Author: Patricia Elzie

Aphrodite Du Bell feels incredibly burdened by her name: it’s a lot to live up to. Though she is incredibly beautiful and talented, she feels pressure to constantly be the most beautiful, the most talented, and the most everything. Being named after the goddess of love and beauty is a lot to ask of someone. She loves to walk about the gardens, and her mother thinks she loves to read a bit too much. Aphrodite is part of a big family of five siblings, and they are all very loving and close to each other.

Aphrodite is 22 and unmarried. She had every intention of marrying her childhood friend, Evander Eagleman, the Duke of Everely. As far as she knew, he had every intention of marrying her as well. During the season of her coming out (four years prior to the start of this book), she turned down every offer from every suitor, as she expected Evander to show up and ask for her hand. She waited and waited and he never showed. In fact, the next she heard was that he had gotten married to someone else. It is now the next eldest daughter’s turn for her coming out, and the family has insisted that Aphrodite go to London for the season with everyone to show support for her sister Hathor, who is just a giant ball of anxiety. Coincidentally, Evander has a younger sister, Verity, who is also coming out this season, and on top of that, Evander’s wife just passed away. The likelihood of Aphrodite and Evander crossing paths is incredibly high. The family is torn on this whole situation. Aphrodite’s mother, who is also Evander’s godmother, is depending on them running into each other and making up and getting married. Damon, Aphrodite’s older brother, is very much against it and does not want his sister to get hurt yet again.

While Evander is the Duke of an estate, he and Verity have had multiple traumatic experiences growing up due to their careless, abusive, and now deceased father and the father’s second wife, who was his mistress and not from their circles. This book went to some places that I did not expect it to go, and it’s told from multiple viewpoints. There is definitely sex on the page, which is both steamy and charming. While there is some trauma talked about in the book, it isn’t racism-based trauma, and racism is hardly a theme in this book, if at all. Content warnings for physical and verbal abuse, including child abuse, discussion of suicide, and violence.

I am a huge fan of the Quick & Easy Guides put out by Limerence Press. They are unintimidating, clear, concise, and fairly inexpensive, so they aren’t only good, impactful reads, but they may also be easy to buy extra copies to give to others. I definitely did that with the Quick & Easy Guide to They/Them Pronouns as well as the one on Queer & Trans Identities.

As it says in the title, this installment is about consent — specifically consent in sex, relationships, and other physical contact. The information in this book is far from the often common and sometimes oversimplified “no means no” advice. This book focuses on and reinforces enthusiastic, informed, active consent, also referred to as “yes means yes.” Affirmative consent means that whatever the people involved are doing, they are all truly interested in doing it. This framework focuses on people wanting to do something and not just willing to do something.

Our guide through this book is Sargent Yes Means Yes from the Consent Cavalry. They are witty and charming and I would venture to say that this book is probably more explicit consent training than most people get. One of the most important things is that this book is really positive. It’s less about danger around every corner and more about how consent is not only good and necessary, but getting and giving consent can also be fun and sexy in itself.

This book doesn’t really cover laws, because laws vary and are dependent on many things, such as time and geographic location. This book does, however, make it very clear that consent is for all gender identities, and the people drawn in this comic are diverse with regard to race, gender, and orientation. Sexual violence is definitely discussed, but there are no visual depictions or graphic descriptions.

If you are thinking to yourself, “How can there be a whole entire book, even a small book, on consent?” then it might be in your best interest to read this book!

I had so much fun reading this book, and I think it is a necessary read for those of us who tend to be grammandos: people who like to correct other people’s grammar and judge them by it. This book has helped me unlearn a lot of things about grammar and punctuation that I had practically embodied as part of my identity. In this book, she encourages us to turn away from the grammando part of ourselves and instead embrace our inner wordie, who is curious about language and fascinated by the ways in which language evolves and changes over time.

One of the things I love about this book is the kindness the author exudes. Her curious tone makes this book so approachable, which is something that books about grammar and punctuation rarely are. So many of us grammandos can be too firm on grammar rules when in reality, spoken language is different from formal written language, and also, many grammar and punctuation rules fall to pieces depending on the situation.

She digs into things that many people hold to be true, like the idea that “ain’t” isn’t a word and the idea that double-negatives are always incorrect. She writes specifically about the word irregardless, which is an absolutely delicious chapter. Dr. Curzan also talks about how current usage of the word “literally” adopts the definition of “figuratively,” and that’s okay. We know what people mean, even if they say it in a way that would make Strunk and White cry. One of my favorite chapters is on the pronunciation of “ask” as “aks,” and that is something that has had me unpacking some internalized white supremacy for years. I’m amazed at how many of our current grammar and punctuation rules can be traced back to “One guy liked it this particular way and wrote it in a grammar book.”

This is a definite must-read for anyone who cares about words.

This graphic novel is a memoir about a very specific time in the author’s life. It is the story about when her girlfriend, Diana, came out as trans and how they navigated their relationship and her transition together. They decide to share their story so that folks can have some insight into one version of the reality of transitioning. Every trans person has a different story and so, Sara and Diana are sharing theirs.

