Quirky books for oddballs & outcasts

Maybe you’re a weirdo - or maybe you just love the nerds. Here are some books for you!

🔥 Sisters of the Lost Nation by Nick Medina

🔥 This is a heart-wrenching mystery following an outcast fighting for her identity and the life of her little sister. A haunting, enraging, captivating debut.

🔥 Anna is a young Native girl struggling to find a place where she belongs. She’s haunted by childhood campfire stories and teenage girls who have never come home, her vicious peers turn high school into torture, and she has growing suspicions about her boss at the casino. When her little sister Grace goes missing, Anna has to channel all her strength to bring her home. But between the boundaries of rez police, the sneering & haughty town cops, and the piles of missing person flyers that have never been resolved - it feels like an impossible job.

🔥 This is a story about monstrous legends … and the real, all-too-human villains that haunt Native communities. It’s an emotional piece - and while the characters and events were fictional, the trauma of missing & murdered indigenous women is incredibly real. It will enrage you and devastate you.

🐦‍⬛ The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei

🐦‍⬛ Get ready to send yourself into a tailspin as you try to unravel the truth in this fast-paced sci-fi thriller.

🐦‍⬛ Asuka is a skilled crew member of The Phoenix, a ship carrying eighty young graduates of EvenStar, an elite academy created by a wealthy augmented reality tech inventor. They’re meant to be humanity’s last hope: heading to Planet X and leaving environmentally-destroyed Earth in the dust. All the crew has is each other (and their future generation of children). So when someone sets off a lethal bomb 11 years into their journey, nobody knows who they can really trust. Asuka - as the ship’s Alternate - takes on the investigation, but time is running out and the bomber may just try again.

🐦‍⬛ I enjoyed exploring the themes of belonging, heritage, and imposter syndrome (there’s definitely an Among Us joke to be made here … someone should run with it). There’s also some exploration of survivor’s guilt after the catastrophic bombing. It is dark, but cautiously optimistic. There’s a lot of thoughtfulness here around technology, trust, friendship, and family. There were moments of quiet hope as we watched this team sort through complicated issues and learn to rely on each other. And as we see them grow, maybe we can hold onto some hope for the larger community of Earth.

🎹 The Ballad of Perilous Graves by Alex Jennings

🎹 Welcome to New Orleans – or, perhaps more accurately, welcome to the spirit of New Orleans. The Ballad of Perilous Graves is a love song speaking to and through the soul of the city. It's a special story with a bold, fascinating presence.

🎹 Things are going wrong in this dreamlike version of New Orleans ("Nola"): nine songs are on the loose (thanks to a ghost pianist) and wreaking havoc on the city and its inhabitants. It's up to three kids (well, two slightly-magical kids and one badass superhero kid) to save their home. Their heroic journey turns dangerous quickly as they face intense magical evils, tumble through various worlds and realities, and realize that they are more dependable than the adults who are too afraid to act.

🎹 The plotting? It's madness. Like listening to a new song, you've got to embrace the rhythm of this book and allow yourself to be swept away. This story is BEGGING you to embrace the chaos and enter a world where the unexpected is expected. You WILL be confused. If you have a connection to Black NOLA or its slang, you may be less confused. But either way, there's a whole lot going on. If you are someone who requires linear storytelling and gentle worldbuilding, this is not the book for you.

Content Warnings for Sisters of the Lost Nation: death, murder, racism, bullying, violence, physical abuse, self harm, sexual assault, suicidal thoughts, trafficking, gore, animal death, addiction, drug use, child abuse, pedophilia, transphobia

Content Warnings for The Deep Sky: death, miscarriage, fertility issues, pregnancy, terrorism, racism, gore, grief, fire, medical content, war, drowning

Content Warnings for The Ballad of Perilous Graves: murder, injury, death, child death, death of a parent, animal death, gun violence, mass shootings, abandonment, confinement, fire, gender dysphoria, lesbophobia

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