“I want a book that will give me hope that things will get better.”

Welcome to Ask a Book Critic, a members-only feature packed with personalized book recommendations from senior correspondent and resident book critic Constance Grady. To get your own recommendation, ask Constance here, and subscribe to the newsletter here.

I need books to help me escape the nightmare of a second Trump presidency. If possible, they will also give me hope that things will get better, that people can grow and become less racist, misogynistic, and bigoted.

This is a good time to read something that is nourishing to the soul: something big and complicated and thoughtful, something that will teach us about ourselves and other people. Not only to give us a reprieve from the world, but to feed ourselves so that we can reenter the world better prepared to handle what awaits.

Right now, I’m thinking about the classics. I’m thinking about Les Miserables, which is so concerned with what it means to be a good person and what we owe to those we walk in the world with, even when they are as sleazy and petty as the scheming Thénardiers. I’m thinking about War and Peace, and the way it returns over and over again to the way individuals get caught up in the crosshairs of history, and what we can do with our own small lives regardless. I’m thinking about Emma, and how Emma allows her love of her own cleverness and charm to entice her into betraying her duty to her community, and all that she does to make up for it.

Take your time. Slow down. Feel your way into the books.

I’m a murder mystery fan (from Agatha Christie to contemporary) and I also really enjoy fantasy and science fiction (think Ursula K. Le Guin or N.K. Jemisin). This year I read Robert Jackson Bennett’s The Tainted Cup and it was a perfect combination of things I like in a book: a satisfying mystery, a fun detective, and a rich and intricate world with fantastical and unsettling elements. I’m looking for more fantasy murder mysteries that can scratch this itch!

Take a try at Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo. The heroine is Alex, a former street kid who lucked her way into a scholarship at Yale and is on a secret mission after it was discovered that she can see ghosts. Yale wants Alex to help manage the magical activities of their secret societies. Alex wants a ticket out of her old life — and she also wants to solve a couple of murders that Yale has a vested interest in covering up. It should check all the boxes you’ve listed.

I finally got around to reading two books that have been on my list for a while: House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune and Blackouts by Justin Torres. Found both of them great, but wanting something in between the “happily ever after” feeling I got from Klune’s books and the sadness that comes from the constant reminder that queer lives are far too often erased. (As someone who is both a history lover and gay, I knew that already.) Could you possibly recommend something somewhere in between? Bonus points for adding fantasy elements like Klune or experimental style like Torres. Thanks so much!

I’m tempted to just send you over to Gideon the Ninth because it meets your needs so nicely (experimental queer fantasy with a complex emotional tone), but frankly I recommend that book too often and I’ve got to change things up. So!

Take a look at Carmen Maria Machado’s memoir In the Dream House. It tells the story of Machado’s abuse at the hands of her ex-girlfriend, with each chapter told in the style of a different genre: noir, erotica, fairy tale. The abuse is at times harrowing, but the overall arc of the book is hopeful. Fundamentally it tells the story of Machado’s escape and recovery, and how she learned to put the abuse into context with her understanding of what it means to be queer. (The formal experimentation is pretty dazzling, too.)

You could also try Ellen Kushner’s Swordspoint, which is the book that invented the fantasy of manners genre back in the ’80s. (Think: Dangerous Liaisons, but with spells.) It tells the story of Richard St. Vier, the greatest swordsman in his city, and his lover Alec, a prickly young scholar, as they navigate the intrigue of the court of schemers around him. It’s a melodrama, and a beautiful one, full of characters plotting evil deeds over creamy cups of hot chocolate as they gaze off into the snow and contemplate what jewels to wear to their next assignation. Every sentence is a pleasure.

Finally, I want to put Alexander Chee on your radar. Chee is a queer writer, but the novel of his that I think you’ll most like isn’t explicitly queer. Queen of the Night is a big juicy epic about the many travails of an opera singer and courtesan in 18th-century France, her many enemies, and her many lovers. The historical details range from the luxurious (long descriptions of Empress Eugénie’s gowns) to the excruciating (we get quite a bit on our heroine starving during the siege of Paris at the end of the Franco-Prussian War). Everything is written with the emotional dial turned all the way to 11. Big and absorbing and extremely fun.