MULE BOY – Andrew Krivak

“… because their parents no doubt told them I was and was not to blame and so why go into a past where nothing and no one can be reclaimed…”

Andrew Krivak’s Mule Boy (Bellevue Literary Press 2026) is a marvel, and it will undoubtedly be in my top reads of the year.  Possibly of the decade. I don’t think there are current plans for publication in the UK, so it is not Booker eligible. Pity.  This book drips Booker type.  Told in incantatory prose, Mule Boy is one long sentence, a story rising on the raged breath of memory and falling like a prayer or a poem on the reader – a chant of fear, forgiveness and guilt wrapped into a memento mori. I loved every last bit of it.

In 1929, 13-year-old Ondro Prach begins a new job as mule boy. He is no stranger to the danger in the mines, but he and his mother need the money. The mule is named Wicked, and Ondro speaks to him in Slavic and gives him carrots. He earns not only the trust and respect of the mule, but of the four miners he works closely with.  When disaster strikes, Ondro is the only one to walk out alive.  “Just the mule boy,” they say to the wails of family.

Survivor’s guilt and memories of what happened when he was trapped in the mine with the dying men haunt Ondro throughout his life. When he is jailed after refusing to fight in the war, he meets a man who helps him process his memories and his life – a man who also secures his release from jail – with Ondro ultimately serving out his sentence as a ranger.  Over the years, the family members of the dead seek him out.  They want his memories.  They want the last moments, last words. And Ondro gives them what they seek – the truth. Ondro is waiting for one woman, though, to show up at his door. The one he loves and who once loved him. The daughter of a miner.

Ondro is a fascinating character. The son of immigrants, survivor of a mine disaster, conscientious objector, reader of Shakespeare and a Hebrew scholar, he is multi-faceted and so masterfully depicted.   And the writing thrums just under your skin – lulling, cajoling and hypnotic. And oh so alive.

Read this book.

THE LAST OF EARTH – Deepa Anappara

“What had these stars not seen before? Life and death, bonds broken and repaired, and men who drew maps who couldn’t find their way home.”

Deepa Anappara’s The Last of Earth (Random House 2026) is a really interesting slice of Tibetan history and colonization. It is beautifully rendered, but it just moved a bit too slowly for me.

Set in 1869, the novel follows two adventurers – Balram, an Indian schoolteacher who is serving as a surveyor-spy for the English, and Kathleen, a mixed-race woman who is seeking to become the first European woman to reach Lhasa.  Both really bring questions of gender and race into the discourse surrounding expanding the British Empire, and their journeys are parallel, occasionally overlapping.

During this time, Tibet was closed to Europeans. Because of this, the English began training Indians as surveyor-spies – individuals who could cross the border, and who would conduct covert land studies for the British. Balram is one such spy, and he has worked for the British for several years. His close friend, Gyan, also worked as a surveyor-spy. Gyan was captured and is rumored to still be alive and held as a prisoner by the monks. Balram intends to find him and secure his release. To that end, he agrees to guide an Englishman who is hellbent on entering the country. It’s a dangerous, potentially deadly mission as the Englishman’s disguise will fool no one. Still, Balram agrees.

Kathleen has been denied a fellowship in the all-male Royal Geographical Society, and she crafts a disguise of her own to enter into Tibet and reach Lhasa. Kathleen is mixed-race, and her natural darker skin, older features (she’s 50), and the fact she’s female means no one really questions her. She hires a guide who pretends to be her son, and they set out. She has had wanderlust her entire life, and she has had some fame publishing her adventures.

Along the way, both parties encounter Chetak and a snow leopard. I’m not going to spoil who Chetak is or the significance of the snow leopard, but they are both interesting threads that tie the novel together.

One of the things I enjoyed most about the novel is how the sections are framed – Balram frequently addresses Gyan, who may or may not be dead, and Kathleen addresses her sister, Ethel, who died whilst Kathleen had been on another adventure. Both Balram and Kathleen are heavy with guilt and shame, and those emotions lace the pages.

This is a really interesting historical novel and Anappara writes beautifully, but it did miss the mark for me.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF COTTON – Cristina Rivera Garza

“Desire, which has been his guide during the hours of riding on horseback across the plains, leaves him no peace. Desire fires him, cuts him to pieces, lambastes him. Desire opens up his imagination and closes down his fear.”

