New Memoirs by Women, Women Boosting the Publishing Industry, and More!

I love mochi ice cream but have only ever tried green tea flavor. I’ve also never thought it’d be as easy to make as @feedmeimei shows it to be. You’ll need: rice flour, ice cream of choice, plastic wrap, and patience. That’s it! Can’t wait to try this with my fave green tea (and Thai!) ice cream.

Propelled by feminist movements around the world, Cristina Rivera Garza wrote a request to the attorney general concerning her sister Lilian, who was murdered 29 years ago in Mexico City. Garza’s family is certain her sister’s abusive boyfriend was the culprit, but he was never brought to justice. Here, Garza brings her sister’s last summer back to life while also confronting the culture that normalized violence against women, allowing for such a tragedy.

Kent has had a number of things that have made her the Other while growing up in the U.S. — she’s dark-skinned, queer, a second-generation American, and fat. In this memoir, she gets into how she’s contended with all those things, and what they stem from — like respectability politics and a culture hellbent on achieving heteronormativity, among other things. She also talks about family, and how the one you’re born with may not exactly be the one right for you. I’ve seen someone compare her to Samantha Irby, so Kent’s trauma comes with a side of LOL’s.

When she was a child, Felix was diagnosed with dyscalculia, a disorder that makes learning math and working with numbers difficult. She then uses this difficulty with calculations to frame the rest of her life — showing how she’s miscalculated in love and other arenas. I love the unique framing of this one, and how easily Felix can shift from speaking of trauma to making me laugh.

Lamya, like so many people who have marginalized identities, grew up feeling on the outside of everything. When, as a young teen, she develops a crush on a female teacher, she at first tries to hide it. But then, as she reads the Quran, she finds familiarity — the characters she reads about don’t seem to fit within the heteronormative boundaries that have been making her feel ill at ease. As she grows up, eventually moving to New York City in early adulthood, her faith, along with her sense of self as a queer Muslim woman, grows. I’ve never read the Quran, but I love reading about different interpretations of religious texts.