Soft Spots: Leila Renee's Debut on the Places We're Tender

Published July 28, 2026 from Amistad, Soft Spots is Leila Renee's immersive, inventive debut — "dark but also very funny, sad but also life-affirming, scathing but also compassionate," in the words of Margaret Wilkerson Sexton. The Chicago Review of Books called it a novel that finds "soft spots and hard truths" in family life: the places where we're tender, the wounds we hide, and the love that persists in the bruised spaces between.

The Tender Economy

Renee identifies what we might call the "tender economy" — the invisible accounting of vulnerability and strength that every family keeps. In a 2026 world where parents are expected to be endlessly resilient, Soft Spots argues the opposite: that the soft places are not weaknesses but the very architecture of connection. The novel follows a family navigating grief, distance, and the hard truths they've been avoiding — and finds that life-affirming humor can coexist with the darkest material.

Lessons for Families:

• The Tender Economy: Honoring vulnerability as the foundation of family connection.
• Hard Truths, Soft Touch: Facing difficult family realities with compassion rather than armor.
• Grief and Humor: The life-affirming power of laughter even in the darkest chapters.

The ChildCost Verdict

Soft Spots is a compassionate, sharp-witted debut that belongs on every family's shelf. Renee proves that our tender places are not what break us — they are what make us human, and what make us family.