This debut story collection lifts its title from a 1909 manifesto co-authored by urban designer Daniel H. Burnham, which also provides the epigram invoking the city’s motto: “Urbs in Horto—a city set in a garden.” More than a century later, that garden is no Eden. There are way more cracks than flowers: cracks in the foundation; psychological cracks in the narrators and characters, whose vernacular provides the style of these stories. Cracks in their relationships, their marriages, their families. Yet there is also great resilience, through the survival skills necessary in a city that plays rough. In “Enumerator,” the opening and longest story, Margaret Cieslak-Jablonski, a Polish immigrant, loses her American husband and gains a job as a census taker. She lives on a block so undistinguished that it isn’t considered part of any of the northwest neighborhoods around it: “No one wanted to claim that swath of poor transients, weedy lots, and industrial waste.” Her temp job has her tracking and counting those who are ever farther off the grid. And she’s very good at it, learning the stories of those who had otherwise evaded scrutiny and gaining entry where she isn’t legally permitted. “Out of Egypt” follows, with a teenage boy named Izzy Bramaciu apparently unconscious in the hospital, from a car accident arranged by his scamming father for insurance fraud. Then “Chez Whatever,” where very white Lincoln Park finds a Black girl increasingly frustrated and resentful in a Valentine’s Day blizzard, following a fight with her more privileged white girlfriend. “Dibs” explores the Chicago tradition of saving winter parking places amid the gentrification of a frequently changing Humboldt Park. The progression of the stories connects neighborhoods, with protagonists in one story becoming bit players in another.

The legacy of feminist author Anzaldúa (1942-2004) looms large. Her groundbreaking book Borderlands/La Frontera (1987) remains a touchstone for generations of scholars and activists. An editorial note explains that Anzaldúa had been developing her “Prieta stories” alongside nonfiction for her whole career. While a few came out during her lifetime, this book represents their first complete publication. Like her other work, it resists genre and other literary conventions. Anzaldúa mixes English and Spanish throughout (translations are provided at the end of each story) to tell the tale of a young girl’s awakening into a queer identity. Some stories are sexually explicit while others veer into the supernatural. In each, Prieta confronts family and community members who both love her and expect her to conform to traditional notions of gender and sexuality. But Prieta cannot betray herself so easily. Over time and facing many obstacles, including homophobic lovers and crooked bosses, she cultivates a sense of embodied power. Others may go along to get along, but she’s one with both the land she lives on and with the celestial—so much that she finds it nearly impossible to be anything but her authentic self. The stories document Prieta’s sensory experience in granular detail to the exclusion of character development and traditional elements of plot, though they do follow Prieta’s arc from childhood to adulthood. Over decades, Anzaldúa labored to offer this painstaking, relentless exploration of the queer experience in all its richness as part of quotidian life. Prieta’s story is a foundational piece of the dam against erasure and marginalization Anzaldúa spent her life building.

Prince Elias of Gledann, the resentful heir of a domineering and abusive king, is forced into a politically motivated marriage with Princess Fu Liling of Toguan. Liling is both a dutiful daughter and a reluctant pawn; her bond with her own powerful father grants her unusual privileges as she steels herself to manipulate foreign courts. Meanwhile, at the Gledann Military Academy, the peasant-born squire Emmeline York struggles with illiteracy and prejudice, hoping for independence from her violent family. Valena Hemlock, a witch-in-training from the secluded hamlet of Gildacrest, longs for her magical powers to emerge, as she’s isolated and insecure in a community defined by supernatural excellence (“It’s never going to happen for me. I’m never going to be a competent witch”). The novel frequently shifts perspectives, painting a vast fresco of dynastic intrigue, coming-of-age anxieties, and imperial rivalries. Ambition, inheritance, and the burdens of parental expectations weigh heavily on each main figure. Holmes imagines a world in which gendered hierarchies, religious rites, and political marriages drive conflict. The titular floating castle is simultaneously a locus of intrigue, a prison for Liling, an engineering marvel, and the site of symbolic and literal disaster. The novel boasts strong worldbuilding in the rich ceremonial details of Toguan’s court and the earthy rituals of the Gildacrest witches, but the narrative is weighed down by extensive exposition and occasionally clunky prose. The characters can feel like mouthpieces for the author’s themes rather than fully fleshed individuals. The dialogue leans into blunt declarations rather than suggestion or subtext, and the pacing sags through the cycles of rituals, hunts, and lectures. Readers who relish intricately cataloged court customs will find satisfaction, but others will be left impatient for the story to locate its true center.

After the influx of refugees from the ongoing genocide, Dževahira Torlak, who goes by Seka, lives in besieged Srebrenica with her parents, grandparents, older brother, her mother’s sister and sister-in-law, as well as an uncle and two young cousins. Her family has taken in two refugees, Edina Muharemović and her son, Ramo, who is Seka’s age. As the family works to survive continual bombing, snipers, disease, and hunger, Seka and Ramo grow close and begin a romance as the years go by. In imitation of Anne Frank, Seka, who’s Muslim, writes in a diary to her friend, Zora, a Serb who evacuated with her family before the war. Seka’s writing eventually brings her into contact with a journalist from Australia, where Zora now lives. Alyssa, the journalist, enlists Seka to write an exposé of the corruption in Srebrenica, which stems from closer to home than Seka first realizes. While the novel doesn’t require foreknowledge of the Bosnian genocide, Pajalić doesn’t provide much scaffolding; readers may want to research as they read. In an introduction, Pajalić provides trigger warnings, an index, and a glossary, all helpful tools for this harrowing story. According to the author, the “novel blends factual history with fictional storytelling to explore themes of justice, trauma, and complicity.” She gathered information for the novel from interviews she conducted with survivors of the genocide. Essays based on these interviews are collected in another of Pajalić’s books, Fragments of History: The Essays Behind the Stories. The novel, a thriller, deploys the drama and tension of the genre, though the action falls a bit flat during one character’s sudden villainous turn. Devastating descriptions of the gory consequences of war are the standout scenes here. Still, Seka experiences moments of beauty and joy, all lushly described: “I lost myself in the music, the anonymity of the darkness around us, the heaving bodies, and closed my eyes as I moved.” The novel skewers the international community’s complicity in genocide, which continues today.

Alaina Housley was just 18 years old and a freshman at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, in November 2018 when she was killed in a mass shooting at Borderline Bar and Grill, a popular country-western bar a few miles off-campus in Thousand Oaks. Housley writes of his and his family’s devastation after the incident, and how their Catholic faith and solidarity helped them when they decided not to let grief define their lives and to commit to finding the joy that remained. Housley recalls the kindness of those around him—such as a local community member who bought him coffee, and a friend who offered the use of his private jet—in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy. In the months and years that followed, he writes, he began noticing signs of his daughter’s presence in everyday life—a bird tapping at his window, or particular songs playing on the radio. He still struggled when seeing other people reach milestones that Alaina never would, he says, but he took comfort in these small moments and remained thankful for new relationships and opportunities. For example, he used money from an unexpected GoFundMe campaign to start Alaina’s Voice Foundation, with a mission to “spread hope and kindness through education, music, and mental health initiatives.” Housley’s memoir is effectively guided by his experience as a motivational speaker, helping others process and grow from their own traumatic experiences; he also includes a guide answering the difficult questions that grieving people often encounter. His advice to surround oneself with kindness and community is straightforward, with plenty of examples from his own journey. It may still be overwhelming for readers dealing with very recent tragedy, but Housley’s book stands out for its openness and accessibility, offering reminders that healing can be found in small, everyday acts of grace.