worthy addition to the 21st century graphic novel canon. Full of lively characters and a philosophy of inclusivity, Woman World is an utter delight to read.
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The beauty of Soppy author Philippa Rice‘s Sister BFFs lies in its near-universal appeal. The dynamic between the illustrated Rice and her sister worked for this reader — a not-quite-only child with only one same-generation sibling — as a reflection of the BFF relationships I maintain. Although I highly recommend this book as a co-read for close siblings, Sister BFFs is as much an exploration of friendship as of kinship.
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Han Kang, Min Jin Lee, and Crystal Hana Kim have given us their own unique glimpses into the Korean peninsula’s history and present, but few novels of South Korea have gone to so dark a place as Ancco‘s semi-autobiographical work, Bad Friends. This brief, striking vision of South Korea’s early Sixth Republic presents a side of the country rarely seen in the West, one driven by alcohol, drugs, and prostitution.
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