Difficult Women by Roxane Gay

Roxane Gay dedicates this collection of short stories "for difficult women, who should be celebrated for their very nature." While it remains unclear what qualifications a woman must meet to be dubbed a "difficult woman," that is a term many of us have heard at least a handful of times in our lives. Perhaps this is why I found the short stories in this collection so personal, relatable, and emotional while at the same time shocking, distant, and sometimes repulsive. These stories delve into the lives and inner workings of a vast cross-section of those classified as "difficult women."

Gay gives us these women, and the other characters who fill the spaces of their lives, all at once. From the sisters recovering from a childhood nightmare or the woman married to her true love's evil twin, to the girl who grew up a part of her father's affair or the surprisingly diverse members of a gated Floridian community, the reader is dropped into the middle of these stories and brought up to speed throughout. It's disorienting at first, familiarizing yourself with your new host and realizing very quickly that something is...off. There is always some behavior or thought process the reader just can't quite understand, something difficult about this woman. By the time the reader has watched the scene play out and gotten a peek behind the curtain, the lines that would define this character to the outside observer are too blurry to even recognize. 

I made a resolution at the beginning of this year to read more materials about people and situations I don't understand, or don't think I could personally relate to. Surprisingly, this collection fit that bill. Though at first glace I thought I couldn't relate to many of these characters, by the end of their stories I either saw myself in them or at the very least understood why I couldn't. I recommend this collection to any woman who has been called "difficult," as well as any person who knows someone who has. If you approach it with an open mind, it can certainly open your eyes as well.

The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters

Just 6 months until a giant asteroid (nicknamed Maia) is scheduled to destroy the Earth, Detective Hank Palace is assigned to investigate the death of Peter Zell. Most of the police force has given up on working too hard, and none of them think Palace should bother with what they believe is clearly a suicide. Something about the scene leads Palace to believe Zell has been murdered, and he is soon on a one man crusade for answers. As many people around the world are leaving their jobs, responsibilities, and even their families behind, Palace insists on working diligently to bring the killer to justice. As he pursues this case to the bitter end, his life is further complicated by his sister, Nico, and the shady characters with whom she has aligned herself.

Although there are myriad post-apocalyptic books to be read, few authors explore a pre-apocalyptic world. Here, the imminent destruction of the world is not just a backdrop, but an integral part of the mystery. People are no longer just living their lives day to day, they are desperate, unpredictable, and forced to make decisions they never thought they would have to face. This is the first book in an engrossing trilogy that will make you start to question what you would do with the knowledge that the whole world is going to end. Would you pursue your chosen career just as diligently as Palace does? Would you run off to New Orleans and party the time away? Or would you do everything you could to ensure your family survived until the last possible moment?

Winters has recently gained a lot of well-deserved praise for his new book Underground Airlines, a thriller set in an alternate current-day America where slavery still exists. Having loved that book, I was interested in reading this award-winning trilogy and was not disappointed. In this trilogy as well as his newest book, Winters uses the sometimes formulaic genre of mystery to take his readers on an existential roller coaster ride.

Posted by Portia Kapraun