Sam is a 30-something poet finally pursuing the college degree she promised herself she would earn, but the experience lacks luster. Her new boyfriend, Steven, a professor from her program, has a research grant to go to Boston; moving there seems like a promising new start and a way to gain clarity about what she wants to do with her life, but Sam keeps getting dragged back into her past. Her alcoholic ex-boyfriend Timothy is still a fixture, as are the memories of a difficult childhood spent living under the eye of her abusive grandmother that keep threatening to surface. In Boston, Sam finds her creative need to write poetry comes second to Steven’s work; she finds solace in new friend Martin Alistair, son of legendary feminist publisher Edith Alistair. Sam reads Edith’s diaries about her publishing house—part of Steven’s research that he seems surprised she is fascinated by—while simultaneously writing poetry. From the novel’s opening line (“Happiness was a shock. So was knowing she belonged”), Parrish writes lyrically, conveying the creativity of her heroine while also displaying her own skill as a published poet. This is particularly evident as Sam works through a recurring motif of her childhood trauma, turning a terrible memory into an affecting poem. Though both Timothy and Steven feature heavily in the story (occasionally, it feels a little unclear as to whether they are meant to present a love triangle for Sam), the most compelling aspect of the narrative is the central character’s journey as she finds her footing and truly addresses her own needs. Readers will find themselves rooting for Sam, a woman in her 30s, as if this is her coming-of-age tale.

The Glory Peak Ski Resort is founded in 1966 by Bill Macklemore, a World War II veteran–turned–ski instructor who developed a site near Fortooth into a premier skiing destination (it is said that “Fortooth was one of those towns where reality was far more potent than myth”). His devotion to his business is so all-encompassing that his wife, Suzanne, leaves him, taking along their son, Bobby. Fast forward a few decades: Bill is expanding the ski resort, and Bobby is married to a woman named Annabelle. Bobby does not approve of the way Bill is expanding the ski runs, and the local Indigenous Le’Echuwanna people aren’t happy, either. Annabelle and Bobby have a daughter named Clover, who is the company’s presumed heir, but things change when her grandmother, Nanny A, a former professor, strident feminist, and shrewd businesswoman, arrives. Family obligations bring Nanny A to town, but business interests keep her there: She bands together with her daughter’s former lover, Gunther (a German skier and videographer), to take his company Wolfehaus into the stratosphere as Clover’s inheritance (if she even wants it) and the family legacy hang in the balance. Abrams’ small but remarkable cast of characters occupy a world in the Pacific Northwest that is a sight to behold. The towering achievements, business acumen, and grand ambition on display make for an engrossing story about family that is as grounded as it is lofty. All is not perfect at the foot of the mountain, and the difficult relationships are characterized with compelling emotional detail. Family legacy is key in this novel, but there are some literal cliffhanger moments that keep the story exciting. The narrative is told out of chronological sequence, but the author’s gift for storytelling keeps everything in sync.

A fixation on the “horse apples”—what the narrator calls “my adorable nickname for horse poops”—of winged Pegasus isn’t all that drags down this effort at role reversal. Pruett sends white-presenting 12-year-old Gyro, who’s been named an “Honorary Indemnified Argonaut,” off with Heracles—here a brawny (and dimwitted) woman with disgusting personal habits—and chiseled narcissist Perseus on a mission to slay monsters and rescue a magical ram. But in contrast to these supposed heroes, all the monsters Gyro encounters, from Medusa and the Minotaur to the Cyclops, turn out to be victims of fake news spread by lying storytellers, and more interested in leading quiet lives than eating people. Along with being a miasma of labored fart jokes and potty humor, the narrative is studded with words like LΛBΨ℞ΦΠTH and TΩDΔΨ that inconsistently use letters misappropriated from the Greek alphabet. Improbably surviving multiple tricks and betrayals by his supposed allies, Gyro does ultimately get from “monster-fighter” to “monster-friender” in time for a climactic (and nearly bloodless) battle that leaves him “better than a hero.” Confusingly, in several first-person interludes that directly address readers, the narrator is a self-described “third-person omniscient narrator” but doesn’t define the term or clarify that it refers to the rest of the book.

It’s September 1999, and Y2K is on the horizon. On Junah’s first day of sixth grade, his teacher, Miss Meechum, assigns an unusual project: Fill a shoebox “with things that tell what it was like to be alive in Carolina at the end of the world. Your capsule will tell your story.” This is the perfect assignment for precocious Junah. The boy—who is smaller than his classmates, has a speech impediment, and wears sunglasses everywhere—spends his life observing and collecting. His only problem with this assignment is that one shoe box clearly will not be enough, and as the weeks leading up to the putative end of time approach, he gathers more and more boxes to fill. Junah gets bullied, debates accepting Jesus into his heart, stumbles upon death, longs for a more complete family, swallows his pet goldfish, and falls in love. Each of these moments is memorialized and placed into a box as Junah speaks directly to a future “you” who has survived the apocalypse. Junah’s voice is at once wry and hopeful, every vignette more compelling than the last. And while the novel itself is firmly situated in the months leading up to the 21st century, Leach manages to unstick the story from the bounds of a calendar to become something far more prescient.

Lindy and her family started their travel adventure after her dad quit his job as a software engineer to avoid “melting down faster than a computer with no fan.” Her mom is “trying to life-coach through lifestyle,” generating content as she poses in front of scenic vistas in national parks and curating flawless images of their #lifeontheroad for Instagram. But life isn’t picture-perfect; Lindy’s frustrated with the way her parents, especially her mom, seem more interested in how things look than how she feels: “Sometimes it feels like those invisible people are more important to her than anything else. Including me.” When new friends Dasha and May introduce her to skateboarding, Lindy finally feels like she’s found something just for her. With lined pages, a loose handwriting-style font, and sketches throughout, the book’s design mimics a journal, immersing readers in Lindy’s struggles. Though Lindy’s voice is a bit inconsistent—at times she feels alternately older and younger—overall, it rings true; her frustrations and triumphs will resonate with young people. Physical descriptors are minimal. Final art not seen.