Like any normal book dragon with ADHD, my shelves are filled with highly recommended books that I bought a while ago but haven’t read yet. One such book, the one that has sat near the top of my to-read pile the longest, is The Unbroken by C.L. Clark, the first book in her Magic of the Lost trilogy. EveryRead More
A Two-Spirit Journey by Ma-Nee Chacaby with Mary Louisa Plummer Review
A Two-Spirit Journey: The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder by Ma-Nee Chacaby with Mary Louisa Plummer was this year’s winner of Canada Reads, and if you’re not Canadian, I can tell you that’s a big deal. It’s a TV/radio program where five “personalities” (celebrities of some kind) debate which book the country should beRead More
The Fight Isn’t Over: Ten Incarnations of Rebellion by Vaishnavi Patel Review
Ten Incarnations of Rebellion takes place in an alternate version of 1960s India, where British colonists’ brutal crackdown successfully quashed earlier attempts at independence. We meet Kalki as a teenager. Her father’s fight for freedom forced him to flee their home, and Kalki hasn’t heard from him since. Despite his rebellion liking costing his life,Read More
A TBR Shame Spiral in Six Titles
As a librarian, my TBR (to-be-read) shelf is never ending. Every time I think I am going to crack down on my whole bookshelf of unread books, something amazing comes through the returns chute, or my VERY well-meaning coworkers share something that they think I will love (most times they are right on the money)Read More
Horror that Lingers: We Came to Welcome You by Vincent Tirado Review
Mesmerizing, sickening, echoing-hole-in-your-stomach, roller coaster lurch of a creeping inferno: Vincent Tirado’s We Came to Welcome You: A Novel of Suburban Horror is all that and more. Released in the last quarter of 2024, to the tune of “The Other Black Girl meets Midsommar,” the book takes the banal normalcy of racism and colonialism and twists it until itsRead More
A Queer, Anti-Colonial Sci-Fi Novella: Countess by Suzan Palumbo
This review contains spoilers. Countess by Suzan Palumbo is a short science fiction novel that is a love story to the West Indies and its people even lightyears and generations away from the islands of Earth. It follows Virika Sameroo, a soldier for the Æcerbot Empire that controls and subjugates people like Virika just as theRead 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
A Toxic Polycule on a Hostile Planet: This World is Not Yours by Kemi Ashing-Giwa
When The Lesbrary received an ARC of This World is Not Yours by Kemi Ashing-Giwa, I had to pick it up. This science fiction novella, which came out September 10, 2024, takes place on a colony world far in the future and involves space corporation politics, a planet with an unusual ecosystem that probably should not haveRead More
F/F Jamaican-Inspired YA Fantasy with Dragons: So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole
Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! Any other Eragon girlies out there? Check out So Let Them Burn, a Jamaican-inspired F/F young adult fantasy that delivered from beginning to end! This moving and action-packed debut has made me a Kamilah Cole fangirl and I can’t wait for the second book inRead More