Cristina Rivera Garza’s Autobiography of Cotton (translated by Christina MacSweeney, originally published in Spanish in 2020, English in 2026) is a fictionalized accounting of Rivera Garza’s grandparents in the 1930s. Rivera Garza is chasing down breadcrumbs, filing in the gaps of memory and written histories with a fictionalized account. The novel is partly about the unique agricultural government experiment that her grandfather was a part of, the politics surrounding the experiment, the power of the “white gold” cotton, and the strike,  and also partly about migration, erasure of identities, and the buried stories of resilience in a land that was, at times, both unforgiving and home.

The novel is bit genre-bending, and there are sections that read as if pulled from a history text.  Interspersed in these dry sections are moments of raw humanity – a woman finding the marriage certificate of her grandparents and becoming alarmed that it reads “by abduction.” Marriage by abduction was common in rural areas during this time as couples eloped; but the distinction also applied to forced marriages and stolen flesh.  Rivera Garza also learns that her grandfather was indigenous – a fact that had been wiped out of the archives. There are additional discussions concerning how names changed, dates changed, birth places changed, etc with each piece of documentation  she finds.

It’s an interesting novel, but I wish it had dabbled in the fictional retelling more.

GLIFF – Ali Smith

“The words are only bits of words, lines of blurred or smeary words with the occasional whole word.”

When the publisher sent me an advanced copy of Ali Smith’s upcoming release, Glyph, I knew I needed to read the companion novel, Gliff (2024 Penguin Random House) first. It is my understanding that the novels are standalones, but Gliff is a novel that exists within the world of Glyph.  I don’t regret my decision – I positively adored Gliff.

This is going to surprise you, but this was my very first Ali Smith novel. I know, right?  Her previous Booker appearances were prior to me becoming invested in the entire longlist, and she seems to have been active  during what I call my “dark ages” – marking the time I broke up with reading for a bit. So despite a very lauded career, she is a new to me author.

Gliff is set in a terrifying dystopian near-future. The novel follows two siblings, Briar/Brice/Bri and Rose, who have been abandoned by their mother’s boyfriend, Lief. The world is drawing bright lines, quite literally painting red lines to demarcate those considered UVs (unverifiables). UVs are people who have been outspoken, political activists, conservationists, on the grid, etc – basically anyone who bucks the system and doesn’t let “big brother” in or rubs someone, likely a man, the wrong way. Their mother had previously worked for a weedkiller company. While pregnant with Rose, she learned the truth about the product and became a whistleblower. She is a wanted UV. Because she learned the truth prior to her second child’s birth, there is no record of Rose in existence. When the novel opens, the siblings are leaving their mother at a hotel, where she is covering for her sister, Alana. The novel opens with the importance of family, particularly siblings, and that thread never frays.

Lief takes the children to an abandoned house and promises he will be back for them. There are horses next door and Rose befriends a grey gelding she names Gliff. The horses are being raised for slaughter, and Bri and Rose make a plan to purchase the pony from the neighbor boy, Colon/Colin, whose friendship is a risky one.

Bri is recalling this moment in their life after having pushed memories of their childhood and their sister from their head. They have been living as male, advancing in the very system their mother tried to protect them from by becoming the very thing they hated. There is a very small line about the things Bri endured in the void (the place where folks go to do the things that must remain secret) to get to where they are, to somehow convince the system they are verifiable – and it is extremely powerful how they mention it for what it was and refuse to talk about it further.   When a woman who knew Rose is hired, memories come flooding back, and Bri makes a choice.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. I wish Glyph was a continuation, but I know in my heart of hearts that Rose and Gliff have found the birds and trees, and they are waiting for Bri.

DOGS, BOYS, AND OTHER THINGS I’VE CRIED ABOUT – Isabel Klee

As a follower of Isabel Klee, I enjoyed some parts of her upcoming memoir, Dogs, Boys, and Other Things I’ve Cried About (a big thanks to William Morrow for this advanced copy). As a reader, I was disappointed.

Let’s talk about it.

The cover is absolutely fantastic – it is truly perfect. And it does capture the essence of the memoir, which is a love letter to New York City, dogs, and girlhood.

Now to the memoir itself. There isn’t much substance. It’s rather fluffy, at times incredibly shallow and self-indulgent, and spends far more time telling than showing.  There are sections where it read like she was struggling to reach a word count and meet a deadline.  I would have loved more information about the eight years she spent as an assistant to The Dogist, her rise to internet fame and how she struggled with that (and how her relationships were impacted – we see that a little with a brief note that Jacob was upset she didn’t mention him on Instagram), more about her female friends, and, much like Aunt Susan, TELL ME ABOUT THE DOGS. We get brief snippets of the dogs that tie in some life lesson, frequently a love lesson, but there is a disconnect between the dog, the lesson, and the story.

