“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
Religious Trauma and Queer Awakening: Gay the Pray Away by Natalie Naudus
Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! Content warnings: homophobia, child abuse, religious abuse, physical abuse Gay the Pray Away by Natalie Naudus follows Valerie Danners as she begins to understand and live her own truth. Unfortunately for Valerie, the truth of her sexuality is beyond unacceptable to her conservative Christian community,Read More
A Bisexual, Palestinian American Coming of Age: You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat
Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! Earlier this month, during a trip to Portland, Oregon to cheer on the UConn Women’s Basketball team in the Sweet 16/Elite 8 (Go Huskies!), my partner and I visited the renowned Powell’s City of Books. We were perusing its gorgeous shelves when You Exist Too Much byRead More
You Need to Read Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! I’m embarrassed to admit I only just read this for the first time. I’ve read every other Malinda Lo book. I’ve had a copy since it first came out—in fact, I’ve owned two copies, because I also spent $100 on a signed hardcover (itRead More
A Sapphic Marriage of Convenience Manga: I Married My Best Friend to Shut My Parents Up by Kodama Naoko
Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! Machi has been going along with what other people want for as long as she can remember, but she’s so sick of her parents nagging her to find a husband that she’s ready to marry someone they’d hate to spite them. She wasn’t expectingRead More
Misogyny and Murder: Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll
Bookshop.org Affiliate Link In her most ambitious novel yet, crime writer Jessica Knoll—author of Luckiest Girl Alive (2015)—blends fact and fiction as she adapts the events surrounding a series of killings committed in Tallahassee, Florida in 1978. Bright Young Women (2023) begins in January 1978. Patricia Schumacher is president of her sorority at Florida State University. She takesRead More
The Original Sapphic Vampire: Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
Bookshop.org Affiliate Link A young girl, Laura, becomes haunted by a figure in a dream that preys on her. Ten years later, that girl, Carmilla, shows up at her home and claims to know her from the dream as well. They become fast friends, but Carmilla holds a dark secret: she is a vampire whoRead More
The Complexity of Being a Queer Refugee: From Here by Luma Mufleh
Bookshop.org Affiliate Link Trigger warnings for this book: suicide attempts and ideation, homophobia, violence Like a lot of Westerners, when I hear about countries with laws against homosexuality, I respond with instinctual aversion: “What a terrible place! I hope any queer people there can leave!” I imagine impediments like the law and its enforcers, economicRead More
A Knife-Throwing Bisexual Mystery in 1940’s New York: Fortune Favors the Dead by Stephen Spotswood
Bookshop.org Affiliate Link Content Warnings: Homophobia, ableism, depictions of violence Fortune Favors the Dead by Stephen Spotswood is a fun and engaging mystery story, set in the backdrop of New York City in the direct aftermath of World War II. Willowjean Parker, who prefers the name Will, is a former circus performer and general ruffian.Read More
The Aftermath of Gay Conversion Camp: Tell the Rest by Lucy Jane Bledsoe
Amazon Affiliate Link | Bookshop.org Affiliate Link In 2014, I read The Big Bang Symphony by Lucy Jane Bledsoe based solely on the fact that it was included on a book list called “Lesbians In Cold Places.” And you know what? That was a great decision, because I really enjoyed it. It was a slow-buildingRead More