Slip: Life in the Middle of Eating-Disorder Recovery by Mallary Tenore Tarpley (Simon Element). Reviewed by Frances Thomas. “For those with chronic food and body struggles, a salient benchmark for getting better might be what Tarpley calls ‘the middle place’: a liminal space between sickness and full recovery, where ‘hope and hardship coexist, slips are expected, and progress is possible.’ It’s a place where Tarpley has lived for many years, as chronicled in the book’s piercingly interior sections of personal backstory. It’s a place where I, too, hold citizenship. Having been in recovery from anorexia for nearly two decades, I read Slip rapidly, raptly, and downright hungrily, riveted by its articulation of a recovery narrative that refuses a tied-up-with-a-bow (which is to say falsified) resolution.”

Baldwin: A Love Story by Nicholas Boggs (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). Reviewed by Kitty Kelley. “Having mastered his subject, Boggs movingly presents Baldwin as the avatar of Black queer literary history and breathes new life into the genre with a volume that will enrich scholarship for the LGBTQ+ community. As John F. Kennedy said, ‘In serving his vision of the truth, the artist best serves his nation,’ and Nicholas Boggs serves all of us with his love story of James Baldwin.”

The Mapmaker: A Novel of World War II by Tom Young (Knox Press). Reviewed by Lawrence De Maria. “Each chapter is built around a character. Frenchwoman Charlotte Denneau, the book’s titular mapmaker, draws critical maps for the Allies and is being hunted by the Gestapo. She’s one step ahead of the Nazis and their collaborator henchmen. In her scramble across occupied France, she must balance the lives of the Resistance fighters helping her against the need to protect her drawings of potential bombing targets. D-Day is approaching, and her sketches may be crucial to the Allied effort.”

Rehab: An American Scandal by Shoshana Walter (Simon & Schuster). Reviewed by William Rice. “The pursuit of profit has overridden the duty to provide humane and effective care in too many cases, Walter finds. And lethargic or nonexistent government regulation — by bureaucrats with an interest in not being bothered — has let it happen. Her answer is an old and simple one: generate enough public pressure through work like hers to force legislators and regulators to do their jobs and make rehabilitation programs the boons to private and public health they’re supposed to be. The author has a track record of bringing scandals to light.”

A Case of Mice and Murder: The Trials of Gabriel Ward by Sally Smith (Bloomsbury Publishing). Reviewed by Paul D. Pearlstein. “With its unique Inner Temple setting, A Case of Mice and Murder is an exciting story full of suspense, head-scratching complexity, and Dickensian coincidences, one that leaves readers guessing until the very end (which wraps up a bit too tidily). Having spent considerable time with its many interesting characters, I’m ready for more. Happily, a series is in the works, meaning we haven’t heard the last from barrister/sleuth Gabriel Ward.”

Sunbirth: A Novel by An Yu (Grove Press). Reviewed by Nicole Yurcaba. “Anchored in curiosity and wonder, Sunbirth is keenly introspective and strangely mesmerizing — a poetic, necessary call to ‘absorb the world, to endlessly store everything’ around us. With its tantalizing story of families, secrets, and a world thrown into turmoil, Yu’s novel is a must-read work of speculative fiction.”

A Truce That Is Not Peace by Miriam Toews (Bloomsbury Publishing). Reviewed by Patricia Ann McNair. “The book’s six sections dip into their own unique content and themes that overlap and heighten the memoir as a whole. We come to understand that the author’s identity was formed in a similar, patched-together way — her family religion (Mennonite) and roles (daughter, wife, sister, mother, grandmother, partner), as well as her need to create, are all part of who she is now: hopeful, grief-struck, and persevering.”

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