In This Edition of
The BookBrowse Review
Contents
Highlighting indicates debut books
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Literary Fiction
Historical Fiction
Short Stories
Essays
Poetry & Novels in Verse
Thrillers
Romance
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Biography/Memoir
History, Current Affairs and Religion
Literary Fiction
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Graphic Novels
Biography/Memoir
History, Current Affairs and Religion
| Critics: |
Magnetic, haunting, and tender, Extinction Capital of the World is a stunning portrait of Hawai'i—and a powerful meditation on family, queer love, and community amid imperialism and environmental collapse.
In ten vibrant, affecting stories, Mariah Rigg immerses readers in contemporary Hawai'i. By turns heartbreaking and hopeful, these stories of love, longing, and grief are fierce dispatches from a state haunted by the specter of colonization, a precious biome under constant threat.
An older man grapples with the American-weapons research conducted on a neighboring island that reverberates through his entire life. A pregnant woman seeks belonging while poaching flowers in the rainforest with her partner's mother. Two teenage girls find love during a summer spent on Midway Atoll. A young woman returns home to O'ahu following a breakup and reconnects with her estranged father and the island itself.
Linked by both place and character, Rigg's stories illuminate the exotification and commodification of Hawai'i in the American mythos. Extinction Capital of the World is an environmental love letter to the Hawaiian Islands and an indelible portrayal of the people who inhabit them—marking the arrival of an exciting new voice in contemporary fiction.
"This debut collection brilliantly and hopefully contests the finality of any story." —Kirkus Reviews
"Affecting...This powerful collection of slice-of-life short stories with complete arcs is told in evocative language and with care and empathy." —Library Journal
"Rigg's debut is a vibrant tribute to Hawai'i and the love that's fostered on its lands." —Booklist
"In Extinction Capital of the World, Mariah Rigg traces the contours of contemporary Hawai'i with exquisite precision and grace. Across these ten stories, she shows how desire anchors us to vanishing landscapes, and how the heart finds its coordinates even as familiar worlds shift beneath our feet. These are breathtakingly beautiful dispatches from the frontlines of an imperiled ecosystem, rendered with astonishing clarity." —Kimberly King Parsons, National Book Award-nominated author of Black Light and We Were the Universe
"Extinction Capital of the World is the queer ecological collection of my dreams. Liberated of the western constraint of linearity, these ten stories blissfully cast forward and loop back, attending to all the small and significant ways our choices reverberate across time, across landscapes, across species. Whether moving through the galleries of the Honolulu Museum of Art or navigating the open waters of Ka'iwi Channel, the characters of Rigg's world are as vibrant and diverse as the many species populating these pages. Extinction Capital of the World is incisive and deeply compassionate, and Rigg is an extraordinary storyteller." —Megan Kamalei Kakimoto, author of Every Drop Is a Man's Nightmare
Mariah Rigg is a Samoan-Haole settler who was born and raised on the island of O'ahu. Her work has been featured in Oxford American, The Sewanee Review, Joyland, and elsewhere. In 2024, she was awarded a fellowship in creative writing from the National Endowment for the Arts. She holds an MFA from the University of Oregon and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
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