The spread of COVID-19 has greatly impacted the human experience of 2020 across the world. In addition to our shared illness—and our losses of loved ones, income, and stability—our attempts to combat the virus interrupt our ongoing need and search for human connection. Many of us are feeling painfully isolated. Even in these strange times, though, books continue to provide insight into these particularly human emotions, and they are a source of connection in and of themselves. One such book is The Bitter Kind. The Bitter Kind by Tara Lynn Masih and James Claffey (Oct. 2020, Červená Barva Press) is a fascinating lyric novelette divided between two alternating points of view: Stela, a survivor of childhood abuse that follows her into a transient adulthood, and Brandy, a Chippewa orphan, a seer, deeply in tune with nature, and a drifter.It’s not immediately clear why we’re following these two characters. They don’t know each other, live hundreds of miles apart, and come from very different backgrounds. But, Stela and Brandy’s narratives are gripping and compulsively readable for totally different reasons. Stela’s story begins in the violent household of her childhood, in which her alcoholic father terrorizes the family during the day, and continue...