Alison Kinney (Author of Hood)

Alison rated a book it was amazing Love at First Prompt: AI and the Future of Intimacy by Bridget Todd	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I felt bitterly disappointed that I was too sick to have my book talk with Bridget Todd in Washington, DC, where we were going to discuss the resonances between my book and her new, wonderful audiobook, LOVE AT FIRST PROMPT: AI AND THE FUTURE OF INTI ...more
3 hours, 10 min ago · like · see review
Alison rated a book it was amazing Call Her Freedom by Tara Dorabji (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
CALL HER FREEDOM follows decades of Aisha's life in a fictional village in a country resembling Kashmir. For me, the strongest character was the land itself: embattled, occupied--and green and flourishing, whether it's standard crops, the controversi ...more
3 hours, 11 min ago · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Call Her Freedom by Tara Dorabji. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Call Her Freedom by Tara Dorabji <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Alison rated a book it was amazing Birds of Los Angeles by Wendy S. Walters	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Wendy Walters is one of the all-time great writers of our century, and I was thrilled to find and read a copy of her BIRDS OF LOS ANGELES. I'm now too sick to write the mini-review I'd wanted to write, but every line of the poems made me consciously t ...more
Jul 18, 2026 09:05AM · like · see review
Alison rated a book it was amazing How We See the Gray: A Novel by Rachel León (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Latest in #BookJoy: Rachel León's debut novel, HOW WE SEE THE GRAY, is a warm, empathetic community drama, a multi-perspective narrative sharing the stories of overlapping groups in Rockford, IL, centered around children and adults in the foster care ...more
Jun 11, 2026 07:42AM · like · see review
Alison rated a book it was amazing Reasons and Feelings: Writing for the Humanities Now (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing) by Sarah Elizabeth Mesle	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
In these times, as I teach writing in an institution being deliberately broken by a foul and narrow-minded administration, in a week when so many of my colleagues and coworkers lost their jobs, I found Mesle's REASONS & FEELINGS: WRITING FOR THE HUMA ...more
May 31, 2026 07:00AM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Reasons and Feelings by Sarah Elizabeth Mesle. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Reasons and Feelings by Sarah Elizabeth Mesle <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Alison rated a book it was amazing Sleeping Giants by Rene Denfeld (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
May 31, 2026 06:58AM · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Sleeping Giants by Rene Denfeld. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Sleeping Giants by Rene Denfeld <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Alison rated a book it was amazing The Butterfly Girl (Naomi Cottle, #2) by Rene Denfeld (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This winter I read Denfeld's THE CHILD FINDER and THE BUTTERFLY GIRL, each of them practically overnight, because I needed to read books that were rapturously absorbing and yet comforting at the same time. You MIGHT NOT THINK, given the grimness of t ...more
May 27, 2026 08:38AM · like · see review
Alison rated a book it was amazing The Child Finder (Naomi Cottle, #1) by Rene Denfeld (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This winter I read Denfeld's THE CHILD FINDER and THE BUTTERFLY GIRL, each of them practically overnight, because I needed to read books that were rapturously absorbing and yet comforting at the same time. You MIGHT NOT THINK, given the grimness of t ...more
May 27, 2026 08:38AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Alison rated a book it was amazing The Child Finder (Naomi Cottle, #1) by Rene Denfeld (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This winter I read Denfeld's THE CHILD FINDER and THE BUTTERFLY GIRL, each of them practically overnight, because I needed to read books that were rapturously absorbing and yet comforting at the same time. You MIGHT NOT THINK, given the grimness of t ...more
May 27, 2026 08:37AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Alison rated a book it was amazing Epic and Lovely: A Novel by Mo Daviau	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
EPIC AND LOVELY is a wondrous phantasmagoria of Southern California, baking, writing, crooning, road trips, cults, parents and daughters, rotten irresistible lovers, disability, death, and living forever in a day. Every sentence and paragraph is gorg ...more
May 25, 2026 09:24AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Epic and Lovely by Mo Daviau. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Epic and Lovely by Mo Daviau <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">

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Love at First Prompt: AI and the Future of Intimacy
by Bridget Todd

