Gallant by V.E. Schwab (2022, 338 pages)
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Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore by Emily Krempholtz (2025, 368 pages)
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Josie Marcus and her new husband Ted are house hunting in the St. Louis area. Ted's partner at the veterinary clinic, Christine, inherited a house that seems perfect, except for the kitchen. A gazebo in the yard also needs to be removed. After they buy the house, when the renovations are underway, it turns out that there's a body buried under the gazebo steps, and the body is Christine's hippy-ish sister, Rain, who had lived in the house. After a fight between the sisters some months ago, Rain said she was moving to an ashram in California and hasn't been heard from since then.
Christine is arrested for her sister's murder. Josie is determined to find out who really killed Rain. Rain had a couple of iffy boyfriends who are still in the area. The neighbors are worth getting to know, too, in case they have any ideas.
Meanwhile, Josie's 12-year-old daughter Amelia is having bully problems at the private school she attends. And Josie is busy scouring resale shops for mid-century cabinets and appliances to have fixed up and installed in the kitchen.
The conversations between the characters feel real and the action keeps moving. As a bonus, there are numerous reference to St. Louis landmarks by the native St. Louis author.
2025 was QUITE the reading year for UCPL, with what I suspect is a record setting 535 books! See the infographic below to see all sorts of other fun stats about our reading for the year (including the funniest possible line graph and Kara's ALA committee continuing to make her read more books than any human was ever meant to read).
We also have new bonus categories for the new year!
Titles that include a person's name: Examples include Anna Karenina, I Am Malala, Finlay Donovan Is Killing It, and pretty much any biography.
Books that feature cooking: We're looking for any sort of on-page cooking. Be sure to tag your qualifying books to score a bonus point!
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This novel is in the form of a teenaged girl's journal, with entries between 2024 and 2027. Lauren Olamina lives in an unsettling world where food and water are scarce, and safety is never taken for granted, with robbers and arsonists often causing havoc. Her family lives in a walled and gated enclave within the Los Angeles area. Leaving the compound is risky, with bodies frequently found outside the walls. Not everyone has a job where they can work from home, plus they need to leave to get supplies periodically, so the families unite to provide resources including safety patrols. Climate change and drug use has caused some of society's troubles, and the privatization of some cities has led to exploitation of people, where some people opt to work and live in somewhat safer areas, not for money, but for company script (and not much of it).
Lauren has a condition called hyperempathy, where she feels pain that she sees others experiencing. Part of how she deals with life is by developing a religion she calls Earthseed, where she recognizes not a personal god, but a god which is Change.
Little by little, the security of Lauren's neighborhood feels less sure, until all at once, the neighborhood is compromised and the people must flee for their lives. In a place where resources are few and danger is high, watching how those who flee attempt to survive is scary and fascinating.
Sean owns gyms and works out all the time. His friend Rob (also one of his gym clients) is a book editor who is still mourning the death of his husband a year ago, and he's working hard to help one of his writers, Tremble Woodspill, finish her book based on her blog "Life As We Fucking Know It," when he finds out he's fired by Isabelle, a young "sensitivity associate" recently hired by the publishing house.
Sean, the gym owner, who had also been a superhero in a TV series, finds out that his ex-wife, Linda, is getting married to a billionaire, Trone Meston (a nicer version of Steve Jobs or Elon Musk). Sean is still in love with Linda, even though he cheated on her multiple times. These are just some of the characters whose perspective we experience as the story unfolds.
Bring all of these people‒and more‒to the wedding on an island that Trone owns off the coast of Maine, and see what happens. This is a fun book, and I really loved the characters.
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| Stick with us in 2026 for more book recommendations! |
Annie: 6 books, 1951 pages
Byron: 12 books, 2360 pages
Hammy: 3 books, 1047 pages
Jan: 5 books, 1600 pages
Kara: 20 books, 7176 pages
Kevin: 3 books, 961 pages
Regan: 10 books, 4350 pages.
Totals: 59 books, 19445 pages
Edward McPherson's book touches on many subjects that intersect with his love of maps, from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, to maps drawn by artists traveling from town to town in the 1800s, to photos taken from airplanes and satellites.
McPherson interviews an official at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, as well as former homeowners who lived in the footprint of the new facility for the NGA. He also discusses the Cahokia Mounds, which in 1250 was a very large settlement east of St. Louis that was abandoned without any obvious reason. There's also a discussion of the Civil War battle at Gettysburg, and how a mapmaker came onto the battlefield two days later, sketching out what had happened based on the bodies of men and horses still lying on the ground.
Some of McPherson's strongest views come from cameras recording citizens going about their day-to-day activities, including in our own city (St. Louis). He is concerned about Project Maven, an AI endeavor that attempts to harness machine learning and computer vision to teach drones appropriate targets to hit in wartime. He is especially concerned that drones piloted by AI make far less accurate guesses about targets than those that are piloted by humans: 60% (or much less depending on the weather) versus 84%.
McPherson teaches creative writing at Washington University. His book is thoughtful and somewhat lyrical, and a bit difficult to describe, but well worth the read.
Louisa wasn't looking for trouble when she got thrown out of the auction. She just wanted to see the painting, up close and in person, once before starting her new life. In the moments before she was kicked out, though, Louisa saw more of the painting than she ever had in the small postcard version of it she'd kept with her in the foster home. She had always focused on the three friends in the picture, somewhat hidden from most viewers, but now she could see the tiny, intricate details of it all in full display. Somehow, getting thrown out ends up setting Louisa on a journey across the country where she learns about the summer portrayed in the famous painting, and the group of friends whose love made it possible.
This is a story about believing in people, even when you don't much believe in yourself. It is about friendship and love sustaining against all odds. It is about art, and it is about grief, and it is about connecting with others. It is a funny, sad, hopeful tale of the summer that created a painting and the friendship which formed twenty five years later because of that painting. Fredrik Backman does a great job of balancing deep, introspective, heavy moments with light-hearted, silly jokes. He writes a beautiful story which paints a beautiful picture.
Four events hold the center of this novel of Appalachia, AI, and a militant cult:
