The 1992 standoff at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, has largely been forgotten. Jennings, the author of Paradise Now (2016), revives the story with the moment that touched off tragedy: Survivalist Randy Weaver had holed up with his family in a mountain retreat, and, having essentially entrapped him in an illegal gun sale, the FBI came looking for him. A dog was killed, then a 14-year-old boy, then an agent, after which Ruby Ridge became the site of a siege in which Randy’s wife died. While the agency never admitted overreach, the FBI quietly settled with the survivors, Randy among them, some years after the standoff. Jennings links this event to the popular “dispensationalist” theology filling the airwaves at the time courtesy of televangelists such as Pat Robertson, which, among other things, promulgated the argument that because Jesus was going to return any day now, there was no need to fret about nuclear war, environmental degradation, and the like—apocalyptic views endorsed by President Reagan and numerous members of his cabinet. “If earthly conditions are supposed to be growing worse,” writes Jennings, “then all the old hopeful schemes for sprucing things up come to resemble schemes of a more sinister nature.” So the Weavers apparently thought, and so did the Branch Davidians who came under siege a year later, and so, Jennings suggests, do subscribers to QAnon mythology today. In any event, as Jennings writes, the Weavers became martyrs to the Christian nationalist cause, the Charlie Kirks of their day, “saints of circumstance, beatified by the calamity that landed upon their heads.” The antigovernment stance of the Weavers and their supporters lives on, too; as Jennings writes, “Three decades on, Ruby Ridge looks more like the start of something than its finale.”

Unfortunately, none of the dogs and cats at the animal shelter feel quite right. Leo is searching for something special, maybe even magical. At a lively open-air market, Leo and his older brother, Rey, are drawn to a vendor selling fantastical, brightly colored creatures—combinations of different animals in dazzling hues. The brown-skinned shopkeeper explains that these are alebrijes, magical beings from Mexico that can be adopted only by those they choose. Leo is overjoyed when a neon-winged wolf-dog selects him. He names it Lobo. But life with a magical pet isn’t easy. Lobo flies off during baths, races away “faster than a bolt of lightning” on walks, and leaves foul-smelling rainbow messes in his wake. Overwhelmed, Leo wonders if he can handle such a powerful companion. But with Mamá, Papá, and Rey’s help, he learns to care for Lobo in creative ways. Inspired by real-life alebrijes, vibrant Mexican folk-art sculptures of mythical creatures, Gama’s inviting illustrations burst with energy and imagination. Though fantastical, Marquez’s heartwarming story makes clear that adopting a pet—even an out-of-this-world one—isn’t easy, but teamwork makes all the difference. Leo and Mamá have warm brown skin and curly dark hair; Rey and Papá have lighter skin and dark hair. The family is cued Latine, and Spanish words are interspersed.

Rupert argues that while “authenticity is supposed to [be freeing], for some…it stands in the way of freedom.” Drawing on her background as a presidential campaign manager and adviser and her lived experience as a Black woman, Rupert reveals how authenticity actually operates as a barrier to both equality and inclusion. While running former San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro’s 2020 presidential campaign, she observed firsthand the way “unconscious biases and double standards” affected candidates of color like Castro and others. What she saw tallied with her own experiences and the way she often had to “contort” herself into social acceptability by performing a version of blackness approved by the dominant (white) culture. This involved such tactics as the “code-switching” or speech pattern adjustments such as those made by presidential candidate Kamala Harris, depending on whether she was speaking to white or Black audiences. In the world of popular music and culture, the author sees similar biases that work against people of color. While Taylor Swift is allowed to appear as the imperfect, vulnerable—and therefore authentic—“girl next door,” Beyoncé must be the flawless Queen Bey, because “[f]or people of color, the appeal has to be indisputable to be recognized at all.” To begin leveling an unequal cultural playing field, Rupert suggests that authenticity needs to be rethought. Rather than continuing to treat it as an entrapping “ideology,” it must be seen as “methodology” that allows people of color to survive a white supremacist society.

Amie Teller has been stuck on the same Sept. 17th for two years: Waking up every morning to the same coffee shop that’s always out of blueberry bagels; witnessing the same argument between her friend David Lenski and their notoriously unpleasant neighbor, Savannah Harlow; surviving the same awkward “friend date” with her ex-girlfriend Ziya Mathur, whom Amie maybe wishes weren’t an ex at all. Everything is exactly as expected, which is kind of how Amie likes things. So what should she do when time moves and she’s free and completely unprepared to live a day she hasn’t already rehearsed hundreds of times? Before she can figure out what life even looks like out of the eponymous loop, Amie learns that Savannah was murdered on September 17. Convinced that no one understands the day as comprehensively as she does, she accepts what she takes to be a kind of cosmic assignment: If she can solve Savannah’s murder, maybe she can make sense of having lost two years. With David’s help, and some assistance and romantic friction from Ziya, Amie sifts through Sept. 17 over and over to find those tiny moments she didn’t realize really mattered. By solving the mystery of Savannah’s death, Amie hopes to resolve her own questions about whether she and Ziya have potential, or if the time loop has drifted them too far apart.

“There are so many family caregivers in the United States that if they were paid, their labor would be worth more than the amount spent on all other forms of professional long-­term care combined,” writes Mauldin. Trained as a medical sociologist, she also fell in love with a woman whose leukemia returned, to which Mauldin responded by learning other skills, managing medications, administering IV infusions, and conducting physical therapy sessions. There is, Mauldin charges, a “dehumanizing logic” that accompanies such care: The caregiver, likely working a full-time job herself—and most caretaking falls to women—may come to feel resentful at the extra responsibilities, while the person being cared for may come to feel unworthy, a burden. Indeed, Mauldin writes, it is a sign of unhealthfulness in society that we increasingly accept that it’s all right for the caregiver to walk away from such unpleasantries. Interviewing scores of people who fall under the rubric of “The One,” the one who does the caretaking because so few people can afford private home care, Mauldin describes some of the attendant stresses as they attend to loved ones afflicted by MS, traumatic brain injury, HIV/AIDS, Alzheimer’s disease, and other maladies. She also notes that these burdens tend to fall more lightly on white people than on people of color: “Black women are especially ignored, viewed only as ‘incompetent’ and not listened to about their care needs.” For them, as for queer people, Mauldin writes, it has long been customary to form “alternative, communal” forms of care, as well as advocacy groups for disability rights, disability justice, and “different distributions of care labor.”