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I felt bitterly disappointed that I was too sick to have my book talk with Bridget Todd in Washington, DC, where we were going to discuss the resonances between my book and her new, wonderful audiobook, LOVE AT FIRST PROMPT: AI AND THE FUTURE OF INTI I felt bitterly disappointed that I was too sick to have my book talk with Bridget Todd in Washington, DC, where we were going to discuss the resonances between my book and her new, wonderful audiobook, LOVE AT FIRST PROMPT: AI AND THE FUTURE OF INTIMACY (which I luckily got to read as an advance text copy: some of you know that auditory processing is a problem for me). It’s a fantastically readable, well written book that explores intimacies and conversations between people and AI chatbots, a subject that a lot of people approach with disapproval, fascination, voyeurism—or identification and shame—in order to explore something truly important: “The real question isn’t whether it’s weird or sad or pathetic to talk to a chatbot. The real question is, who profits from our intimacy and what are they doing with it?”
The book explores with strong empathy, humor, and critical acuity what intimacy, vulnerability, and loneliness look like in a nation with a broken mental healthcare system, when exploited by corporations. “It’s almost as if the stresses, uncertainties, and general shortcomings of the American healthcare system have created a need that is perfectly filled by a tool like AI.... It’s the slow normalization of reliance on an extractive system.”
I knew about Bridget’s work from the IRL Podcast, and once again, these are exactly the framings I want for thinking about AI. “We’re asking whether it’s healthy for individuals to develop relationships with AI. We should be asking whether it’s ethical for companies to engineer emotional dependency and then profit from it. We’re worried about whether people are replacing human connection. We should be demanding to know what companies are doing with the intimate data we share in our moments of vulnerability.” Karen Hao in an interview asks, “Does this particular AI tool or practice or artifact shift power in ways that consolidate it in the hands of the few, or in ways that distribute it in the hands of the many?” Todd asks: “Does it fortify democracy or erode it? Does it treat us as humans deserving of care, or as resources to be extracted?”
This is was such a great read. Happy launch to Bridget and thanks! ...more

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Call Her Freedom
by Tara Dorabji (Goodreads Author)

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CALL HER FREEDOM follows decades of Aisha's life in a fictional village in a country resembling Kashmir. For me, the strongest character was the land itself: embattled, occupied--and green and flourishing, whether it's standard crops, the controversi CALL HER FREEDOM follows decades of Aisha's life in a fictional village in a country resembling Kashmir. For me, the strongest character was the land itself: embattled, occupied--and green and flourishing, whether it's standard crops, the controversial and radiant poppy fields, byways full of medicinal herbs, children's walks to and from school, and mountain picnic grounds (perilously close to checkpoints). The evergreen maples are characters. The herbs are characters. Fittingly, in a place where the land is home, health, history, and the grounds for and the object of colonization, occupation, and war.
My favorite passages were actually exile passages in the city, where Aisha and her family meet people at home in their own worlds:
"Aisha removed her mask and washed her face in the water. Washed all the tears away. Four splashes of water, and she prayed to the east in the direction of the rising sun; she prayed for herself—that she would be healed. Clear water in the bucket. The chaiwallah nodded, appearing undisturbed that she had just bathed in his water."
And,
'“Why didn’t you ever marry, Maasi?”
“I figured I’d have to do twice as much cooking and twice as much laundry, unless we had children, and if we did, then think how much more there would be to cook and clean.”
Farooq studied her. “Why the bookstore?"
“It’s so easy to snap our internet. One day to the next, we are used to this now. But it takes much longer to go house to house, burning our books. I’m too old now to write my own book, Farooq. But these are the memories, the fragments of truth. You will find your way. Or maybe it will be your wife.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you do her laundry, maybe she will have time to write the book. That would be something new. Something different. Something, how do you say? Not so boring.”'
In a book about building, protecting, and losing home, it's not surprising that these passages occur in moments of strangers' welcome.
Thank you for the welcome into the novel! ...more

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Birds of Los Angeles
by Wendy S. Walters

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Wendy Walters is one of the all-time great writers of our century, and I was thrilled to find and read a copy of her BIRDS OF LOS ANGELES.
I'm now too sick to write the mini-review I'd wanted to write, but every line of the poems made me consciously t ...more

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How We See the Gray: A Novel
by Rachel León (Goodreads Author)

