Larsen, Mylisa Quagmire Tiarello Couldn’t Be Better. Clarion, 2024 [240p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9780063324664 $18.99
E-book ed. ISBN 9780063324688 $10.99
Reviewed from digital galleys   R* Gr. 8-12

Rogers, Andrea L. The Art Thieves. Levine Querido, 2024 [336p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9781646143788 $19.99
Reviewed from digital galleys   R* Gr. 8-10

Rogers, Andrea L. Chooch Helped; illus. by Rebecca Lee Kunz. Levine Querido, 2024 [48p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9781646144549 $18.99
Reviewed from digital galleys   R* 3-7 yrs

Soloy, Lauren Tove and the Island with No Address. Tundra, 2024 [48p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9781774883150 $18.99
E-book ed. ISBN 9781774883167 $10.99
Reviewed from digital galleys   R* 4-7 yrs

Stork, Francisco X. One Last Chance to Live. Scholastic, 2024 [320p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9781339010236 $19.99
Reviewed from digital galleys   R* Gr. 8-12

Underwood, Sarah The Gentlest of Wild Things. Harper, 2024 [400p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9780063234529 $19.99
E-book ed. ISBN 9780063234550 $10.99
Reviewed from digital galleys   R* Gr. 7-12

Valenti, Karla Arenas Lola. Knopf, 2024 [256p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9780593177006 $17.99
E-book ed. ISBN 9780593177020 $10.99
Reviewed from digital galleys   R* Gr. 4-6

White, Andrew Joseph Compound Fracture. Peachtree, 2024 [384p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9781682636121 $19.99
E-book ed. ISBN 9781682637395 $11.99
Reviewed from digital galleys   R* Gr. 9-12

Old Wounds

By Logan-Ashley Kisner

Trans teen horror has continued to emerge in the youth literature scene with a bloody fury, spawning beloved beasts and reinvesting body horror with meanings as diverse as the gender spectrum itself. Most imperatively, authors of the genre provide trans stories that not only resonate with a readership often under duress from realities scarier than fiction, but they also continuously redefine how trans teen stories themselves are told and what they can be. Logan-Ashley Kisner’s Old Wounds is at once both one of these innovative redefinitions and a triumphant trans-formation of horror-genre basics, standing as one of the most heart-under-the-floorboards vital debuts of the year.

From the first page, exes Erin and Max are on the run not from any monster, but from a variety of realistic horrors faced by trans teens: from Max’s abusive family forcing him to destransition, from recently passed anti-trans laws in Ohio, and ultimately from a town where everyone knows each of them as the “trans kid.” For Erin, driving cross-country with Max is a crazy idea for a lot of reasons—particularly since Max hasn’t spoken to her at all since abruptly dumping her two years prior. When the two get stranded in the deep woods of Kentucky on the way to California, the anxiety of trying not to get clocked as trans by hostile locals is one thing, but what about the shadowy, lamp-eyed “Bullitt Beast” the locals talk about, rumored to feast exclusively on young girls? Erin and Max wonder: do woodland cryptids ascribe to gender essentialist ideology? Who will the monster snack on, if nobody is cis?

As a longtime critic and knowledgeable connoisseur of queer and trans horror cinema, Kisner story-tells with confident bare-bone essentials, knowing that polished to the right sheen, those bones will rattle loudly enough on their own. The simplicity of sparse, cinematic settings as paired with a straightforward plot creates a high-contrast stage on which complexities—such as those found within a T4T relationship story, or the raw horrors of trans survival in a cis-heteronormative world with teeth—are richly laid out and can be properly digested by the reader, bite by bite. Distinctly voiced, split-POV chapters take the reader through a literally endless, horrifying night in the backwoods, and as Erin and Max fight their way through a gang of cops and cultists looking for a “female” sacrifice, they also unpack the complicated baggage of their relationship, insecurities, and divergent transition experiences as transmasculine and transfeminine. Erin and Max are teens everyone knows: they’re snarky, vulnerable, funny, smart, dramatic, thoughtful, loveable, quick-tempered. They have difficulties with their parents and siblings that love or loathe them. They’re also trans, and while that’s not all they are, it’s presented as integral to their perspectives, relationships, struggles, and fears. Transness informs their most resentful thoughts about one another, and the fierce love that remains between them despite any amount of bad blood.

Transness turns an often-binary horror world on its head, with Kisner making it work in service to trans protagonists instead of against or exclusive of them. In this case, a trans girl with deadly shotgun aim serves as our Final Girl, jumping into a crappy Impala driven manically fast by a trans boy who struggles to pass. The narrative is raw and visceral in its authenticity but never exploitative of trans pain, and it’s especially conscientious in its relationship to the real-life murder, sexual assault, and suicide of trans teens. References to the murders of Brandon Teena and Rae’Lynn Thomas, as well as the suicide of Leelah Alcorn, are incorporated into Max and Erin’s story with deep compassion, understanding, and respect. Kisner invokes the names of these trans teens with purpose and care, and Max’s ruminations on Brandon Teena are particularly insightful, especially for teens unfamiliar with the long history of sensationalist and transphobic news reporting and media.

In the wake of the recent deaths of Nex Benedict and Pauly Likens, there is a need for catharsis and recourse for the hopelessness experienced by all those trans teens doing their best to survive what can feel like an endless night of their own. Kisner expertly uses the medium of trans teen horror to provide just that, reminding readers: “No matter how long the darkness seems to stretch for, know that the sun will come up again.” Old Wounds provides much the same journey in its dark, atmospheric telling shot through with new-horizon hope, strength, and solidarity, making this a powerful and crucial read.

—Meg Cornell, Reviewer