This is the problem: just because you are an influencer, doesn’t mean you should write a memoir.  She did not pitch this – an agent contacted her.  Now Klee studied creative writing,  and she is a talented writer – I don’t want to take that away from her.  But I don’t think a memoir was necessarily the best foot forward, and I think this was rushed to ride the Tiki-wave of virality.  (Hence the cover featuring Tiki and shoehorned section about Tiki.)

That said, it will sell well because of her following.  I think the audio will do extremely well because Klee narrates it and she has a very distinctive and lovely cadence to her narration.  So perhaps it wasn’t a bad idea for that agent. I do think I am done with influencer memoirs, doggy or not.

But that cover… perfection.

As a note because I am a dog person – (Not saying any or all of this is found in the memoir…)

  • Adopt don’t shop is dangerous propaganda
  • Support responsible rescues and responsible breeders
  • A dog doesn’t need a “back story” to be worth rescuing (ex. hurricane dogs, street dogs, “insert some horrible backstory” dog…)
  • Rescues should not be importing dogs
  • Pets aren’t props
  • Parasocial relationships are bad

A BEAST SLINKS TOWARDS BEIJING – Alice Evelyn Yang

“No, can’t go in there. Too close. Start somewhere else.”

“If they killed her now, she would leak river instead of blood.”

“The way Nǎinai said Mother’s name shifted alongside her memory.”

Alice Evelyn Yang’s debut novel, A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing (William Morrow 2026) is going to hold space in my head for a long while. This magical realism, folklore laden, historical jaunt through generational trauma has teeth, and sharp ones; it doesn’t slink, it roars. What an unexpected delight this novel was.  It is not a fun novel in subject matter, but how Yang presents the family saga, weaving in folklore and blood-soaked history that includes both the Red Guard and the Japanese Occupation, is a reader’s delight.  At least this reader.  I’ve always found good storytelling akin to magic.  And this is magic.

Centered around Qianze and her father, who shows up eleven years after leaving her and her mother on her fourteenth birthday, the novel presents a generational curse, a prophecy that has kissed three generations that neither opium nor alcohol has been able to kill, and a demon. Often barely lucid, Weihong, tells his daughter a history as he tries to remember the prophecy. The novel jumps around a timeline that covers nearly eighty years, shifting animals biting at each turn, while threads of love and hope (albeit often very frayed threads) hold it together.

Like any good magic, this shouldn’t be spoiled. I hope to see this novel on many a longlist this awards season.

THE TEN YEAR AFFAIR – Erin Somers

“The mountain that saw everything turned from green to rust, from rust to brown, from brown to green again.”

Erin Somers’s The Ten Year Affair (Simon & Schuster 2025) was on my radar simply because of my goal of reading more Booker eligible litfic. While I could see this being listed, I didn’t like it.  The novel is well written – Somers is extremely talented – and there are some parts that I really loved.  (Cora smelling her fingers to see if they smelled like cinnamon from Sam’s toothpick, for example.) But I didn’t care about any of the characters, and that just made reading this a chore.

Let me be clear, it’s not the adultery that’s the problem – the characters are simply all meh in this “is the grass greener” tale of two couples.  Cora meets Sam at a baby group, and she is immediately almost obsessively attracted to him. He refuses to cross that line, maintaining that he’d rather have her friendship, and they are “just friends” for years. But Cora has an active imagination and she creates an alternate reality where the affair is all-consuming.  

This domestic fiction gives us what is really happening and then what Cora imagines would be happening in the world with the affair. Halfway through the novel, the worlds shift – the affair becomes real after a drunken joint 40th birthday party for Sam and Cora’s husband, Eliot. The affair doesn’t end her alternate reality, but a new alternate emerges – one where she is happily married, and her and Eliot are planning for a third baby.

It’s easy to keep an imaginary affair secret. It’s not so easy when the affair is in real life. As expected, there’s a fallout. I, for one, was so happy when the affair began in earnest because I knew the fallout and the end of the book would soon be upon me.

I did not care about Cora, Eliot, Sam, and Jules even the slightest.

HOW TO COMMIT A POSTCOLONIAL MURDER – Nina McConigley


“Because you always seem to want to take what I give you and translate it into something else, something that fits your narrative, you can have it.”

“It is an acknowledged truth that to be a girl is to be extracted. Girls, we are taken.”

“And if you’re lost, if you have no idea what I’m talking about… If you’re wondering what the big deal is … It’s browness. It’s being the Other. It’s having to perform. It’s what happens when people are split, when countries are split. I have been performing forever. My own little dance. But I’m going to stop now. You can take it. I’ve been taking it my whole life.”

