Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! On October 14, 2018, transgender actor and activist Nicole Maines made history by appearing as Nia Nal/Dreamer, the first transgender superhero on TV, in Supergirl. She has since gone on to pen Dreamer’s comic debut in the DC Pride #1 in 2021 and Dreamer’s mainline DC continuityRead More
Credit Card Debt, Climate Change, and Magical Girls: A Magical Girl Retires by Park Seolyeon
Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! I am sure you are all familiar with magical girl stories like Sailor Moon, but have you ever heard of a magical girl with credit card debt? In Park Seolyeon’s A Magical Girl Retires (translated by Anton Hur), our unnamed protagonist is 29, has lost herRead More
Join the Henchfolk Union: Strictly No Heroics by B.L. Radley
Bookshop.org Affiliate Link Strictly No Heroics is a YA urban fantasy novel that treats “super” as an adverb as much as a noun. It introduces a world of supers—superheroes, supervillains—who are super dangerous to normies (non-powered humans) and super helpful to the forces of gentrification. Main character Riley has simple desires: earn enough money for therapy,Read More
Sam reviews Dreadnought & Sovereign by April Daniels
Amazon Affiliate Link | Bookshop.org Affiliate Link I’m not all that into superheroes—I don’t really read comic books, I don’t follow superhero media—but I really enjoyed both Dreadnought and its sequel Sovereign by April Daniels. The books are set in a comic-book-esque modern day, where supervillains appear in history textbooks and it’s not unusual toRead More
Sheila reviews Harley Quinn: The Animated Series: The Eat. Bang! Kill. Tour #1-2 by Tee Franklin, Max Sarin, and Marissa Louise
Considering that I have viewed much of Harley Quinn’s comic, television, and film history from afar until recently (after watching Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn, which I felt was one of the best bisexually-focused films I have ever seen. Watch it, and tell me I’m wrong, I dare you.),Read More
Meagan Kimberly reviews Not Your Sidekick by CB Lee
Jess Tran comes from superhero parents and has an older sister with powers, but she did not inherit this gene. She decides to find her own way in a world of metahumans and superpowers and ends up at an internship working for The Mischiefs, her parents’ and the city of Andover’s nemeses. However, everything isRead More
Casey A reviews Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee
C. B. Lee may have taken the most interesting spin ever on “write what you know” as her protagonist, Jessica Tran, is a first generation Asian American bisexual, just like she is, but the world of her story is certainly not Lee’s lived experience. Jess lives in the North American Collective, a super state formedRead More
Megan G reviews Cinnamon Blade: Knife in Shining Armour by Shira Glassman
Cinnamon Blade keeps having to rescue Soledad Castillo, and with each rescue her attraction to the woman grows. Once she finally finds an appropriate setting to ask her out, things start to get crazy. Or, really, crazier. As soon as I saw that Cinnamon Blade: Knife in Shining Armor was a sort-of follow up to Knit One,Read More
Shira Glassman reviews Not Your Sidekick by CB Lee
I’m surprised by how slowly the indie SFF world seems to be responding to fandom’s current preference for superheroes. Maybe that’s because superheroes originated in print to begin with, so anyone wanting to write them goes for graphic novels rather than prose. But CB Lee’s Not Your Sidekick is a much-needed contribution for those of us who for whateverRead More
Aoife reviews Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee
Jessica Tran is almost seventeen, bisexual, Vietnamese-American, a ‘high school nobody’, average student – and haver of no superpowers. Not that she hasn’t tried. Her sister does, is off somewhere being a journalist slash super hero, and her brother is at least a science genius. But what does Jess have? Well, hopefully, an internship. TheRead More