Expectation: The lauded writer swapping complex family dramas for a gauzy faux-Hollywood story.
Reality: Sentimental and affecting, it felt like a warm hug every time I revisited Lara’s past, even though not every memory is rose-colored.
Our Town – Thornton Wilder
Expectation: Honestly, I had no idea what to expect having somehow missed all productions and required readings of this classic play for more than 40 years.
Reality: It’s easy to interpret Wilder’s words as cursory but that’s a lazy examination of the masterful story he told here.
Big Swiss – Jen Beagin
Expectation: A quirky comedy about voyeurism and self-discovery.
Reality: The epitome of dark comedy, the back half is chock full of sex, lies and violence, which makes it sound a lot more intriguing than it ultimately was.
Chlorine – Jade Song
Expectation: A horror story of a high school swimmer turning into a bloodthirsty mermaid in an act of rage.
Reality: Aimless and boring, a few body gore sections weren’t enough to keep me interested before throwing in the towel.
Nobody Gets Out Alive: Stories – Leigh Newman
Expectation: A companion to Kristin Hannah’s “The Great Alone,” with a focus on women taming the last frontier and the men around them.
Reality: Highly nuanced character studies that are more intimate than adventurous. Alaska looms large, but these probably aren't the stories you expect them to be.
Anoka – Shane Hawk
Expectation: An anthology of loosely connected stories all set in the Halloween Capital of the World.
Reality: The setting isn’t leveraged as much as anticipated (although there are a few nice winks for locals) but Shane Hawk showed promise with this somewhat even horror collection.
And Then There Were None – Agatha Christie
Expectation: A classic whodunit of misdirection, mystery and murder.
Reality: An expertly plotted slow burn that holds up nearly 100 years after its publication.
It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror – Joe Vallese
Various queer writers dissect and debate the overt and obvious subtexts of both mainstream and art house fare with a mixture of analysis and theory. Many of the essays veer into the personal, showing how important the horror genre is to out and proud queers of a certain age.
What Moves the Dead – T. Kingfisher
Expectation: A queer retelling of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Fall of House of Usher.”
Reality: Shortcomings of the gothic horror genre aside (for this reader anyway), there was nothing “moving” about this uninspired novella.
Our Wives Under the Sea – Julia Armfield
Expectation: A supernatural horror story focused on a lesbian couple navigating the devastating aftermath of an extended trip under the sea.
Reality: Slowly plotted and more literary than mindless, this is for people who like their horror light and their emotions heavy.
Chain-Gang All-Stars – Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Expectation: A dark dystopian view of mass incarceration as blood sport entertainment.
Reality: While crammed a little too full of characters and plots, a highly creative concept, four stellar characters and a fantastic audiobook narration made this an engrossing read.
Elegy for the Undead – Matthew Vesely
Expectation: A survival story about husbands navigating life before one of them turns into a zombie.
Reality: Come for the mediocre zombies but stay for the love story. The strongest aspects of this novella focus on the relationship of the main characters, not their circumstances.
Yes, Daddy – Jonathan Parks-Ramage
Expectation: A queer #MeToo revenge thriller rooted in the worlds of BDSM, wealth and privilege.
Reality: B-movie sensibilities that feel incoherent and for shock value pivot to an engrossing exploration of repercussions from religious and sexual trauma.
Pageboy – Elliot Page
Readers should know this is as much a cautionary tale about Hollywood as it is about not living an authentic life. Sure, there’s celebrity gossip — the juiciest details of which have already been reported in the press — but that’s not why people should read this. Instead, read it to celebrate Page’s courage.
Lessons in Chemistry – Bonnie Garmus
Expectation: A dramedy celebrating the life of a norm-busting female scientist in the 1950s and 1960s.
Reality: What was a expected but with the addition of a talking dog (bonus), but I was let down by how conveniently Garmus tied up the plots and how most characters remained two-dimensional.
Punching the Air – Ibi Zoboi
Expectation: An exploration of criminal justice inequities framed around the true story of one of the “Central Park jogger” teens.
Reality: While the verses are beautiful, the story and characterizations fell victim to typical YA tropes versus breaking new ground.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon
Expectation: A light-hearted English mystery.
Reality: Darker than expected with a somewhat problematic undertone.
A Single Man – Christopher Isherwood
Expectation: A queer classic focused on a middle aged man trying to find connection with one of his students.
Reality: The day-in-the-life structure is as tedious as it is engrossing, but this rightly deserves to be in the canon of exceptional queer literature.
The Atmospherians – Isle McElroy
Expectation: A dark comedy dismantling social media influencer culture.
Reality: A mix of ideas that don’t always meld together nicely but debut author Isle McElroy took some risks with plot and characterization that paid off.
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic – Alison Bechdel
Alison Bechdel’s seminal graphic memoir about coming out and family secrets has been banned in libraries because of its nudity and depictions of consensual sex, but it is an important deconstruction about the ripple effect of code-switching and life in the closet.