Last weekend was Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon, which I’ve done every year for the past ten years. For the October readathon, I save up horror and other Halloween-themed books all year to marathon that day. Green Fuse Burning seemed like a perfect choice: it’s a 99-page horror novella with an Indigenous and sapphic main character.Read More
Not Quite Scared Straight: Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle
“I was a cog in a terrible machine for years, and now I’m honored to be the monkey wrench dismantling it.” Rose grew up in the extremely religious town of Neverton, Montana, where the biggest industry is a gay conversion camp that boasts a 100% effectiveness rate. She’s just about to graduate high school, andRead More
Pick Up These Sapphic YA Graphic Novels for a Halloween Romp
Last weekend was Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon, and every October readathon, I pack my TBR full of short Halloween-themed reads. Naturally, those are usually queer. This year, I’ve discovered a couple of sapphic YA graphic novels that are perfect Halloween romps. They give Halloween vibes—one even has a talking Jack o’Lantern!—but aren’t too scary. They’reRead More
Finding Love in the Smog City: Kari by Amruta Patil
This review contains spoilers. Kari by Amruta Patil is considered the first lesbian graphic novel in India. The book opens with a double suicide pact, which turns out to be unsuccessful, and the narrator falls into a sewer. The story takes place in the big metropolitan city of Mumbai, which is referred to as theRead More
The Successor to House of Leaves: We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer
If you’re looking for a haunted house story to really get under your skin, We Used to Live Here is for you. It’s a slow build, but by the end, it was the kind of story that had me seeing things in the shadows of my room at night. We follow Eve, who has justRead More
A Brutal Colonial Horror Story: To the Bone by Alena Bruzas
To the Bone is the story of Ellis, an indentured girl in the Jamestown settlement of the Virginia colony. Ellis aspires toward little more than goodness; born poor in the late 1500s, she can neither read nor count, but understands the world as preachers sketch its edges. She works hard as a servant to the semi-prominentRead More
An Immersive Steampunk Mystery: A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark
A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark is many things: a steampunk mystery, an anti-colonial historical, an at once dark and whimsical fantasy, and more. But if I had to sum it up in one word, it would be fun. This book gives the reader plenty to chew on while immersing them in a rich world, anRead More
Feral Eldritch Ballerinas: I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me by Jamison Shea
Laure is a ballet dancer who has devoted herself entirely to her profession. She spends every waking moment honing her skill. And she is perfect. But as she soon learns, perfect is not enough. It doesn’t matter that she’s the best, because she’s fighting to rise up in an institution that sees her working classRead More
The Ghosts and Secrets of Suburbia: The Haunting of Velkwood by Gwendolyn Kiste
If I had a nickel for every book I’ve read recently about a suddenly haunted suburb, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but I guess authors are stepping up to throw those sorts of neighborhood into the ghost void. The Haunting of Velkwood by Gwendolyn Kiste is a great little horror romp about a disappearing neighborhood,Read More
A Sapphic & Sanguine Vampire Gothic to Satisfy All Your Cravings: Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk
Are you searching for a spine-tingling sapphic read to round out your October TBR? Look no further! Thirst is a gorgeous Gothic novel that follows two women across two different time periods as they grapple with their seemingly insatiable desires. Written by Marina Yuszczuk (she/her) and translated by Heather Cleary, Thirst is told in two parts. In Part One, aRead More