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Latest in #BookJoy: Rachel León's debut novel, HOW WE SEE THE GRAY, is a warm, empathetic community drama, a multi-perspective narrative sharing the stories of overlapping groups in Rockford, IL, centered around children and adults in the foster care Latest in #BookJoy: Rachel León's debut novel, HOW WE SEE THE GRAY, is a warm, empathetic community drama, a multi-perspective narrative sharing the stories of overlapping groups in Rockford, IL, centered around children and adults in the foster care system: families (biological and chosen), carers, employees--and people who belong to more than one group. It's about people who struggle to be happy, compassionate, effective, surviving, and loving inside and outside families and groupings that have often, catastrophically, let them down. Sometimes it feels like a sitcom; sometimes like a bit of a thriller; sometimes like a Russian novel! (I love all these genres!) Throughout, León's practice of sharing and resharing stories, questioning hegemonic narratives, and introducing doubts reinforces their aesthetic and ethical practice of sitting within, and through, all those gray moments in our personal lives, relationships, and work (emphasis on the work!), where choices are hard, determining what's right or wrong is harder, and the consequences can be hardest of all. It's this ethical urgency that really makes the work of empathy, understanding, and committing to try again so compelling. It's also wonderfully written, constructed (it feels effortlessly dramatic), and a great read. (I'll add that, as an adoptee who takes offense to almost everything written by outsiders about The System, León's insider knowledge and experience AND their empathy and imagination were welcome.)
A passage I loved: "We don’t claim to be storytellers, but we specialize in stories. Our job involves collecting them, watching them unfold, and interfering to change their course. Then we write court reports outlining the events and let the judge decide where things go from there. Because we look from every angle, we believe we know the truth. Easy to forget we only see what people show us (or get caught doing). We can forget that truth isn’t absolute; it ebbs and flows like the river that runs through our beautiful, flawed city." ...more

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Reasons and Feelings by Sarah Elizabeth Mesle

Reasons and Feelings: Writing for the Humanities Now (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing)
by Sarah Elizabeth Mesle

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In these times, as I teach writing in an institution being deliberately broken by a foul and narrow-minded administration, in a week when so many of my colleagues and coworkers lost their jobs, I found Mesle's REASONS & FEELINGS: WRITING FOR THE HUMA In these times, as I teach writing in an institution being deliberately broken by a foul and narrow-minded administration, in a week when so many of my colleagues and coworkers lost their jobs, I found Mesle's REASONS & FEELINGS: WRITING FOR THE HUMANITIES NOW a necessary and wonderful read. There are many books addressing the crisis in the humanities, if that's what you need to learn about; this book touches on that, but it is really for all of us writers, researchers, teachers, students, scholars who are wondering how to write anything and make it count in the ongoing wake of this destruction. How do writers "conserve the conditions of a future in which a sustaining 'we' could thrive"? How can we engage with writing in a way where our optimism doesn’t ignore therealities of the pressures people live under?
Mesle's wonderful book is a craft book; a critical analysis of the practices, fields, institutions, and threats to the humanities; and a love song to writing itself. Its focus is "academic writing" but it widens the definition of that genre through its appreciation for the qualities that typify the best of our desire for knowledge: wonder, love, fun, intensity, curiosity, the kind of writing that "aims to enter the great ongoing conversation about poems and cities and bugs, by making a claim that something new, something true by our best current standards of knowing, has been learned." It's about the love of precise knowledge, difficult research, finely wrought ideas--all seen with deep compassion and understanding of the bold (or tired) flights and plunges we take in our work, under the best and the worst of writing situations. (About our Precious Writing Time, she reminds us that it can’t be seized only for individual good at the expense of all others, freeing oneself of precarity while leaving the conditions unaltered for all others. “Our writing loses value when the world of our readers gets worse.")

Mesle examines the good and the bad of our institutions and our practices (e.g. peer review, neoliberal destruction), and the contexts of power, privilege, and precarity by which these things, and our work within (or outside) them, get measured. Of the allegation that academic writing is "bad," Mesle concedes that it sometimes is but queries the assumptions behind that judgment hard, and says, acutely, "What's astonishing, then, isn't the 'badness,' but rather the dazzling act that, in such dire conditions, so many writers produce writing that's *so good.*"
Can I also mention how funny and charming the voice--narrative, or argumentative, or instructive--is here? I read this book because I wanted to, for the *work* reason of prepping for a book event, but also to be better at my job, and better at my writing--AND ALSO out of the complicated pleasure that comes from all these things, plus: it made me laugh in some grim situations (like this week. And like being stuck in Atlanta airport for 6.5 freaking hours. 10 hours, really, since it had been my choice to arrive early, omg). We really need to laugh--and be reminded that our writing matters--and to reminded of how we can make that practice better, not only for us, but also for our students and colleagues and everybody. ...more

