Author: Patricia Elzie

In the 2050s, after the U.S. government really crapped the bed when it came to its pandemic response, other countries closed their borders to folks from the U.S. This made the folks in the U.S. upset because freedom or whatever so the government teams up with big private companies to really get a move on with a space colony they refer to as The Colony.

All of the wealthy in the U.S., mostly white people, go off to space and leave everyone else behind to deal with poisonous air and other awful environmental catastrophes. Of course, those who went to The Colony can’t just leave people alone so the people still in the U.S. on Earth are being over-policed by robots. Also, The Colony is still just absolutely gutting the resources that are still left, such as literally tearing down houses and taking the bricks among other things.

The folks still in the U.S., mostly Black and Brown, have been doing the best they can with what they have been left. What is going on in the book is a direct reflection of what goes on in Black and Brown neighborhoods in reality when these neighborhoods are victims of gentrification. After turning everything to garbage and flying off to space where the next couple of generations get kinda cyborged out, people start coming back to Earth from the Colony. They wait for the Black and Brown people in the houses on Earth to get foreclosed on or evicted and then the Colonizers move back. With wealthy folks coming back, there are now domes built so that there can be clean air for them, etc.

This novel is told through many interwoven vignettes of folks both from the Colony who are manifest-destiny-ing their way back to the United States and folks who were left behind and the generations after them. Yes, it is sci-fi but I think what really grabbed me about this book is that it felt so close. So within reach, not that this world is something I would want to grab. It just feels so possible and that made it both a mesmerizing and terrifying read.

Content warnings for rape, violence, police violence, and racism.

It’s the middle of the night and there seems to be some kind of pied piper situation where there is music that is enchanting and luring away all the children of a village. Someone cries out about the children being stolen and then the book takes us elsewhere.

It is the morning of the Harvest Festival which is also the day that Abeni celebrates her birthday. She is 12, not yet grown, but almost. After she gets ready, she goes outside and her mother tells her the story of her birth, which Abeni is tired of hearing. When Abeni’s mother was pregnant with her, it was a very dry season and there hadn’t been much rain. They were worried about the pregnancy and the village healer sent Abeni’s father to see the old woman. Most of the adults call her the old woman but the children of the village call her a witch. She lived in the forest and hadn’t come to the village in a long, long time. She gave Abeni’s father a ritual to perform to help bring Abeni out and apparently it worked because Abeni was born and also, it rained for the first time in a long, long while. Because of this, folks in the village call Abeni “little rain bringer.”

The Harvest Festival begins and it’s fun and exciting and loud until suddenly, everyone falls silent. The witch has come walking out of the forest toward everyone. She had warned them to leave, that something very dangerous is coming but the adults in the village did not take heed and they’re basically ignoring her. She tells them she can no longer protect the village and she has come to collect her payment for protecting the village all these years. Her payment is to be one of the village’s children. The villagers deny her this and say they will protect themselves and start gearing up for war. Abeni’s mother goes to try to negotiate with the witch and ends up saying that the witch can take Abeni. The village is suddenly under attack by terrifying creatures that snatch up all the adults and lure away all the children. The witch is only able to save Abeni.

And this is just the beginning.

This is a historical romance that takes place primarily in the southern United States in the late 1870s, and race and racism are very much a part of this book. This is technically the third book in Jenkins’s Women Who Dare romance series, and as someone who has only read this book in the series, I can tell you that To Catch a Raven totally holds its own without having read the two other books first.

I am an absolute sucker for a book that has a con artist as the main character. This book not only has that, but it has an entire family of con artists, and each person is an absolute delight. First, outside of this con artist family, we have a father and son in Boston: Harrison and Braxton Steele. They are well-off Black men, as Braxton’s maternal grandfather had a fleet of merchant ships. Braxton is used to comfort and he is a tailor, and Harrison is a painter and illustrator.

Well, Harrison’s past has come back to cause some trouble. Before Braxton’s mother, he was in love with a woman named Hazel Moreau. Hazel, like her mother, her siblings, and now her children, was an incredibly talented con artist. When Hazel and Harrison were together, Harrison would produce incredibly good counterfeit paintings that they sold. At present, a detective has threatened Harrison (and Hazel, who is still living down in New Orleans) with arrest unless they convince their respective children to help pull a heist to recover something that was stolen.

