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
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
An Ode to Burning it All Down: The Genesis of Misery by Neon Yang
Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! Have you ever been seized with the inexplicable urge to destroy an intricate and beautiful object? But you don’t; you just sit with that strange, uncomfortable urge twisting in your chest and gnawing away at your heart. That’s a bit like what reading The GenesisRead More
A Genre-Bending Haunted Bookstore Story: The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! I kept hearing people rave about this book when it was new. I heard it was a cozy read about someone working in a bookstore haunted by the ghost of a customer. So imagine my surprise when the book begins with the main characterRead More
Sapphic Satanic Panic: Rainbow Black by Maggie Thrash
Bookshop.org Affiliate Link In her debut adult novel, Rainbow Black (March 19, 2024), Maggie Thrash (she/her), author of the critically acclaimed young adult graphic memoir Honor Girl, delivers a compelling, witty, and often moving account of Lacey Bond, whose life is forever changed when her parents are arrested and prosecuted for allegedly committing acts of ritualistic childRead More
A Queer Abolitionist History: The Women’s House of Detention by Hugh Ryan
Amazon Affiliate Link | Bookshop.org Affiliate Link Since the days of lesbian pulp fiction, Greenwich Village has been seen as a gay hub, a refuge for queer people from all over the country. In this book, Hugh Ryan shows that part of the reason for that is because from the 1920s to 70s, it heldRead More