Described as “prose snapshots,” each of the stories in this evocative, wide-ranging collection captures significant or telling moments, encounters, or observations in 50 words or fewer. Together, they add up to something far greater than the sum of their parts, creating a rich, layered portrait of the human experience.

In this imaginative collection of linked stories, “the borderlands” seem to refer not only to the territory along the U.S.-Mexico border–a landscape traversed by the central character, Jillian Guzmán, and her family–but also to metaphysical boundaries that are magically porous to Jillian: between life and death and between the material and spiritual worlds. Collectively, her experiences in these dimensions create a portrait of deep empathy, and of the powers of hope and redemption, even amid suffering.

When I finished Nick Kolakowski’s riveting thriller Boise Longpig Hunting Club, I was eager for a sequel. Over the course of that novel, the central characters–bounty hunter Jake Halligan, his gun-running sister, Frankie, and Jake’s fiancée, Janine–became prey in a “Most Dangerous Game”-style hunt orchestrated by a corrupt and powerful billionaire, Ted Baker, who’d blamed the death of his coke-dealing brother on Jake and Frankie’s late father, a former deputy. Though the trio ended up slaughtering their way to freedom, one thing seemed clear by the novel’s conclusion: When you kill a man like Baker, along with his rich and influential fellow hunters, there are bound to be consequences.

Fortunately for readers like me, Kolakowski just released Rattlesnake Rodeo, a gripping sequel that unleashes these consequences with force, pushing Jake and Frankie into uncomfortable new territory, physically and morally.

In the simplest sense, Rage is a Wolf portrays one young woman’s quest to make a difference in the world and to find meaning in her life, outside of the boundaries of high school. But much to this credit of this imaginative and inspiring novel, her quest is nothing but simple, and it leads to transformative discoveries about herself and the world.

This insightful and inspiring short-story collection takes us through pivotal events and experiences in the life of the protagonist, Angie Rubio, as she advances from kindergarten to her senior year of high school during the turbulent sixties and early seventies. Throughout, Angie is often treated as an outsider–in many cases, because of the color of her skin (“toast, well done”). Yet over the years–and echoing the protest movements of the time–she finds ways to take power from her outsiderdom, discovering her voice as a young woman and as a writer.

This wonderfully strange, thought-provoking, and hilarious novel defies simple categorization. Is it a study of the soulless mining of personal data for the greediest of ends? Is it a suspenseful tale of a battle of the wills–one Apollonian, the other Dionysian? Is it an artful melding of poetry and prose? Yes and yes and yes. As disparate as these elements may seem, in the end they add up to an entertaining, enlightening whole.