Hazel and Harrison haven’t talked for decades, but suddenly he and Braxton find themselves in Hazel’s home in New Orleans, meeting with Hazel and her daughter, Raven. The detective has told them that a copy of the Declaration of Independence has been stolen, but the detective knows who has it: a former Confederate official in South Carolina. The detective wants Braxton and Raven to pose as husband and wife, go work for this man and his wife disguised as a chauffeur and housekeeper, and find (and steal) back the copy of the Declaration of Independence. Apparently, this Confederate official and his wife only hire Black people as servants because they like to feel like they are still owning enslaved people. So, you know, terrible all around.

Braxton is a goody-two-shoes and super judgmental of the life that Hazel, Raven, and their family lead, but he will do anything to keep his father out of the penitentiary. Raven finds Braxton absolutely insufferable. This animosity and tension does not last long, and things definitely get spicy. There is a good helping of sex on the page as well as some very touching acts of kindness that made my heart melt.

This is part of the absolutely lovely nonfiction comic Quick & Easy Guides collection. The author & illustrator, A. Andrews, is a disabled cartoonist. They make it very clear that they are neither a doctor nor a sex educator, but they have plenty of lived experience as a sexually active disabled person.

Disabled people are the largest minority group in the United States and make-up an estimated 20% of the population. That being said, many disabled folks are sexually active, and there aren’t nearly enough resources for disabled people on how to have sex that is pleasurable, comfortable, and safe. Not only are there not enough resources, there aren’t even enough conversations around sex and intimacy for disabled folks. This book hopes to open the door a bit wider, knowing that disabled folks remain less likely to receive adequate sex education and sexual healthcare at the same time as being more likely to experience trauma and stigma around sex. As mentioned in the title, this is a quick and easy guide. It does not get very deep and detailed, but it’s a wonderful starter for conversations and exploration. It’s written in a super casual, conversational tone that I really appreciate.

The author talks a bit about how they are defining disability and then some common myths about disabled bodies. I love that the author starts with communication as the main contributor to having sex that is enjoyable. This is true for all people, disabled or not, but for disabled folks interested in having sex, there may be more people to be talking to than just their partner or partners. Sometimes a conversation needs to be had with a personal care attendant, for instance, to arrange furniture or pillows before date night. Another example may be a conversation with your healthcare provider about contraception.

There’s practical information beyond communication in this comic as well about positions and toys and lube and more. The primary audience for this book is disabled people, but honestly, this is a fun, informative read for anyone. The artwork has a wide range of bodies and genders and skin tones and it’s wonderful.

I want to put the content warnings up front: violence, sexual assault and battery, abuse, child abuse, more violence, murder, infant death, and most importantly, the premise of this is that there is a pandemic that kills a lot of people, if not most people. Some of it is a little too on-the-nose, which is extra fascinating because this was first published in 2014.

In the prologue, we have an instructor who goes by the title Mother Ina, and there are six teenage boys referred to as scribes. Each year, a group of scribes is chosen to copy The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, which is actually a cycle of 19 journals. The bulk of this book is told via these journal entries and prose. The writer (the unnamed midwife) is a Physician’s Assistant at the University of California at San Francisco in the labor and delivery department. There is a fever caused by some kind of virus that is taking people out, mostly cisgender women and children. Live births come to a stop, including many stillborns, and the people who were giving birth usually didn’t make it either. The hospitals are overrun and people are dying in hallways. Like I said, this book is so on the nose that I clenched my jaw the entire time I was reading it.

Our protagonist succumbs to a fever while she is at the hospital. She wakes up maybe days or even weeks later to find everyone around her dead. Grabbing what medical supplies she can, like antibiotics, some birth control, and syringes, she heads to her apartment and quickly learns that it is not only unsafe but especially unsafe for women. She ends up disguising herself as a man and realizes she needs to get out of the city. There are just bands of men roaming around, almost hunting. At one point, she meets up with a group that has women in collars and chains and not in the kinky consensual way. She bargains for some time alone with the women, as if she is just a guy going to have sex with them, and she then tells the women she is also a woman and she gives them some birth control. So then she goes about like some man-murdering birth control vigilante and it is amazing, taking the lives of some men who are hunting women to keep them as sex slaves.

