Book Review – Equal Opportunity Reader

[Last Year In Books] 2025 In Books: What I Read In The Midst of The Weird

Scrabble tiles spell out Happy New Year on a black background dotted with sequins

Read time: 12 minutes Man, 2025 was a weird year. The weirdest thing, perhaps, is that I’ve been saying the exact same thing for the past five years. You know how history speaks of the Renaissance, the Dark Ages, the Enlightenment? Fellow readers, I fear that future generations may refer to our era as TheContinue reading “[Last Year In Books] 2025 In Books: What I Read In The Midst of The Weird”

[REVIEW] On Tyranny, by Timothy Snyder

On Tyranny, a small tan academic paperback folio, lies face up on a shelf clogged with other books. Someone has written "Gird Your Loins" on the cover with a sharpie.

(Buy this book here.) This book has been everywhere since last year’s election in the US–indie shops, TikTok diatribes, little free libraries and coffee shop share shelves with snarky messages inked on the cover. Something about the idea of a little book of twenty short lessons on how to stem the tide of tyranny, basedContinue reading “[REVIEW] On Tyranny, by Timothy Snyder”

[REVIEW]Several People Are Typing, by Calvin Kasulke

The black and white Kindle cover of Several People are Typing leans against a laptop screen displaying an empty Slack chat. The cover depicts a series of Slack chat bubbles with odd emojis of wolves, weather, and death symbols interspersed throughout.

(Buy this book here.) Read time: 2 minutes Gerald is trapped in his work Slack chat. Literally. While his body sits dormant in his New York apartment, his consciousness has been fully uploaded to the worst thing about every remote job in America. If he doesn’t find a way out, he’ll be in danger ofContinue reading “[REVIEW]Several People Are Typing, by Calvin Kasulke”

[REVIEW] 107 Days, by Kamala Harris

The Kindle cover of Kamala Harris' memoir, displaying only the words "107 Days" in plain text, sits next to a wide bowl of Caesar salad and a glass of beer.

[Buy this book here] Read time: 5 minutes On July 21, 2024, Kamala Harris was informed that President Joe Biden was dropping out of the race, choosing not to seek re-election. With only 107 days until the vote, Harris accepted the support of the Democratic party and ran a frantic, flawed, and hopeful campaign oppositeContinue reading “[REVIEW] 107 Days, by Kamala Harris”

[REVIEW] Miss Major Speaks, by Miss Major Griffin Gracy and Toshio Meronek

My Black lady hand holds up a paperback copy of Miss Major Speaks. The cover depicts Miss Major at her most glamorous, sometime in the 1960s. The book is held up in front of a row of laundromat washing machines. Gotta get those pages in whenever you can, right?

(Buy this book here.) It’s always weird when someone tries to use demographic as an emblem, rather than a descriptor of experience. It’s reductive and robs us of genuine relationships and the understanding our own history(because like it or not, marginalized history is everyone’s history.) It makes small, unremarkable people too big in our minds,Continue reading “[REVIEW] Miss Major Speaks, by Miss Major Griffin Gracy and Toshio Meronek”

[REVIEW] Gaysians, by Mike Curato

(Buy this book here.) AJ arrives in Seattle, fresh out of the closet and dreaming of art school and self-discovery. On his first venture into a gay bar, he spills a drink on drag queen K, who introduces him to John and Steven. The four of them (and a few others) become a found familyContinue reading “[REVIEW] Gaysians, by Mike Curato”

[REVIEW]Finding American: Stories of Immigration From All 50 States, by Colin Boyd Shafer

A hardback copy of Finding American sits on the knees of the author. The cover phot is a young, ethnically ambiguous woman standing in the middle of an empty American road.

[Buy this book.] I’m sitting here trying to remember the first time I thought of someone I knew as an immigrant and I can’t. Maybe it was my great-aunt Una, who came to New York from Panama just after WWII, from what I’ve been told. Maybe my godmother, a French Canadian who eventually repatriated andContinue reading “[REVIEW]Finding American: Stories of Immigration From All 50 States, by Colin Boyd Shafer”

[REVIEW]The Free People’s Village, by Sim Kern

The bright orange cover of the hardback edition of The Free People's Village, depicting a punk rocker hitting a robot dog with a baseball bat, sits on a blonde wooden table on top of a booksleeve printed with 1940s Black debutantes.

[Buy this book here.] whew This is a BOOK, y’all. The year is 2020, and COVID-19 doesn’t exist. In 2000, Al Gore became president, declaring a War on Climate Change and ushering in 20 years of Democrat control. Infrastructure is totally green, and carbon taxes keep it that way. Sounds great, right? NOPE. Instead ofContinue reading “[REVIEW]The Free People’s Village, by Sim Kern”

[REVIEW] The Dead Cat Tail Assassins, by P. Djèlí Clark

A hardback copy of The Dead Cat Tail Assassins lays on a yellow cushioned ottoman on top of a few other books and a Kindle.

(Buy this book here!) I’m back, annoyed with everything, and politically and emotionally exhausted so let’s talk about a fun book today, fellow readers. An extraordinarily well-written fun book that happens to have won an Alex Award (for adult books that have special appeal to teen readers), but a fun book, nonetheless. Eveen has noContinue reading “[REVIEW] The Dead Cat Tail Assassins, by P. Djèlí Clark”

[REVIEW] Crazy As Hell: The Best Little Guide To Black History, by Hoke S Glover III and V. Efua Prince

The paperback cover of Crazy As Hell, black with bright orange block text, is held by a Black women's hand(my hand) in front of a heaped indie store's bookshelf.

(Buy this book) Black Americans are simultaneously unlikely and affirming, resilient and fragile, cautious and crazy. It’s that last dichotomy that this little book of historical vignettes of Blackness in America delves into. Instead of taking refuge in respectability and uprightness, the authors highlight how much of Black history and its makers are absolutely batshitContinue reading “[REVIEW] Crazy As Hell: The Best Little Guide To Black History, by Hoke S Glover III and V. Efua Prince”