Latest Read: The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing (Volume 1: The Pox Party)

M.T. Anderson pushes the boundaries of disturbing, fictional settings. In his novel Feed, he pitches himself into a technologically-perverse future. In Octavian Nothing, the author visits the past--the slave trade in 18th century America.

Octavian is a boy who lives with his mother at the College of Lucidity, where his tutors investigate whether their black subject can learn a classical education as well as a white one. When the men aren't lavishing Octavian with Latin and violin lessons, they terrorize him. Deliberately-inflicted smallpox ravages Octavian's home. He rebels against his owners and flees. Octavian Nothing is a coming-of-age horror, a perverse moment in history set to fiction, and a treatise on subjugation.

At my local library, Octavian Nothing is filed under teen fiction, but anyone who can stand the pain will appreciate the antiquated language and powerful story.

Latest Read: I am the Messenger

I love Markus Zusak's sentences. His paragraphs, too.

Short.

Bittersweet.

I am the Messager is a young adult novel I enjoyed even as a middle-aged adult. Ed, 20-ish year old cab driver, receives playing cards. Aces. With hand-written names of people he is chosen to rescue, whether from fully loaded oppression or from lack of icecream.

Ed is great but his dog Doorman is spectacular. Doorman drinks coffee and stinks. He's the opposite of Audrey, Ed's female objet de longing. You're supposed to read the novel to find out who sends Ed the messages. I read on to find out whether Ed and Audrey unite. He's a self-professed sexual midget after all. Go ahead. Find out for yourself. The novel was published by Knopf in 2002 and has a big silver stamp of approval on the cover.

I'm aching to post the book's cover image but new concerns about copyright infringement are holding me back. Instead, here's an illustration of me chirping book recommendations to you.