Ilana Masad

Gabino Iglesias' barrio noir may not be a cheerful book, but it still allows glimpses of love, moments of connection, and glimmers of beauty to exist.

Though winding at times, Sam Knight's book is thought-provoking and deeply researched, presenting the oddity of realized premonitions while allowing readers to come to their own conclusions.

Sarah Weinman's book excels as an in-depth exploration of how outside influence and support can affect the criminal justice system — and as the narrative of a con artist who hurt a lot of people.

Bustle editor Rachel Krantz's memoir is a sincere and curious reckoning with the cultural messaging we all receive about gendered expectations and power dynamics in romantic and sexual relationships.

Faith Jones, a successful lawyer, is the granddaughter of David Berg, founder of The Family. She tells of how she was raised in the cult from infancy until managing to leave it in her early 20s.

Essay after essay, it becomes clear that writer Lauren Hough is drawing parallels between the Family and good ol' fashioned American Exceptionalism in all its various facets.

The victims of the man dubbed the "Last Call Killer" were all gay men; Elon Green tries to shine a light onto their complicated lives, the messiness of who they were, and an era of queer life in NYC.

Tyler Stovall writes white freedom is "the belief (and practice) that freedom is central to white racial identity, and that only white people can or should be free" — noting nations were built on it.

Writer Nadia Owusu has lived many lives. Her nonlinear memoir, centered on the idea of physical and metaphorical earthquakes, is about all of the parts of what is her single, complex life.

Throughout her essays, Melissa Faliveno is constantly straddling blurry lines, never willing to let any of her topics lie comfortably still, always turning them over to look at another facet.