Shireen Malik has just broken up with her girlfriend, Chris, and she is not handling the breakup well. Shireen’s parents own a donut shop called You Drive Me Glazy across from Chris Huang’s parent’s donut and bubble tea shop. Both sets of parents have taken the rivalry to really petty levels and they have no idea that Shireen and Chris were dating, much less broke up. Shireen’s best friend Fatima is in Bangladesh visiting family for the summer so while she tries to video call as often as possible to offer support, it’s just not the same as if she were back home in Ireland with Shireen.

While Shireen is still rattled from the breakup, she learns that she has been accepted as a contestant on the first-ever Junior Irish Baking Show. You Drive Me Glazy has hit a rough patch financially (business is decidedly not booming) and Shireen hopes that going on the show will help get her parent’s donut shop back on its feet. Being on the show is also a step in Shireen’s plan to someday open her own bakery.

Shireen is an incredible baker and there’s a real possibility that she could win at this competition but of course, nothing is that easy. Her ex-girlfriend Chris has also been accepted as a contestant and is quite determined to win. In addition, there’s Niamh, a rather cute contestant on the show who not only has her eye set on winning the competition, but also it seems, she has her eye on winning Shireen’s heart.

This book is an absolute treat full of delicious puns and sticky situations. Each chapter’s title is delightful and the names that Shireen comes up with for the exciting donut flavors at her parents’ shop rival the punny names Bob Belcher gives his burgers of the day in the show Bob’s Burgers.

Content warning for racism, fatphobia, microaggressions, and outright aggressive Tweets.

While I firmly believe that therapy is not necessarily for everyone, I have certainly recommended trying out therapy to countless people over the years. The thing is, if someone has never been to therapy they don’t really know what to expect, how it can help, how to even go about starting, and it all can be super intimidating. Shani Tran wrote this book to help address these questions and more. By the way, the “dope” in the title means cool, good, rad, etc. This book is not about recreational drugs.

The author, a therapist herself, aims to alleviate a lot of the anxiety that can bubble up around seeking a therapist, going to therapy, and even ending a relationship with a therapist. The book has thoughtful responses to many of the common misconceptions around therapy and helps readers try to recognize when they are or are not actually ready to start talking to a therapist. There are some dry but necessary bits on things like insurance coverage and what all the letters after a therapist’s name mean and the very important distinction between a psychiatrist and someone who does talk therapy (though, some psychiatrists do both). As someone who has helped multiple people find therapists, I can confidently say that her information on finding a therapist and more importantly, the questions you should ask them to see if they are a good fit for you are invaluable. There are logistical questions to ask as well as questions around values, religion, politics, therapeutic style, and more. Tran goes in-depth about the differences between therapists who have cultural competency versus cultural humility, and what marginalized folks may want to look for and ask about.

What I love about this book is the author doesn’t just stop at getting you in the door at a therapist’s office. She also describes what to possibly expect at a person’s first session as well as the myriad ways a person has power in how their therapy experience goes. Tran describes what a relationship with a therapist can look like and what expectations outside a therapy session can be like. She has chapters on trauma and forgiveness as well as closure and finishes off with some frequently asked questions. This book is a great read and a great resource.

Garland Moore used to be more of an optimist. She believed in true love and signs from the universe and finding everyday magic at any moment. She had a lovely marriage with the perfect guy, Ethan. When she and Ethan were at the airport for the honeymoon, rushing to catch their plane, Garland dropped a bracelet her sister Dara had made when they were kids. A guy picked it up and handed it back to Garland, where she was struck by a vision of sitting at a table with many people, across from this man, and they were laughing and sharing a moment. She shook it off and was on her way to have a wonderful honeymoon.

A couple years later, Ethan surprised Garland with divorce papers. A year after that, Garland had moved in with her sister Dara and was driving a rideshare when twin brothers became her passenger. They all hit it off really well and they told Garland that they bought their childhood summer camp and they’ve rebranded it as an adult sleepaway camp. Garland told Dara and they decided to take the opportunity to go that summer because it was something they dreamed of as children but never got the opportunity to do.

