Matthew reads, I guess...

  This book joins the collection of books that I have no idea how they came into my orbit, I don't even remember whether this was one of the ones that was sat on my Amazon list for ages. I just got it at some point, I don't know. But still, it's Icebreaker  by A. L. Graziadei. There are a few content warning in the front of this book, so I want to mention them here: Depictions of depression, anxiety and disassociation. Mild suicidal ideation. Underage alcohol abuse. Brief marijuana use. Sports violence. Our blurb says that seventeen-year-old Mickey James III is a college freshman, a brother to five sisters, and a hockey legacy. With a father and a grandfather who have gone down in NHL history, Mickey is almost guaranteed the league’s top draft spot. The only person standing in his way is Jaysen Caulfield, a contender for the number one spot and Mickey’s infuriating (-ly attractive) teammate. Rivalry then leads to something more, forcing Mickey to decide what he really wan...

  I won’t lie, for the longest while, I had no idea what this book was even about. I saw that Janelle Monae was releasing a book, and I’m a fan of their music and I think they’re definitely a really strong lyricist, I was interested in what a book from them would be. And if I haven’t made it clear yet, I’m talking about The Memory Librarian and Other Stories of Dirty Computer by Janelle Monae. Now, at first, I wondered whether this was an autobiography of some kind, or something to that effect, because that’s what the title suggested to me, but it’s not. What I would consider the blurb says a lot, so I’m going to try and cut it down. But in The Memory Librarian, Janelle Monae brings to the written page the Afrofuturistic world of one of their critically acclaimed albums, exploring how different threads of liberation – queerness, race, gender plurality and love – become tangled with future possibilities of memory and time in suck a totalitarian landscape… and what the costs might...