📚 Strange metaphors and repetitive phrasing

via 📚 Strange metaphors and repetitive phrasing

March 24, 2026 View Online | Join All Access | Listen 🏒 The lit bros are about to discover hockey romance. Great American Novelist Don DeLillo’s 1980 novel Amazons, published under the pseudonym Cleo Birdwell (10/10, no notes) will return to print in November thanks to a surge in interest prompted by Alexandra Alter’s recent unearthing of it in the New York Times. As someone whose reading life exists in the center of the Venn diagram of Heated Rivalry and White Noise, I cannot overstate how exciting this is. Let’s go. Spread the word. Share this email with friends.

THE HEADLINE Hachette cancels novel over AI allegations It was only a matter of time. Shy Girl by Mia Ballard is the first book from a Big 5 publisher to be pulled over alleged AI use, but it almost definitely won’t be the last. The novel took off when Ballard self-published it in early 2025, and Hachette took notice. Shy Girl was re-released in October in the U.K. and was set for publication in the U.S. this May. Then the rumors started as readers took to social media to speculate that the book’s strange metaphors and repetitive phrasing were signs that Ballard had used AI to write it. Hachette did not comment as allegations piled up. In late January, the founder and CEO of an AI detection program heard the rumors and decided to run Shy Girl through his software, which indicated that the book was 78% AI-generated. Ballard denies that she used AI to write the story but says that the friend she hired to edit it did use AI in that process. After months of silence, Hachette, which does ask its authors to disclose AI use, told the New York Times last week that the U.S. publication of Shy Girl had been canceled, and the U.K. edition will be discontinued. Unless or until publishers tighten up their policies around AI use and invest in AI-detection processes, it’s reader beware. – RJS

NEW RELEASES Heads will roll, hearts will soar What if Anne Boleyn woke up the day after her beheading bent on revenge? What if you’d chosen the other guy to give you a ride home that night? What if the fairy tale you were born into wasn’t the one you had to finish? There’s speculation and adventure aplenty in this week’s hottest new releases. Also hitting shelves: ✍️ New poems from Maggie Smith 🐍 Short stories from one of our best living American writers 🎶 The surprising histories of songs that changed America 🤷‍♂️ An unscientific examination of male friendship from a Brat Pack star turned writer 📫 Get more new releases in your inbox with our New Books! newsletter.

TOGETHER WITH 23RD ST. BOOKS The devil walked into her library. She should have asked for ID. From Olivie Blake, author of The Atlas Six and Girl Dinner, comes a deliciously dark graphic novel romance years in the making. Clara & the Devil, Volume 1, illustrated by Blake’s longtime collaborator Little Chmura, follows Clara, whose carefully ordered small-town life begins to unravel the moment an unusual stranger arrives and starts a situationship with her best friend. He calls himself the devil. He wants a library card. And he has a lot to say about power, ambition, and the desires Clara has kept secret even from herself. What follows slow-burn summer of dangerous attraction, lush atmospheric art, and the kind of seduction that makes you root for something you know might end badly.

ZERO TO WELL-READ How to hone your reading skills We get a lot of good mail from listeners of Zero to Well-Read, so this week, we’re rolling up the sleeves of our tweed blazers and peering over our reading glasses to offer some answers. How can you level up your reading skills to go beyond “I liked it / I didn’t like it” into a deeper evaluation of a book? When should you quit a book that isn’t working for you, and when is it a good exercise to keep going? What good are reading goals, and what makes a good one? If you wish that book club were more like English class, this is the podcast for you. And if you’d rather skip the advice and get right into the deep dives, here are some good starting points: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald The Secret History by Donna Tartt The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan And if you love movies (almost) as much as you love books, we’ve got you covered with conversations about why Wuthering Heights is not a romance, the book behind One Battle After Another, and Project Hail Mary. Find Zero to Well-Read on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

