This anthology focused on community and communal living is heartfelt and visionary. I appreciate all the different authors who contributed to this. The essays and interviews are all relatively short and easy to read, and all grapple with making intentional choices around how we live our lives, both in terms of physical housing and social networks.

This collection is divided into three thematic sections: “Family Homes”, “Intentional Communities”, and “Beyond Housing”. Beyond Housing was by far my favorite, mainly because of the variety. In the other two sections, there are some topics that show up across multiple authors’ works, which definitely speak to a common lived experience, but did become repetitive. There were some really interesting common through lines of navigating disability, polyamory, queerness, and faith in these arrangements.

Even though there are so many different ways to live in community, I was inspired by the arc in a lot of these stories where the author learns to prioritize the dynamics that empower them. I really enjoyed Rhaina Cohen’s essay about adult housemates and Jewish traditions. There was an interview with Suanne Carlson, the executive director of Homes on Wheels Alliance, which was a lifestyle I had never heard of before. Gabrielle Korn wrote about offering a spare room as an artist residency, instead of just putting it on AirBnB. Jake Montano had a great essay about drag houses and specifically an Asian American drag house in San Francisco.

And of course, I am a huge fan of Sarah Thankam Mathews. I heard about this book through the fact that she had an essay included. Her essay talks about her experience organizing the mutual aid group Bed Stuy Strong right at the start of the pandemic. I appreciate that we got to see how her current perspective on the experience differs from how she wrote about it more in the moment. I resonated with and got a lot out of her description of just how difficult it can be to put so much into a community. It was important to me to read a measured description of the tolls that come with living and working with other people, and to still always choose community.

I was interested in this book for the focus on ethics in conservation, specifically the questions “who is to blame for ecological loss?” and “do we have the right to kill organisms because they are invasive?” These are questions that I’ve explored in my own conservation work experience and in my own writing. I think this short book does a good job of bringing up the nuances in these dilemmas, but I felt like I wanted more from the story.

The main character, Adi, is from an unnamed Latin American country, and takes a new job after losing his son and getting a divorce. He is looking for a change, and the opportunity to “save the world”. This job turns out to be going to an uninhabited island in the Pacific (think of an island similar to the Galapagos) and kill every invasive goat in five weeks. It is a really interesting premise. The book is called a fable, which I somewhat disagree with. For me, I would expect a fable to maintain a certain otherworldly atmosphere. But while Adi’s country is unnamed, other places and concepts are very specifically named, and it is very grounded in our world.

Adi immediately struggles with the idea of killing animals so callously. A lot of the book is him trying to justify the killing for himself, by applying human moral standards onto the goats. One aspect I really appreciated was how he had to face death directly, which made him realize how death and cruelty in the livestock and meat industry is present but always hidden. Another big idea is who really can be blamed or held accountable? And who decides which species are protected and which species need to be eradicated?

The ending of the book is really thought-provoking, but I don’t think I fully agree with the message I took away from my reading. I would have liked a little more to flesh out the conclusion. From a conservation perspective, I can see it both ways regarding the goats, but there was an underlying comparison between the goats and Adi’s neurodivergent son that didn’t fully sit right with me. However, shark conservation also played a role in the ending, and I appreciate the ending relating to the sharks.

This is a really sad book, and I am very grateful that it manages to end on a hopeful note. The two main characters are Pakistani teenagers in the inland California desert, who recently got into a fight with each other and are no longer talking. Both of them have multiple major family issues going on, so much so that it came close to feeling over the top for me. It never quite crossed the line where I might have felt conflicted about continuing on with the book. The writing is blunt and angsty, which suits the characters’ narration. I was given this book as a gift so I went into it basically knowing nothing, and I didn’t realize that it was a YA book until I started reading it. Both the characters are in their senior year of high school, and they do act like teenagers. It annoyed me at times, but it did feel accurate to their age, as well as the pressures they were under.

We also get short interlude style chapters from the mother of one of the characters. She dies at the start of the book, but her story retroactively provides context for Salahudin’s family situation. Especially at the start, I was most motivated to continue reading in order to find out what happens with her. As we got further into the main story, it really kept me guessing where the plot would go. It’s more of a character book, but I was really engaged. I liked how much of a role the setting of a small desert town played into it. There is a big focus on addiction and trauma, and also on Pakistani food and punk music. The author clearly had a lot of love for all the songs that she worked into the story. In some ways, every time a song was mentioned it took me out of the story a bit, but I think that if I was a fan of the songs that were mentioned, it would have enhanced the experience and felt like a playlist that goes along with the book. It felt more like the experience of growing up when the author was a teenager, rather than what it is like to grow up as a teenager now (or when the book was released). All My Rage is overall a bit sad and slow for my taste, but I’m glad I read it.