CityBeat is partnering with Under Cover Book Club on a book-based scavenger hunt in Cincinnati. Every month, the Under Cover Book Club will hide books around the city for you to find with clues posted on social media and CityBeat will publish short reviews of those books to give you a taste of what’s to come. These are the reviews of the books — Exit Zero, Are You Happy?, Waiting for the Long Night Moon and Atavists — that will be hidden in May.
May is National Short Story Month, so I’ve selected works by extraordinary writers whose bite-sized brilliance packs the emotional punch of a novel. Among them are Under Cover Book Club alums Lydia Millet and Amanda Peters, whose latest collections — Atavists and Waiting for the Long Night Moon —are sharp, haunting and unforgettable. These stories stretch across suburbs, ancestral lands, tech-bro mansions and quiet kitchen tables, offering glimpses into lives both strange and deeply familiar. I’ll be hiding these books on Saturday, May 24, starting at 11 a.m. in Wyoming. Happy hunting!
Exit Zero by Marie-Helene Bertino
Imagine stepping into a lucid dream narrated by someone hilariously honest and quietly heartbroken. That’s what Marie-Helene Bertino’s short story collection feels like. It is a bewitching collection that blends the surreal with the deeply human — where flatulent unicorns coexist with grief, haunted peaches mingle with familial tension and vampires reflect on aging and loneliness while navigating modern life. Every story is a portal, not just to the fantastical, but to the raw emotional truths we often try to tuck away.
Bertino’s prose walks a tightrope between whimsy and gut-punch, infusing each narrative with wonder without losing sight of what matters most: love, loss, identity and the messiness in between. Whether a woman inherits a unicorn along with her estranged father’s house or ex-boyfriends rain from the sky, the magic never distracts — it deepens. Exit Zero doesn’t just dazzle with imagination; it lingers for the way it makes you feel. It’s absurd, tender and completely unclassifiable.
For readers of: Helen Oyeyemi, Samantha Hunt, Carmen Maria Machado
FSG Originals ᐧ 208 pages ᐧ April 22, 2025
Are You Happy? by Lori Ostlund
If you’ve ever found yourself lying awake at 3 a.m., pondering the existential weight of a text message left on read, Lori Ostlund’s Are You Happy? might just be your literary soulmate. This collection of nine stories doesn’t just ask the titular question — it invites you into the messy, poignant and occasionally absurd lives of characters who are trying (and often failing) to find an answer.
Ostlund’s prose is a masterclass in restraint and wit, delivering emotional gut punches with the subtlety of a well-timed eye roll. Whether it’s a queer teacher navigating the minefield of classroom dynamics in “The Stalker,” or a woman confronting her family’s eccentricities in “Just Another Family,” each story is a finely tuned exploration of identity, belonging and the elusive nature of happiness. Ostlund is so incredibly good at blending the mundane with the profound. A furniture store becomes a stage for existential dread; a community college classroom morphs into a battleground of ideals. Her characters are deeply human — flawed, funny and achingly real.
Ostlund isn’t concerned with giving easy answers, but she does provide a mirror to our own uncertainties, all while keeping us entertained with her sharp humor and observations.
For readers of: Lorrie Moore, Curtis Sittenfeld, Deborah Eisenberg
Astra House ᐧ 272 pages ᐧ May 6, 2025
Waiting for the Long Night Moon by Amanda Peters
Amanda Peters has crafted a collection that’s quiet but mighty, spare but brimming with emotional truth. These stories don’t shout, but they echo. Waiting for the Long Night Moon feels like sitting around a fire with someone who knows how to tell a story — not just with words, but with heart, memory and bone-deep wisdom.
Peters balances grief and joy with the grace of someone who understands they often live side by side. Whether it’s a child dancing at her first Mawi’omi or a mother turning heartbreak into action, every story carries the weight of history — and the light of survival.
This book reminded me that resilience isn’t loud or flashy; sometimes it’s just showing up, telling your story and dancing anyway.
For readers of: Katherena Vermette, Cherie Dimaline, Eden Robinson
Catapult ᐧ 256 pages ᐧ February 27, 2025
Atavists by Lydia Millet
Each story in Atavists feels like getting invited to a very strange, extremely entertaining neighborhood block party where every guest is having a quiet existential crisis and at least one is convinced their son-in-law watches geriatric porn. The collection is subtly observant and funny. Millet humanizes post-pandemic America in all its awkward glory, from tech-bro palaces to assisted living centers to medieval role-play festivals.
Millet’s words create little cosmos of absurdity and aching truth: a professor obsessed with a dead friend’s Instagram, a suburban dad with a savior complex and a tiny house, a plagiarist academic teetering on the edge of scandal. Millet’s genius lies in her ability to hold up a cracked mirror and make us laugh, wince and recognize ourselves — often all at once.
For readers of: Jenny Offill, Claire Vaye Watkins, Deborah Eisenberg
W.W. Norton & Company ᐧ 240 pages ᐧ April 22, 2025
Learn more about the Under Cover Book Club by visiting undercover513.com. The Under Cover Book Club will reveal more clues about their monthly scavenger hunt on their Instagram page.
This article appears in May 14-27, 2025.
