When I first stumbled upon the novel Yours for the Taking by Gabrielle Korn, I was intrigued by the premise. Given how rampant and inescapable toxic masculinity is in society, it’s not unusual to hear people wish for a world without men. So, what if that happened? What if someone created a society free from men andRead More
A Wild Dystopian Ride: Road to Ruin by Hana Lee
This is a post-apocalyptic ride of a novel with many a comparison to the Mad Max movies. Desert wastelands, thrilling motorcycle rides, and dinosaur-like creatures await in these pages! Jin-Lu, our main character, is a mage-bike courier, which means she has an aesthetically cool and extremely dangerous job taking messages and cargo across the wastelandsRead More
Motorcycles, Magic, Monsters, and Love Letters: Road to Ruin by Hana Lee Review
Road to Ruin by Hana Lee was described to me as a Max Max: Fury Road-inspired fantasy with magic-fueled motorcycles, a dangerous wasteland, and romantic letter writing, and it lives up to the hype. I was instantly drawn in, and the whole thing was a romp that left me excited for the sequel. Not only does ourRead More
Hunger at the End of the World: Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang Review
Land of Milk and Honey is a literary science fiction novel that brings to life a dystopian world in which a smog has killed off food crops. The unnamed main character is a chef that is invited to take a job at a mountaintop colony in Italy, established by an enigmatic man and his visionary,Read More
An Inverse Handmaid’s Tale: Eleven Percent by Maren Uthaug Review
Eleven Percent has been marketed as an “inverse Handmaid’s Tale”—a world where women are in control and only 11% of men remain (kept under lock and key for reproduction and such). But while that pitch might catch your attention, what Maren Uthaug actually delivers is a much more unsettling and layered exploration of power, gender,Read More
A Cyberpunk Heist: Hammajang Luck by Makana Yamamoto Review
I picked up Hammajang Luck by Makana Yamamoto during the Trans Rights Readathon, as the dramatic setup for this cyberpunk heist novel compelled me. It ended up being one of the most memorable stories I read for the event. Edie’s last heist ended with them being sold out by their childhood friend, Angel, and spending eight yearsRead More
An Open Wound of a Novel: Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah Review
This is a book I respect, and it’s one I struggled to get through. The subject matter is difficult—not only is it set in a near-future dystopia where prisoners fight each other to the death for a chance at freedom, but it also includes footnotes about the real-life atrocities of the prison-industrial complex. I canRead More
The Three Queer Books That Broke My Reading Slump
I will be completely honest—I have been burnt out, to the point where I have been struggling to find joy in reading and even finding reading books for my job a burden. I am sure a lot of you have been feeling the same way. But as I went searching for ways to engage withRead More
Resisting from the Margins in The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer by Janelle Monáe et al.
As someone who enjoyed Janelle Monáe’s Dirty Computer album and accompanying film, I was thrilled to finally read The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer, an anthology of five stories cowritten by Janelle Monáe with Danny Lore, Yohanca Delgado, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Sheree Renée Thomas, and Eve L. Ewing. This book returns to the dystopian worldRead More
Sliding Doors Meets Mad Max: The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson
When The Space Between Worlds came out in 2020, it was all anyone was talking about on Book Riot. (That’s the site I work for now and wrote for then.) It’s not often a sapphic book gets that much attention outside the queer book world, and the premise immediately hooked me. So, of course, IRead More
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