Journalist Lee Daniel Kravetz had recently moved to Palo Alto, California when a cluster of teen suicides, all carried out in the same manner, occurred. Like everyone else in the community, he wondered why it was happening. Strange Contagion is the result of his attempt to make sense of these tragedies and the social viruses behind them. It was disconcerting to learn that social viruses are even a thing. The body catches and fights off viruses all the time; and the mind is part of the body, so the existence of this phenomena makes sense...but it was terrifying to realize they can affect people's actions. Kravetz takes a look at other communities who have experienced "strange contagions" and how they…

Unpopular opinion time: I really didn't like Lily and Dunkin. I gave this book a try (even though it's a transition story written by a cis author) because I'd heard good things about it. I wish I'd set it aside as soon as I started feeling uncomfortable. Warning: Minor spoilers ahead. Lily's transition—her existence, really—centers cis feelings and attitudes, and the author doesn't differentiate at all between gender expression and gender identity. On more than one occasion, genitals are conflated with gender, instead of just allowing room for people to have different types of bodies. (See this Everyday Feminism article for more info.) Once Lily confides in Dunkin and tells him that she's trans, Dunkin's narrative should have changed. I'm not…

Julia Fierro's debut novel, Cutting Teeth, was a super enjoyable read, so I was pretty excited when I heard she had another book coming out. The Gypsy Moth Summer did not disappoint. It takes place in 1992 on a small island off the coast of Long Island, and Fierro's portrayal of the 90s is spot on. She even nailed the cringe-inducing, casual prejudice that infiltrated the speech of the time. I'm around the same age that the main character, Maddie, would be today, so there was a lot of nostalgia going on for me (although my high school experience was completely vanilla in comparison). This book is heavier than Fierro's first novel, and impressively far-reaching. These characters are dealing with classism, sexism, misogyny,…