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Sleeping Giants
by Rene Denfeld (Goodreads Author)

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The Butterfly Girl (Naomi Cottle, #2)
by Rene Denfeld (Goodreads Author)

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This winter I read Denfeld's THE CHILD FINDER and THE BUTTERFLY GIRL, each of them practically overnight, because I needed to read books that were rapturously absorbing and yet comforting at the same time. You MIGHT NOT THINK, given the grimness of t ...more

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The Child Finder (Naomi Cottle, #1)
by Rene Denfeld (Goodreads Author)

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This winter I read Denfeld's THE CHILD FINDER and THE BUTTERFLY GIRL, each of them practically overnight, because I needed to read books that were rapturously absorbing and yet comforting at the same time. You MIGHT NOT THINK, given the grimness of t This winter I read Denfeld's THE CHILD FINDER and THE BUTTERFLY GIRL, each of them practically overnight, because I needed to read books that were rapturously absorbing and yet comforting at the same time. You MIGHT NOT THINK, given the grimness of the subject matter (they're about an investigator of child abductions), that there could be any comfort in this--but that's where you'd be wrong. Denfeld's gorgeous writing and her deeply compassionate imagination of her characters (even, or perhaps especially, hideous people) make you feel enchanted and held, by her expertise, her ethics, her art. "Naomi always began by learning to love the world where the child went missing."
It's a gripping detective thriller wrapped up in literary fiction, or vice versa. I keep wanting to use the word "enthralled"--but it's such a loaded and violent word--and so I'm just throwing it into the mix to talk about these books *about* violence and capture--and yet so emphatically dedicated to building a world, in books and beyond, that defies violence, defies carceral language, and defies the narrowing of our minds on these subjects, for the survivors, and also for the perpetrators (after all so many perpetrators are also survivors). One harrowingly beautiful passage that comes to mind is this:
"The mother wiped her eyes. “If we don’t get her back I don’t know what I will do.”
“You’ll find a way to survive.”
“You said before if she comes back she will need me. I’m afraid I won’t be able to help her.”
Naomi smiled at her. “You need to stop believing that innocence can be lost.”
“Are you still innocent?” the mother asked, her voice hopeful.
“I’m as innocent as the day I was born. Maybe even more so. No one can take that from me.” Naomi put down the tea. “I’m a child just like your Madison, if she is alive. Do you want us?”
The mother’s eyes were glassy with hope. “Yes,” she breathed hoarsely. “I want you.”"

And from THE BUTTERFLY GIRL:
'Every country has butterflies, she had said. There is no place you can go without butterflies.
“Not even the deserts, Momma?”
“Not even. The sagebrush checkerspot lives there.”
“You know a lot about butterflies, Momma.”
“I wanted to be a lepidopterist, when I was young.”
“What happened, Momma?” No answer, the words taken by time. But Celia could swear that she had learned about butterflies deep within her mother’s womb. Her mother had fed them to Celia with her own blood, and when she was born, the sack was pulsating with them, so the doctor stood back, astounded as she erupted, covered with wings.'

These are books about world-building. I can't wait for her new book this summer! ...more

Alison rated a book it was amazing

The Child Finder (Naomi Cottle, #1)
by Rene Denfeld (Goodreads Author)

