Recent Reads #45 | The good, the bad, and the ugly

A sharp split emerges across these October reads: several books win praise for language, form, and emotional precision, while others are criticized for flattening characters and—most severely—using stereotypes in ways the reviewer finds morally and artistically indefensible.

The most pointed negative reaction lands on Brom’s “Slow Foot.” Set in a Puritan village during an apparent witch trial, it blends demonic entities (“The Wild folk”) with a supernatural framing that, in the reviewer’s view, turns into a pro-Christian, anti-Indigenous story. Indigenous characters are described as stereotyped—naive and “childishly” spiritual—and the plot’s supernatural logic is treated as reinforcing harmful ideas: Indigenous people are cast as invaders to demonic beings, while the Puritans are positioned as the ones facing a genuine threat because Satan is real in this world. The reviewer argues that this structure makes the Puritans “right” in a way that can’t be excused by historical setting, and that the book’s framing never meaningfully grapples with colonization from the perspective of the groups it depicts. Beyond the offense, the criticism extends to craft: predictable plot beats, flat characters, and writing the reviewer calls mediocre.

Other books receive more mixed verdicts. Elizabeth V. Aldrich’s novella “Ruthless Little Things” is described as an experimental, fever-dream cascade of sex, drugs, and stream-of-consciousness poetry. The reviewer wanted more queer literature and felt the pain beneath the hedonism, but says the stakes and emotional “grounding” are too abstract. As the novella shifts into poems, the second half feels disjointed and, in their view, emotionally unearned—something that would have worked better as a standalone poetry collection.

Sarah Freeman’s “Times” earns admiration for its precise, dreamy vignettes, but the reviewer says the style prevents tension from building and makes later events feel unearned. James Lee Mather’s “Uncertain King,” by contrast, is praised for subtle strangeness: domestic scenes in the Bahamas carry a “tinge of weirdness” that makes them urgent, with cross-generational relationships recurring throughout. The standout story “boyo” is singled out as exceptional.

On the poetry side, Hanif Abdurraqib’s “Vintage Sadness” is celebrated as a free ebook and recommended as an accessible entry point into his work. The reviewer highlights how the poems start from mundane images and expand in scope, culminating in a powerful long final poem structured as an exchange between a poet and editor.

Several later picks lean toward form-driven experimentation and character dynamics. Sama L. Wardani’s “These Impossible Things” is fast and centered on three Muslim women at major life turning points, but the reviewer finds the tone too contemporary for their usual taste and complains that male characters are either “perfect” or “suck,” leaving little romantic tension. Tupelo Hassman’s “Gods with Little G” begins promisingly with a floaty, Camino-like feel in an evangelical town where media is cut off; yet the reviewer says the setting’s pressure fades and the middle slows. Billy Ray Bell Court’s “Minor Chorus” is described as essayistic and braided—more illumination than narrative—while Eliza Clark’s “Boy Parts” is praised for its unhinged, charismatic photographer protagonist whose control spirals into collapse. Ian Lee’s “The Book of Goose” closes the list with a luminous, nuanced girlhood story about friendship, authorship, and the burden of another person’s thoughts, even if the reviewer sometimes wishes it pushed further.

Overall, the throughline is craft and ethics: when language and structure deepen character and emotion, these books land. When framing becomes predictable or stereotypes are treated as supernatural truth, the reviewer’s disappointment turns sharp.