Looking to read more Indiana authors?
Every month, we’re releasing a book review highlighting a new book by a Hoosier author, reviewed by a Hoosier writer. Check back every month for a new recommendation or look for the review in your local paper.
All Book Reviews
MEET THE MEGAFAUNA!
By Gabrielle Balkan | Reviewed By Michael Homoya
Meet the Megafauna!, a recent children’s book by Gabrielle Balkan, is described as getting to know 20 of the largest animals to ever roam the Earth. Yes, size does matter. But we’re not talking mega dinosaurs here. Her choices are of comparatively lesser-known champions, most of which postdate the extinction of those ruling reptiles. Even […]
Come Back in September
By Darryl Pinckney | Reviewed By Susan Neville
Our new neighbors were remote, hidden by trees, winding fences, ivy, and double doors. Raccoons and boogeymen shook the woods; cardinals banged into the picture windows and boomeranged from view; crows kept watch from telephone wires, disappeared beyond chimneys, and popped up with kernels of dry dog food in their beaks. Golden retrievers scampered ahead […]
My Name Is Iris
By Brando Skyhorse | Reviewed By Casey Pycior
In Brando Skyhorse’s deftly crafted new novel, My Name is Iris, the title character faces a world that no longer rewards her for simply playing by the rules. Iris, an American born citizen of Mexican immigrant parents, was raised to be in every way a “model” Mexican American citizen. Her earliest memories are of her […]
PURPLE CARROT | ONE TOMATO
By Rebecca Mullin | Reviewed By Cynthia Compton
This charming duo of board books by Indiana children’s author Rebecca Mullin explores the wonder of gardening in a way that is accessible to all ages. The first book of the pair, One Tomato, was released in 2021 and appeared on the 2022 Indiana Authors Awards children’s shortlist. The sun shines brightly in this lovely […]
Who Would Believe a Prisoner?: Indiana Women’s Carceral Institutions, 1848–1920
By The Indiana Women's Prison History Project | Reviewed By Adam Henze
When I picked up my review copy of Who Would Believe a Prisoner?, I already knew I was holding an astonishing book in my hand. It is the culmination of ten years of research conducted by the Indiana Women’s Prison History Project: a collective of incarcerated scholars who studied the 175-year-old history of women’s carceral […]
Hoosier Latinos: A Century of Struggle, Service, and Success
By Nicole Martinez-LeGrand and Daniel Gonzales | Reviewed By Elise Shrock
There is a classic scene in the 1997 film Selena that encapsulates so well the challenges of identity, particularly in Latino and Hispanic families. As it unfolds, we see an exasperated Abraham Quintanilla (Edward James Olmos) driving their tour bus along a dusty highway, lamenting to his daughter Selena (Jennifer Lopez), “We have to be […]
THE KEEPER
By Kelcey Ervick | Reviewed By Paul Allor
The Keeper is a book that does so many things, and does them well. In just over 300 brisk pages, Kelcey Ervick tells nothing less than the story of her life, filtered through the impact of 1971’s Title IX Education Amendment (authored by Indiana Senator Birch Bayh), which prohibited sex-based discrimination in schools, and had […]
Fieldwork: A Forager’s Memoir
By Iliana Regan | Reviewed By B. Tyler Lee
Trying to explain Fieldwork: A Forager’s Memoir yields an exercise in lists: the places and people Iliana Regan has rooted herself to, (mis)adventures in childhood and the height of the pandemic, the forest creatures roaming near the remote Michigan cabin she shares with her wife, items she’s foraged (edible and otherwise). At its core, though, […]
Year of the Tiger
By Alice Wong | Reviewed By Leah Milne
Born and raised in Indiana, Alice Wong has written a book that diverges from what one might call a “typical” memoir. However, that difference is deliberate. “I decided to write a memoir at this age—” she writes, “the age I was never supposed to reach, during a time I was never supposed to occupy” (xiii). […]
All Good People Here
By Ashley Flowers | Reviewed By Janis Thornton
True crime aficionado and podcaster Ashley Flowers understands that small towns harbor secrets and that most of the people inhabiting those towns hide secrets of their own. Over time, however, tightly held secrets tend to dry up, turn to dust, and scatter to the distant corners of the locals’ diminishing collective memory, thus freeing them […]