Nina McConigley’s debut novel, How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder (Pantheon Books 2026 – huge thanks to the publisher for the gifted copy) is a tightly wired explosive device of a narrative.  It is an unflinching, in your face, “look at me when I am talking to you” story that side-eyes the reader while at the same time taking the reader’s hand – an unapologetic reassurance that is intentionally uncomfortable. Don’t let the size of the novel fool you – it’ll punch you in the face, and it will leave a mark.

I don’t typically post trigger warnings.  I understand why people do, but I typically don’t.  You may want to review them if this novel is on your radar; the story centers around the sexual molestation of two young girls by their uncle, and how they kill him.  (That’s not really a spoiler. I promise.)

Set in 1986 in Wyoming, and following Georgie and her sister, Agatha, named for their mother’s two favorite writers, How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder has a nostalgic feel of childhood, which makes it hit harder. It’s the power and secrets of sisterhood and girlhood, the generational trauma of colonialism, and the “Otherness” of being brown in America that all combine to make this a powder keg.

This novel is not for everyone, but it’s a top read for me.  And an early contender for my Booker predictions.

CURSED DAUGHTERS – Oyinkan Braithwaite

“She was a mermaid – queen of song and sea, goddess of the gill-bearing vertebrates, mistress of the hearts of men.”

After a couple of “meh” BOTM reads (I’m trying to clear a backlist), I read one that reminded me why I keep the membership. Oyinkan Braithwaite’s Cursed Daughters (Doubleday 2025) gave me absolutely everything I love in a novel. It’s rich in culture, strongly rooted in time and place, with a storytelling that recalls oral traditions that always get my attention. There’s generational trauma and a curse, strong women, magical realism, sharp writing, heart for days, and a dog that seems immortal. When I say I was hooked, I was hooked. Not to mention, Mami Wata is by far one of my favorite folklore characters the world over.

This is my first Braithwaite, but her first novel My Sister, the Serial Killer was longlisted for my beloved Booker Prize.  (It was before I committed to reading the entire longlist each year.) This novel is reportedly significantly different from that novel, but this follow-up novel seems to cement her as a serious literary talent that won’t be boxed in as any one type of writer. And I love to see it.

As for the novel itself, I don’t want to spoil it; it needs to spread out before you like a water stain from a slow leak.  But I will give a brief summary – Monife and Ebun are cousins who live with their mothers in the family home. They’ve grown up in the shadow of a curse like their mothers before them – “no man will call your house home. And if they try, they will not have peace.” One night, a heartbroken Monife walks into the water and drowns. (This is how the novel opens, so it’s not really a spoiler.) On the day they bury her, Ebun goes into labor – delivering a girl who is undeniably the spitting image of Monife. Rumors and whispers fly that the baby, named Enniyi, is Monife reincarnated. Eniiyi spends her life trying to cleave the ghost of her aunt from her while also trying to outrun the family curse.

Cursed Daughters is brilliant, well-written and extremely palatable with a pace and unfolding of a story that is about perfect. And that cover… now she is absolutely stunning.

Read this book.

CRUX – Gabriel Tallent

“Waiting was death, and total commitment his only chance.”

I don’t know what I expected with Gabriel Tallent’s Crux (Riverhead 2026), but it wasn’t what I got. The more I think about the novel, the more I have issues with it, so I’m going to get this out before I completely hate it. I said earlier it’s a bit My Girl meets Dawson’s Creek meets Demon Copperhead meets climbing, and it could work.  If someone else wrote it.

Quick summary: Tamma and Dan are best friends, like their mothers had been before they fell out. Dan is the “golden child” and the “only hope” of his parents. Tamma is crass, rough, and unlikely to rise above the white trash life she’d been born into. Dan’s parents tell him she will only hold him back. The two friends find escape in climbing – a frenzied obsession for Tamma and a mental health grounding exercise for Dan. As high school seniors, they are at a crossroads – college or climb for Dan, and domesticity or adventure for Tamma. They are at the crux of their young lives – the most difficult part of the climb.

Things I liked: The cover. The details with the climbing. The concept.

Things that didn’t work for me: How Tamma is written like a twelve-year-old boy. The dialogue. Dan’s long-winded epiphanies about his mother and himself. The relationship between Dan and Tamma. How Tallent writes women in general. Did I mention the dialogue?

I think the novel could have been stronger with two male leads because there is such an intensity in same sex friendships in high school.  The same concepts of golden child and white trash on the cusp of the moment when everything is going to change would still apply. And it would remove a lot of what I disliked about the novel. 

As for Tamma, she had the potential to be a great character with a great story. I want someone to pick her up, dust her off, and do her justice.