I am completely biased in my love for this graphic novel because so much of it mirrors my and my wife’s experience. Yes, of course there are difficult things to deal with, like coming out to folks (for both of us!) who may not be as accepting as hoped for. There’s misogyny and transmisogyny and transphobia and homophobia and all the things that can scare people into staying in the closet. What this comic also captures, though, is some of the absolute joy that occurs as well. The joy that happens when your girlfriend tries on gender-affirming clothing. The happy surprise when grandparents understand more than you had expected them to. The warmth that happens when some of your close friends embrace you both fully as your authentic selves. There is also the awkwardness of coming out to various people. It’s never “one-and-done.”

The comic is written from not only a place of sharing, but also offers educational bits on transgender folks and transitioning. It’s a really good example of what can happen in some relationships, especially when the people involved want to stay together. It can take a lot of learning, unlearning, and inner work that some people aren’t prepared for or aren’t interested in doing.

It is an absolutely lovely comic that doesn’t shy away from the hard stuff while also highlighting the good stuff. There’s always more good stuff than expected, and it’s really important to keep that at the forefront.

The level of oppression and injustice that people of color face in the United States is overwhelming. It can be difficult to know where and how to stand up, fight, and add your voice to the call for justice, equality, and safety. Many of the books I’ve read on social justice are prescriptive — that is, they offer some ideas of steps that can be taken by readers to help society move forward. This book is similar but comes at it from a different angle.

Be a Revolution is a series of conversations between Ijeoma Oluo and a variety of activists. While all injustices are connected, these conversations dive into the specific thing that each activist or activist group is combatting and how. Oluo makes the connections between the particular fight and antiracism as a whole while also exploring how even small groups of activists and communities can make positive change. Each chapter makes it very clear that there is no one right way to be an activist. It is also clear that each of these activists works in community, and not only is that preferred, but it is absolutely necessary for progress.

The chapter titled, “Punishment, Accountability, and Abolition” made something click in my brain and offered me a fundamental shift in understanding of the subject that I hadn’t yet grasped. This book also dives into gender justice and bodily autonomy, labor and unions, environmentalism, education, and arts. This book is the first time I really took a look at art and the art world through a social justice lens, and again, my mind has been expanded.

While this is not a light read, it is a necessary one.

This is the story of Ady. Ady and her mother, Sanite, were bought at a slave auction by a man named du Marche. He didn’t have them work at his slave labor camp, known as a plantation, and instead had them serve him at his townhouse in New Orleans. Very early in the story, du Marche begins to sexually assault Sanite. Sanite does everything she can to protect Ady from both this and the other myriad horrors of being enslaved. Sometimes, du Marche leased mother and daughter out to work for his neighbors.

Not all the Black people in New Orleans were enslaved. Some were free and well-off business owners themselves. Ady was in awe of them and loved to walk around the parts of the city where she was allowed. It had always been just her and her mother, and her mother was her whole world. The story follows Ady and Sanite, their attempted escape, and eventually, just Ady. Du Marche treats Ady in the same disgusting manner he treated Sanite, and then at one point, he brings in a tutor and starts demanding that Ady learns to read and write. He also starts buying her nice dresses and asks her to refer to him as father. There are many parts of this book that are really dark.

One day, Ady is on a walk in town while du Marche is away at his slave labor camp, and she stops to rest. She meets an enchanting free Black woman who owns a tavern and invites Ady to come in for a refreshment. Ady does so without question, even though she knows that if du Marche found out, the punishment would be swift and harsh. Making this woman’s acquaintance opens many new, tempting doors for Ady and the story gets increasingly more interesting and daring. Slavery is always hard to read about, and this book is no different, but there are also elements of joy and hope in Ady’s story as well.

This is the exact proper way to write about fairies, which is to say, the fae are terrifying and demented and never to be trusted. As a child, I thought fairies were cute, like Tinkerbell and the tooth fairy, although a fairy that sneaks into your house at night and purchases your bones is maybe not actually cute. As an adult, I have become increasingly more horrified by the fae, and playing Dungeons & Dragons is only partially to blame. The Butcher of the Forest is a dark fantasy, borderline horror, about the fae, though the author might not even use that particular term.

It starts before sunrise at the home of Veris Thorn, a woman nearly 40 years old. Armored guards show up at Veris’s door and command that she get in the carriage. She is still in her nightclothes and doesn’t know the meaning of this, but she knows it’s bad because these guards belong to The Tyrant. The Tyrant is just as you would imagine: a terrible ruler who goes around “conquering,” and if a village doesn’t submit, he just murders everyone, which had included Veris’s parents. The only family she has left are her elderly aunt and grandfather. Veris goes willingly with the guards in order to protect her family, though, as I mentioned, she has no idea what the Tyrant wants with her.

