The five Weird children in Andrew Kaufman’s fourth book, Born Weird (Random House Canada), are on a mission to save themselves from themselves. The blessings their grandmother bestowed upon them at birth have become curses that only she can remove, in person, at the hour of her death. Reunited on their way to see her, and rediscovering themselves as adults, the kids are finally able to unravel some of the Weird family mysteries, including what happened to the body of their deceased father. Traipsing a fine line between sentimental and playful, the magic realism of Kaufman’s book sometimes overreaches into absurdity; at other times, it doesn’t reach far enough. (For example, Kaufman boringly refers to the grandmother’s no-nonsense intonation as “the Tone.”) These problems are forgivable, however, as the colourful details and seamless storytelling create an irresistible world.
—Erica Ruth Kelly

Addicts, sex workers, the lovelorn and Yugoslav War refugees jostle for breathing room in Nina Bunjevac’s Heartless (Conundrum Press), a comic collection whose night-black illustrations are rivaled only by the suffocating darkness of its storytelling. Selma is raped by a co-worker and watches her uncle masturbate over her underwear; Zorka has an abortion following a one-night stand with a stripper. One supposes that this is all intended to be morbidly funny, but it’s really just a chore to get through. Although Bunjevac’s stippled pen-and-ink drawings are sumptuous and vivid, her characters remain stubbornly two-dimensional, and Heartless rarely feels like more than a scattered collection of sad-sack tales.
—Drew Nelles

From gender ratios on college campuses to the capitalist benefits of monogamy (it prevents riots!), Marina Adshade’s Dollars and Sex (HarperCollins) is a study of the macro- and microeconomics of erotic relationships. Inspired by a course that Adshade developed at the University of British Columbia, Dollars and Sex can sometimes read like a first-year econ textbook, but Adshade’s insights and asides will still have you quoting her in casual conversation. Case studies, statistics and models demonstrate the economics that govern what initially seem like instinctive human choices, and, despite some repetitive oversimplification, the findings are engaging. Adshade started the course to make economics more interesting by exploring it through the lens of sex, but, instead, sex becomes more interesting through the lens of economics.
—Haley Cullingham

In Sensational Victoria (Anvil Press) by Eve Lazarus, poets live in houses wrapped around redwood trees, secret doors in attics open to reveal boxes of old journals and Emily Carr’s ghost strolls down the street. It’s not a fiction but an illustration of the history of Victoria, and of coastal British Columbia, told through the city’s homes. By setting these stories in physical spaces, many of which are still standing, Lazarus creates a connection to the past that eliminates degrees of separation. The book is occasionally bogged down with detail, and certain chapters will weary non-history buffs, but Lazarus manages to create vivid characters: legendary Canadians like Carr, Nellie McClung and Bruce Hutchison, explorers who inspired Jack London and Rudyard Kipling, and madames who ran brothels with discreet canoe entrances.
—HC

The images first conjured by Chantal Neveu’s Coït (Book Thug) are, not unexpectedly, coital. But, as the spare text of this new collection of poetry progresses, Neveu evokes a broader sense of heightened speed and movement. She attempts to capture the physicality of dancers and lovers, and found much of her inspiration on the edges of rehearsal spaces. The strange ordering of the phrases leaves the first half of the book open to interpretation, giving the words the spontaneous and temporary quality of a live performance; the reader reacts more than she analyzes.
—HC