So this is where the story actually begins. Dara and Garland show up at Camp Carl Cove for its inaugural adult summer camp experience. Garland meets one of her cabin-mates, Stevie, in an incredibly awkward interaction. They decide to form a camp alliance and from that point on, you can tell they’ll be inseparable. When they go out to meet the rest of the campers, Stevie introduces Garland to her three brothers that are also there. They all went to Camp Carl Cove every year as children. When Garland meets Stevie’s brother Mason, she has quite a moment because Mason is the guy from the airport that had picked up her bracelet and she had that vision.

Stevie tells Garland she will do her best to hook her up with her brother but in the process, Garland finds that all she really wants to do has less to do with Mason and more to do with Stevie.

First, some obvious content warnings for discussions of anti-fatness and anti-Blackness and also warnings for discussions of transphobia, police violence, and sexual assault including molestation.

Much of the existing literature on anti-fatness and anti-Blackness, whether it be books, articles, Instagram reels, or otherwise is primarily focused on fat Black women and fat Black femmes. Belly of the Beast is a very important and fresh addition to the growing literature on the intersections of anti-fatness and anti-Blackness as it focuses on fat Black masc bodies. Masc (derived from ‘masculine’) as in cisgender man bodies and nonbinary trans masc bodies and transgender man bodies.

This book is rather concise but Harrison covers a lot of ground and interrogates certain topics that I’ve read about but maybe haven’t encountered as discussed in this way, such as what it looks like to talk about policing, police violence, and prisons with regard to how the fat Black masc body experiences them. I also appreciate how they discuss the idea of health as a social construct made specifically in a way that makes it inaccessible to fat Black people. I sincerely welcome their interrogation of body positivity and self-love as I have done in my own writing. In another chapter in this book I really enjoy, Harrison writes about the politics of desirability. Who gets to be pretty? Who is determined to be ugly? And what power is there in these labels? In one of the later chapters, Harrison talks with seven fat Black trans people and gives them all space to tell their own stories and it is really, really powerful.

Harrison cites many other related works such as The Body is Not An Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love by Sonya Renee Taylor and Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia by Sabrina Strings. Harrison’s citations are not mere regurgitations, but sometimes a deepening of discussion or clear rebuttal. I think that one of the things I like about this book is that it truly feels like a discussion and an exploration.

This is a novel in verse and I think this is actually the first time that I’ve read a novel in verse. It was fun! It is a story about seven queer women, six of whom are trans, living and loving and failing in Brooklyn, NY. I think that some descriptions of the book only mention six women in total but the narrator is also an integral part of this story, though she goes unnamed through most of the book. She’s a bit like a Greek chorus, though not exactly.

The book starts on New Year’s Eve when everything feels fresh and new and the air is thick with possibility. Our narrator is at a bar and witnesses some interactions which possibly include some couples forming. First are Day and Bette. Bette makes money being a cam girl and Day has the 9-5 job that she had been in since before she transitioned. For a while, Bette and Day seem to improve each other’s lives. Day has a spacious apartment she is willing to share and Bette teaches Day to embrace her sexuality. Next we have Keiko and Gaia. Keiko is maybe nineteen or twenty years old and an artist. Gaia is a couple years older. They have a magical evening where they get drunk and play whiskey slaps and make out (no sex) and talk and talk until they fall asleep together at Keiko’s flat. Keiko has a huge crush on Gaia moving forward but it is unrequited. The final couple we have are Kate and Aashvi. Aashvi is the one cis woman in the story and she and Kate are trying to have a baby, which in this case means that Kate needs to start producing sperm again. In order to do that, she’s going to need to go off of estrogen and start producing testosterone again which is incredibly difficult in many ways and Kate has a bit of a freak-out after a few months and feels like she needs to dive head-first into trans community work and help the younger, newly-hatched trans women in navigating life.

Our narrator is not only the witness but also a participant in all the mess that ensues. I cannot speak specifically to the trans woman community but there are so many things in this book that are present in the wider queer community that are both hilarious and cringey. This book was quite a ride and a fun read.