READ THE RAINBOW Finalists for the 2026 Lambda Literary Awards Lambda Literary has revealed the finalists for the 2026 Lambda Literary Awards, celebrating outstanding LGBTQ+ voices in literature. With 26 categories offering five finalists each, there’s much to explore. Titles that seemed to be everywhere last year include: Hungerstone by Kat Dunn (Lesbian Fiction),  The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam by Lana Lin (Lesbian Memoir/Biography),  Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson by Tourmaline (Transgender Nonfiction),  Spent by Alison Bechdel (LGBTQ+ Comics) Sympathy for Wild Girls by Demree McGhee (Bisexual Fiction). But the fact is that not enough of these books get amplified. If books like Disco Witches of Fire Island by Blair Fell, The Natural Order of Things by Donika Kelly, The Lilac People by Milo Todd, and Bed and Breakup by (Book Riot’s own) Susie Dumond fell under your radar, this list of Lambda Literary Awards finalists will be your new favorite catch-up resource. The winners will be announced June 12. – SZW

TOGETHER WITH THRIFTBOOKS Small books. Big impact. — This month, ThriftBooks is turning the spotlight on the fast-paced, pocket-sized favorites that readers can’t resist. From edge-of-your-seat thrillers to swoon-worthy romances and unforgettable classics, these mass market paperbacks prove that great stories don’t need a big format to stand the test of time.

ADAPTATION NATION Jane Fonda to star in The Correspondent Gabriel Hutchinson, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons The late-breaking hit novel of 2025 is headed to the silver screen. After 19 weeks on the bestseller list and more than a million copies sold, The Correspondent by Virginia Evans went to Lionsgate in a seven-studio bidding war. Seven studios! Fighting over a charming little epistolary novel with an older woman as its main character! What a time to be alive. Jane Fonda is set to star as Sybil Van Antwerp, a retired lawyer whose friends would probably describe her as “a real pistol.” Cat Vasko will write the film, to be produced by Todd Lieberman’s Hidden Pictures, fresh off another adaptation smash with The Housemaid. More details here.

IN CONVERSATION Louise Erdrich on short stories, editing, and working with her daughters Photo: Pallas Erdrich Louise Erdrich is one of the GOATs. She’s published dozens of books, ranging from novels to poetry to children’s stories. Her new collection of short stories Python’s Kiss is out today from Harper. We were thrilled to have her drop by the Book Riot Podcast for a conversation about this book and where it sits in her storied career. Some highlights: It was a family affair: Erdrich’s daughters also contributed to the project. Pallas Erdrich narrated the audiobook, and Aza Erdrich Abe provided the cover art and illustrations to accompany each story. On writing short stories after a long run of novels: “I wanted to have standalone short stories, short stories that really were short stories and didn’t gesture to the novel or feel like they were part of a novel. I think I could have done that before, but maybe I didn’t have the confidence. These were stories I really believed in as short stories.” Where should a reader start with her books? Erdrich recommends The Night Watchman, which is “centered on what’s hardest to write: human decency.” She also suggests The Sentence: “I got into that voice, and I couldn’t stop. That is the most wonderful experience for a writer.” 🎧 Hear the rest of our conversation.

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY Toni Cade Bambara, born March 25, 1939 Did you know? Bambara spent time studying mime in Paris at École de Mime Etienne Decroux.

CRITICAL LINKING You are now free to roam about the internet 🚀 Read these books after you see Project Hail Mary. 🏆 See the shortlist for the first major book award determined by incarcerated judges. 📚 Venture back in time with these new historical fiction books. 🥰 Swoon over spring’s best new romances. 📰 Get daily dispatches of bookish news by signing up for Today In Books.

END NOTES Written by Rebecca Schinsky, Sharifah Williams, Jeff O’Neal, and Danika Ellis. Thanks to Vanessa Diaz for copy editing. Did someone forward you this email? Sign up here. Got a tip, question, comment, or story idea? Drop us a line: thenewsletter@bookriot.com.