CW: Body shaming and homophobic mother, elaboration at the end Spoilers: Spoilers marked at the end for the first 35% of the book I’ve been wanting to read The Summer of Jordi Parez ever since I attended a 2018 ClexaCon panel where Amy Spalding was a speaker. What jumped out at me during her panelRead More
Mary Springer reviews Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeannette Winterspoon
Trigger warnings for mentions of homophobia and abuse The relationship between sapphic women and Christianity is a complicated and sometimes tragic and violent one. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a semi-autobiographical story based around the author’s life raised by an evangelists in an English Pentecostal community while discovering her attraction to women. JeanetteRead More
Mallory Lass reviews Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me written by Mariko Tamaki, illustrated by Rosemary Valero-O’Connell
CW: teen pregnancy & abortion, minor homophobia. I fell in love with Tamaki’s writing in female helmed superhero comics like She-Hulk. I was over the moon to hear she had a queer graphic novel coming out, and Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me is packed with queer representation. Frederica “Freddy” Riley is an averageRead More
Mallory Lass reviews Everything Grows by Aimee Herman
CW: suicide, homophobia, family trauma, parental character death (remembered) and child abuse Have you ever picked up a book and the whole time you’re reading, it feels like somehow the universe aligned and you were meant to find it, to soak in the words and glide through the pages? Well this is how Aimee Herman’sRead More
Mars Reviews Stray: Memoir of a Runaway by Tanya Marquardt
Content warning for child abuse, alcoholism, incest, domestic violence, dissociation. This review does contain spoilers. Tanya Marquardt was sixteen years old when she ran away from the home she shared with her mother, stepfather, and assorted siblings in the small Canadian town of Port Alberni. Her flight was strategic, timed right for when Tanya becameRead More
Mars reviews We Are Okay by Nina LaCour
Not to be dramatic, but we need to start this review with a common understanding stated outright: this novel is beautiful. The prose, the imagery, the point. All of it, beautiful. I found this short novel by completely ignoring the adage about books and their covers, and I am so glad for it. The gorgeous coverRead More
Mallory Lass reviews Rescue Her Heart by KC Luck
Rescue Her Heart is a fun debut novel featuring a mysterious disappearance of both father and fuel, space girlfriends and pirate battles. I would call it science fiction light, so if you are interested in a lot of word building, this might not be for you. However, if you are a fan of adventure romanceRead More
Danika reviews Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera
I don’t usually buy new releases. I acquire so many books that I tend to stick to used books and the library for new acquisitions. But when the reviews for Juliet Takes a Breath began to pour in, I couldn’t resist! I bought it brand new and moved it to the corner of my dresser, readyRead More