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This winter I read Denfeld's THE CHILD FINDER and THE BUTTERFLY GIRL, each of them practically overnight, because I needed to read books that were rapturously absorbing and yet comforting at the same time. You MIGHT NOT THINK, given the grimness of t This winter I read Denfeld's THE CHILD FINDER and THE BUTTERFLY GIRL, each of them practically overnight, because I needed to read books that were rapturously absorbing and yet comforting at the same time. You MIGHT NOT THINK, given the grimness of the subject matter (they're about an investigator of child abductions), that there could be any comfort in this--but that's where you'd be wrong. Denfeld's gorgeous writing and her deeply compassionate imagination of her characters (even, or perhaps especially, hideous people) make you feel enchanted and held, by her expertise, her ethics, her art. "Naomi always began by learning to love the world where the child went missing."
It's a gripping detective thriller wrapped up in literary fiction, or vice versa. I keep wanting to use the word "enthralled"--but it's such a loaded and violent word--and so I'm just throwing it into the mix to talk about these books *about* violence and capture--and yet so emphatically dedicated to building a world, in books and beyond, that defies violence, defies carceral language, and defies the narrowing of our minds on these subjects, for the survivors, and also for the perpetrators (after all so many perpetrators are also survivors). One harrowingly beautiful passage that comes to mind is this:
"The mother wiped her eyes. “If we don’t get her back I don’t know what I will do.”
“You’ll find a way to survive.”
“You said before if she comes back she will need me. I’m afraid I won’t be able to help her.”
Naomi smiled at her. “You need to stop believing that innocence can be lost.”
“Are you still innocent?” the mother asked, her voice hopeful.
“I’m as innocent as the day I was born. Maybe even more so. No one can take that from me.” Naomi put down the tea. “I’m a child just like your Madison, if she is alive. Do you want us?”
The mother’s eyes were glassy with hope. “Yes,” she breathed hoarsely. “I want you.”"

And from THE BUTTERFLY GIRL:
'Every country has butterflies, she had said. There is no place you can go without butterflies.
“Not even the deserts, Momma?”
“Not even. The sagebrush checkerspot lives there.”
“You know a lot about butterflies, Momma.”
“I wanted to be a lepidopterist, when I was young.”
“What happened, Momma?” No answer, the words taken by time. But Celia could swear that she had learned about butterflies deep within her mother’s womb. Her mother had fed them to Celia with her own blood, and when she was born, the sack was pulsating with them, so the doctor stood back, astounded as she erupted, covered with wings.'

These are books about world-building. I can't wait for her new book this summer! ...more

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Epic and Lovely: A Novel
by Mo Daviau

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EPIC AND LOVELY is a wondrous phantasmagoria of Southern California, baking, writing, crooning, road trips, cults, parents and daughters, rotten irresistible lovers, disability, death, and living forever in a day. Every sentence and paragraph is gorg EPIC AND LOVELY is a wondrous phantasmagoria of Southern California, baking, writing, crooning, road trips, cults, parents and daughters, rotten irresistible lovers, disability, death, and living forever in a day. Every sentence and paragraph is gorgeously crafted, and so natural amidst the carnivalesque drama of the plot and characters. It's the kind of novel that many of us have fantasized about writing but didn't write, and a model of how to exist (or not) in multiple modes of emotional and creative space in the very-much now. And yet one of my favorite passages was one of the very concretely relatable ones, of how to THINK about how to write one's own life, when that life has been less than satisfying--and how to find meaning in a world that doesn't care overmuch about your existence:
"They were prose poems about loving yourself. Not an original premise, but that’s what I was feeling back in my twenties, as an accidental pastry chef who had given up her dream of law school, of writing a book, of doing whatever I was thinking of doing before leaving college— not that I’ve ever been ambitious. I was supposed to want a career that left my mark on the world, but the execution of that goal seemed out of reach, and besides, I was going to die at forty, and I liked baking....
"I wrote that as a woman, you must love yourself because the odds are high that no one else will. You will not stagger out of the gates of the Bondurant School without someone, sometime, for some bullshit reason, absolutely fucking with you. Women must love themselves. You know that there is life after mommy and/or daddy and this pretty dream school, that you will get older, you will be judged by the size of your tits and the weight on your ass and not the degrees on your wall or the lines on your resume. Your education will stop mattering, but what will hurt the most is that your heart, your love, your goodness, will also stop mattering. This is life under patriarchy, and everything you learned at school will sit like an undigested biscuit in the pit of your stomach."
And much of the book is about precisely that: the moment of this realization, when you decide that, for the rest of your years on earth, you will make that decision to love yourself, to love your life, and to love the adventure--for good and for bad--of choosing yourself first. ...more

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	Hood by Alison Kinney (Goodreads Author), Ian Bogost (Series Editor), Alison Kinney (Goodreads Author) 3.93 avg rating — 120 ratings — published 2016 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Avidly Reads Opera 4.25 avg rating — 20 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	United States of Rejection: A Story of Love, Hate, and Hope (Crux: The Georgia Series in Literary Nonfiction) really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 3 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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