Khadaji’s Whatcha Reading Thread - September 2026 edition

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Catamount

I need to find Someone You Can Build a Nest In to be a completist. (Helps that he’s only got three novels out for that goal.)

Here’s what I wrote when I read this book:

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

• Someone You Can Build a Nest In, by John Wiswell. I was hooked by the second paragraph, when the narrator talks about eating her siblings in the body her father. Weird alien point-of-view characters are fun. By 25% of the way through the book, I’d transitioned to hate-reading it. This alien organism who barely has any contact with humanity–much less with GenZ social media–is constantly talking about “abuser personality” and “holding people accountable” and “being in denial” and “consensual touch” (keep in mind, the alien obsessing over consensual touch also eats people and absorbs their skeletal system). The author’s note talks extensively about being disabled, and the book was a very thinly veiled allegory for growing up neurodiverse, and it missed the fucking mark so bad. For a much better take on a similar idea, check out Ann Leckie’s brilliant Translation State.