Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! I have had Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H on my list since it came out, and I am so glad my library hold on it finally came in. Lamya narrates a series of essays tying together her queer coming of age and herRead More
Making The Future Gay: The Five Things I Checked out From the Queer Liberation Library
Recently, a nonprofit in Massachusetts put out an exclusively queer book collection on Libby called the Queer Liberation Library (also known as QLL). Their mission is simple: by providing queer people with diversity-focused literature and resources, QLL is building a future that is undeniably queer. This collection of e-materials is available to anyone with an email address,Read More
A Pressure Cooker of a Childhood: Hiding Out by Tina Alexis Allen
Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! Usually, I review novels for this blog, ideally young adult or middle grade speculative, and that’s representative of my reading choices. This adult memoir is outside the norm for me. I can’t very well review it as an expert. So take my dabbler’s opinionRead More
Messy Roots: a Graphic Memoir of a Wuhanese American by Laura Gao
Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! Messy Roots is Laura Gao’s memoir of her childhood and coming of age, first in Wuhan, China, then an early move to Texas, and finally through her choices of college in Pennsylvania and a job in the Bay area. As a Chinese American immigrant,Read More
A Memoir of Medical Bias—Bless the Blood: A Cancer Memoir by Walela Nehanda
Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! Bless The Blood: A Cancer Memoir is a striking book that gets under your skin and stays there for days afterward. Though billed as a YA book, the writing and story hold a depth of feeling and insight that will engage far older readers, too.Read More
Identity in Transition: Us by Sara Soler
Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! Growing into one’s queer identity is often more a journey of discovery than a destination, and loving someone through the discovery phases takes one on the journey as well. Us by Sara Soler is a graphic memoir of love in motion. It follows twoRead More
Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest To Track Down The Last Remaining Lesbian Bars In America by Krista Burton
Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! This book really just had to live up to the title for me to love it, and it did. Krista Burton used to run a blog called Effing Dykes that I followed and enjoyed, so I knew I was already a fan of herRead More
A Genre-Defying Queer Black Memoir: The Black Period by Hafizah Augustus Geter
Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! In 2023, I was a judge for the Nonfiction category of the Lambda Literary Awards. One of the books I read—the one that ended up winning for the category—was The Black Period: On Personhood, Race, and Origin. This is a brilliant, expansive book thatRead 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
Danika reviews How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler
Amazon Affiliate Link | Bookshop.org Affiliate Link This may be my favourite book I’ve read this year, and there’s been some stiff competition. How Far the Light Reaches is exactly what the subtitle promises: a life in ten sea creatures. It weaves together facts about aquatic animals with related stories from the author’s own life.Read More