The south woods have been tamed. They’re used for hunting and harvesting and planting fruiting trees for generations. The north woods, however, are a different story. Everyone in the village knows not to go into the north woods. Heck, everyone in several nearby villages knows not to go into the north woods. Anyone who goes into the north woods never comes back out. Except, one person had: Veris. Now, the Tyrant is ordering Veris to go back into the woods for a task. She has one day to get in and out, or else the creatures of the forest will claim her and what the Tyrant has lost. If she doesn’t complete this task, the Tyrant will raze her entire village to the ground.

Content warnings for violence, gore, harm to children, harm to animals, mentions of sexual assault.

Though this book is almost five years old, I am not surprised that it is still deeply relevant to understanding the inherent racism in Western standards of beauty, especially around body size and shape. Sabrina Strings, Ph.D. is the North Hall Chair of Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and had a dual postdoc appointment in both the Department of Sociology and the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley.

This is not a light read. In fact, it is incredibly dense and very academic. It is a slow, thorough examination of historical artwork, historical texts, historical policies, advertisements, periodicals, and more that draws an undeniable link between the prevalent beauty ideal of being thin and racism. I’ve often wondered how Western society strayed so far from the desirably plump ideal of the Rubenesque woman. This book lays it all bare, and it is a deluge of answers to that question. Of course, you can’t talk about these things without also talking about white supremacy, eugenics, puritanism and John Harvey Kellogg. The author goes deep into all of these subjects (and more) and repeatedly shows how it is all tied together. She not only writes about the origins of the slender ideals in art but also clearly shows how the medical establishment hopped on the anti-fat train and got to where we are today.

When we talk about intersectional feminism and how we can make sure our feminism is worth a damn, we also have to talk about racism and homophobia and ableism and multiple other intersections of identity. This means we must talk about anti-fatness when we are talking about racism and feminism. If you’re a reader who has been reading a lot of books on antiracism over the past few years, I highly recommend that you also read this book.

The author refers to a lot of artwork, and there are photos in the physical copy. I found myself stopping to Google image search everything I was hearing about on the audiobook. Many content warnings for racism and anti-fatness.

I truly love the premise of this poetry anthology, and it absolutely delivers. There are times that I’ll read a collection or anthology of poetry or sometimes even a single poem and it is so incredibly unrelatable to me as a Black person who lives in a city. I think this was my primary experience of poetry when I was a young adult, looking back at what is considered canon or classic. Finding entry points to poetry, especially for young people and especially for young Black people, can be tedious if you don’t know where to look. This anthology feels like something that younger me would have appreciated because current me definitely does.

This anthology not only includes poems that are relevant to the Black experience (as mentioned in the title), but after each poem, it has a small paragraph of explanation, which makes it more accessible to a reader who maybe isn’t experienced with reading a lot of poetry. As per the introduction, this anthology is really a celebration of Black poetry, folklore, and history, and I love the range and variety of poems included. While poems about Black pain and Black trauma are deeply important, I appreciate that there are more than a few poems that focus on Black joy and even just Black existence. We’re here. We exist. We are not a monolith, and we move through the world in myriad ways.

As I alluded to earlier, this book also feels like a direct response to the types of poetry that are often taught in schools and the gatekeeping between who gets to be called the title of poet versus who does not. The poetry included is not only contemporary, but it spans a range, so there are also poems from over half a century ago. It’s not only standing up to shout that “we’re here” but also “we have been here” and more than that, “we are here today because our ancestors survived being brought here.” I really loved this read.

I used to be a sex educator, and so I’m incredibly picky about the sex and intimacy information that I trust. Dr. Emily Nagoski’s work is definitely work I can get behind. Her work is science-based (yay!), and she writes and educates in a way that is both compassionate and accessible. Her book Come As You Are offers such an excellent framework for looking at the sexuality of cisgender women.

While she was writing Come As You Are and then publicizing it and going on tour and giving talks, her sex life with her spouse was practically non-existent. She was writing a lot about sex and talking a lot about sex and actually having very little of it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having little or no sex if that is what you like, but in Dr. Nagoski’s case, she actually wanted to be intimate with her partner, and it just wasn’t happening much. This is a position that a lot of folks in long-term relationships find themselves in, both straight and queer. So, Dr. Emily Nagoski did what she does and took a look at the existing literature and advice; and it all ranged from not-helpful to flat-out incorrect. A lot of the advice out there is about spicing things up and novelty and variety, and when it comes to a sustainable, lasting sexual connection, this advice misses the mark.

Through this book, Dr. Nagoski takes us on a journey of exploring first the question: is having sex something important to the reader and their long-term partner or partners or spouse? Sex is not a necessity, and no one will die if they don’t have sex with another person. It is, or should be, something that people do because they want to. Then she gets to her primary recommendation: Center pleasure. The rest of the book explores how to do that, including how to create a context with your partner where pleasure is possible, how to navigate your internal emotional floorplan so that pleasure is more accessible, and more. Dr. Nagoski recognizes we don’t live in a vacuum, so she also writes about all the external factors that get in the way of cultivating and experiencing pleasure, like gender norms and expectations, heteronormativity, and traumatic experiences.

I love how this book is rooted in research and conversations with real people. It makes it more accessible and realistic and relatable. If you are in a long-term relationship then this book might be helpful to you.