Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her more creative work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, under the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and other publications, and she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, "The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart," published in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She also writes bookish stuff here and at the Feminist Book Club, is the author of A Dirty Word, and is the founder of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring at the birds in her backyard feeder. You can learn more at stephauteri.com and follow her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri.
Pop these demonic horror books onto your TBR for a scary good reading time.
Diversity. Inclusion. Sexuality. These topics have been deemed verboten. But banned sex ed books like It's Perfectly Normal are essential reading in my home.
If you spend more of your waking hours online than off, read these books that capture the surrealism of a Very Online life, including The Startup Wife by Tahmima Anam.
There's something cozy about revisiting that 80s nostalgia, and we're in an era chock full of it in books.
From an alien Romeo & Juliet space opera to humans changing planets, these books highlight the magic of space travel, like Do You Dream of Terra-Two? by Temi Oh.
Got travel plans of an armchair variety? Me too. Settle in for some staycation reading with this list of reads, including You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi.
Female friendships aren't hyped nearly as much as they should be, so here are a few books that display these vital relationships, like Heavy Vinyl by Carly Usdin.
True crime often focuses on only one kind of "ideal victim," typically a white woman. These books, including Savage Appetites by Rachel Monroe, dig deeper into the genre and its failings.
From runaway moms in fiction to essays about maternal ambivalence and regret, these books break the taboo around regretting motherhood.
So you've inhaled the TV show and now you want more: fill that alien-shaped hole with these books and stories like Resident Alien, including The Humans by Matt Haig.