As an avid reader of all of Julia Armfield’s fiction, I was eager to pick up her newest novel. From the author of Our Wives Under the Sea (2022), Private Rites (Fourth Estate, 2024) promised to be poignant, haunting, and literary. Set in a future world where environmental disaster has flooded much of the world with ceaseless rains, threeRead More
A Tough But Necessary Read: Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah Review
Content warnings for pretty much everything: violence, gore, racism, incarceration, solitary confinement, self harm, cutting At the time of writing this, it’s barely been three weeks since the 2024 presidential election in the United States, which Donald Trump won by a handy margin. Although Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah came out over a yearRead More
Murder by Crowdfunding: Crowded Vol. 1 by Christopher Sebela et al.
Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! The Crowded comic book series tells the satirical story of a dystopian world not too far in the future where the gig economy has become unhinged. In this world, everything has a price, including putting out hits on someone’s life through an app called Reapr. AnyoneRead More
Trans Horror Satire with a Beating Heart: Boys Weekend by Mattie Lubchansky
Bookshop.org Affiliate Link Boys Weekend a satirical horror graphic novel about Sammie, a trans feminine person who is invited to a bachelor party of an old friend as the “best man.” While there, Mattie seems to be the only one concerned about the cult sacrificing people. This was already on my TBR, and I wasRead More
LA as a Not-So-Urban Jungle: Undergrowth by Chel Hylott and Chelsea Lim
Bookshop.org Affiliate Link Seventeen-year-old Mariam finds herself surviving a Los Angeles that has been overrun by a magic jungle of horror. Along the way, she meets a group of other survivors, and together they become a family. But Mariam has her secrets. She magically heals and cannot die thanks to a deal with the devilRead More
Mechanized Deities and Queer Perseverance: Godslayers by Zoe Hana Mikuta
Bookshop.org Affiliate Link In her acknowledgements at the end of Godslayers, the second book of her Gearbreakers duology, Zoe Hana Mikuta writes, “Okay. So. I’ve been incredibly mean to my characters.” She is spot on. Eris, Sona, and the rest of the cast go through so much in this book. There’s psychological terror, disfigurement, death of close friends, andRead More
Kayla Bell reviews The Offset by Calder Szewczak
Amazon Affiliate Link | Book Depository Affiliate Link Cards on the table, Angry Robot is one of my favorite publishers. Ever since I started getting into science fiction and fantasy, they’ve consistently published some of my favorite books. The Outside by Ada Hoffman, The Rise of Io by Wesley Chu, and Under the Pendulum SunRead More
Sinclair reviews The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison
A friend recommended I read The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison, saying it was one of her favorite novels, and I trust her taste, so I picked it up. I was hooked immediately. I didn’t know a ton about it going into it, so I don’t want to say too much aboutRead More
Danika reviews Love after the End edited by Joshua Whitehead
Love after the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit & Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction edited by Joshua Whitehead is a collection of science fiction and fantasy short stories by Indigenous authors. It’s edited and introduced by Joshua Whitehead, the author of Jonny Appleseed and full-metal indigiqueer. In that introduction, Whitehead reflects on the intersection between Indigeneity and queerness:Read More
anna marie reviews Salt Fish Girl by Larissa Lai
Salt Fish Girl by Larissa Lai is a gooey treat of a book, full of nauseating smells, intoxicating feelings and so much juicy/murky/enticing fluid. In other words it was really great, even better than The Tiger Flu (2018) in my opinion, which I read last year and enjoyed immensely too. Both novels in fact shareRead More