Vicious (V. E. Schwab)

A very comic-book story, where people have super powers and make dastardly plots against a nemesis, and I loved it. Victor and Eli were brilliant college students when they started studying the origin of people with extraordinary abilities. Their research turned to experimentation, and then turned to death and destruction. Along the way we meet a pair of sisters joined by love and death, a giant tattooed man whose specialty is computer hacking, and a dog with the lives of a cat. The larger-than-life plot played out with just the right mix of inevitability and surprise, and the ending held as much tenderness as you could hope for. This is the author's first adult novel; I hope for more.

The Suicide Index (Joan Wickersham)

The author circles through the thoughts, feelings, actions, and images relating to her father's death decades ago from suicide. The book is truly structured as an index (the chapter titles are in outline form, alphabetized), which fits with her overall theme of trying to make sense of her father's action, to give it some kind of rational form. Wickersham doesn't try to dodge the unpleasant responses of everyone involved, looking squarely at how her image of her father shifted, how her mother struggled to regain her balance, how hard it was to talk with her young son, how survivors of suicide connected to share their silent grief. The book confidently finds the line between honesty and bitterness, between love and sentiment, as the author acknowledges the ambiguity of her situation and the lack of real answers. Highly recommended.