Motherthing is dark, weird, funny. The protagonist, Abby Lamb, is a wife desperate to get pregnant, but her husband can’t commit, as he’s hopelessly depressed by the death of his mother (i.e. Abby’s mother-in-law), who is haunting him. Abby starts off as a bit cheerfully unhinged, obsessed with a retro fantasy of domestic life of bliss and potential mothering, making dishes like jellied salmon—which haunts the book as frequently as her mother-in-law’s ghost from the basement—and she graduates to fully unhinged by the book’s end. There might be a bit of murder and cannibalism, depending on how reliable you find the narrator.

Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing is a collection of funny, often acidic, sneakily (or not so sneakily) intimate essays by Lauren Hough. Reading a Hough essay feels like catching up with an old friend in a dive bar; the drinks are cheap but strong, and you’re hearing some eye-popping yarns. Maybe there’s a flickering TV showing some disturbing national news in the background as well, and there’s an uncanny parallel to all the yarns you’re hearing. They’re good. ★★★★.