Steam is a quick, cute read about Ruby, a genetically engineered girl created to solve problems. She’s escaped the lab!—She’s on the loose!—She’s playing cupid in a coffee shop! Determined to make people happy, she learns about humans and strives to use her scientific mind and improbable aiming skills to improve their lives. If she encountersRead More
A Disappointing Folk Horror Story: Hollow by Taylor Grothe Review
Hollow by Taylor Grothe is a book with a lot of potential. The main character, Cassie, has recently moved back to her home town and reconnected with her childhood best friends—but the past few years have been tough for all of them, and they just don’t fit the way they used to. When they go onRead More
A Queer Coming-of-Age Story Told From the Margins (Literally): The Secret Astronomers by Jessica Walker Review
I tend to take a traditional approach to fiction. I learned the three elements of a story—plot, setting, character—pretty early, and it stuck because is made sense. The Secret Astronomers by Jessica Walker is an exception. Before genre or protagonist, above theme or prose, this book’s most remarkable feature is its format. It’s a tale told inRead More
The Redemption of Daya Keane by Gia Gordon Review
This book is so delightfully, perfectly messy. Titular character Daya lives in a small, conservative town in Arizona, surrounded by small-minded, conservative classmates and a small-minded, conservative mom. It’s a tough place to be queer. When Daya begins a friendship that turns to something more with megachurch poster-girl Beckett Wild, she might be making moreRead More
A Memoir of Anxiety, Queerness, and Figure Skating: On Top of Glass by Karina Manta Review
On Top of Glass by Karina Manta is a memoir of the author’s experiences growing up—equal parts a story about sports, queer identity, and anxiety.
A Queernorm Adventure Comic: The Flying Ship by Jem Milton Review
The Flying Ship is a graphic novel filled with magic and adventure. It’s the story of Dobrinia, a grumpy girl with a prosthetic leg and no time for friendship, who gives an old wanderer half a pastry—all she has left. In exchange, the wanderer creates a flying ship with which Dobrinia must assemble an impossible crew,Read More
A Brutal Colonial Horror Story: To the Bone by Alena Bruzas
To the Bone is the story of Ellis, an indentured girl in the Jamestown settlement of the Virginia colony. Ellis aspires toward little more than goodness; born poor in the late 1500s, she can neither read nor count, but understands the world as preachers sketch its edges. She works hard as a servant to the semi-prominentRead More
Read or Die, Vol. 1
This is a classic case of “does it count?” I read R.O.D. expecting it to be explicitly lesbian, which wasn’t quite true. But first things first: Read or Die was first a series of Japanese light novels (not currently published in English, but a fan translation is in the works) which then spawned R.O.D. theRead More
Danika reviews Halfway to Silence by May Sarton
I wanted to update with something new that I’ve read, so I picked something small: Halfway to Silence by May Sarton. It’s a collection of her poetry. This is the first book by her I’ve read, though she’s written many. I have a funny relationship with poetry. I love it, in some ways: right nowRead More