Noah Berlatsky

Scientists are hotly debating whether we should send messages into space. Perhaps they should consult Octavia Butler for some wisdom...

Iin a passionate Facebook thread last week, children's author Meg Rosoff rejected the idea that there are "too few books for marginalized young people," as librarian Edith Edi Campbell had suggested.

For once, central character Andrew's flaws are tied up in the fact that he is—wait for it—fundamentally decent.

Katniss is the voice of conscience and morality in the film, and in The Hunger Games series as a whole. In the just released last film in the series, she tries repeatedly to avoid unnecessary deaths. She insists that refugees from an attacked base be given an escape route, for example, and exposes herself in an effort to help them.

Who is memorialized in death has everything to do with race, class . . . and who you were in life.

Metal aggression isn't sexual, but existential. As a result, women in the genre are both rare and unexpectedly equal.

Sex and bodies don't clarify gender; they confuse the issue.

I am on my knees in 15-degree weather scrubbing poop from the sidewalk, and I have an epiphany of sorts—I do not want this dog.

Some love stories don't end happily. So why do so many romance novels insist they do?

The surface text of the film is that you can't trust some guys. The (barely) subtext is that you can't trust any guys.