Until They Sleep by Nadia Staikos
Trapped in a conservative, religious society, Frona has no one to ask if her desire for men is normal. If her lust is proper – and she’s convinced it will be the things that damns her.
Coming of Age
Throwback: Excerpts from a Burned Letter by Joelle Barron
Within a faith tradition that sees only two genders, and from the purview of a small northern community, what can a young person know about themselves and their possibilities?
Throwback: After We Drowned by Jill Yonit Goldberg
Covering the same sort of stark wasteland, both economic and emotional, Goldberg subverts expectations time and again by delineating a tangible humanity in the lost souls she describes.
Seven Heavens Away by Ashraf Zaghal
The novel is set in 2015-2016, a time when Israeli forces began restricting access to Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem. Aziz, a young man at odds with his father, witnesses, alongside his friend Mustafa, the murder of their friend Hassan at the hands of an Israeli soldier.
A Friend of Dorothy’s by Richard Willett
The focus of the book is that compassionate curiosity of the narrator Eric as he tries to puzzle out his life, his times.
Dengue Boy by Michel Nieva, trans. Rahul Bery
An object of disgust, Dengue Boy is marked from birth as an outcast. Beset by a sudden thirst for blood, which only female mosquitoes possess, Dengue Boy realizes in adolescence that she is really Dengue Girl and sets out to exact her revenge on the wealthy people and tourists for whom her mother toils tirelessly.
Under the Full and Crescent Moon by Aamir Hussain
A work of historical fiction, the setting is a place Hussain has imagined where matriarchy plays an important role.
In the Western Night by Nolan D. Insyte
Nolan D. Insyte conjures a milieu that feels at once raw and surreal, calling to mind the spectral streets of Dylan’s Desolation Row and, in a sly echo of the author’s own forward, Wilde’s Vera; or, The Nihilists, where misfits and nihilists collide in a kind of gauzy, narcotic ballet.
Starry Starry Night by Shani Mootoo
I think one of the hardest things to write is from the viewpoint of a child.
Declan Tucker’s Grand Debut by William Wodhams
Wodhams has woven a fine, rich tapestry of a story. Declan is a split-screen; a fish out of water crossed with loveable artist, who has very high hopes.
The Northern by Jacob McArthur Mooney
The Northern, which in a sense is a bildungsroman, serves also as an examination of contemporary masculinity.
Open, Heaven by Seán Hewitt
With their time together limited, teenage tragedy is inevitable – yet James becomes more himself with each passing day.
Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley
In her self-portrait from a chronological distance, Percy celebrates a semi-misspent youth—all of its fiery enthusiasms and blind alleys, its dramas and earnestness, its lessons learned, misunderstandings, messiness, unbridled pleasures, and excesses. And, yes, humiliations.
