Author: Patricia Elzie

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.

This is a queer young adult anthology and I rarely say this about anthologies but, every single story in this collection is a winner. It was thoughtfully put together and features a racially diverse range of characters that are multiple different flavors of queer. It also includes a wide range of genre representation, which I appreciate.

There’s a vampire story titled, “What Happens in the Closet” by Caleb Roehrig that had me literally laughing out loud because of how awful the vampires are (and it’s not because of the violence). The same story made me cringe because of the awkwardness of being a teen, the awkwardness of being gay, and the combined awkwardness of being a teen who is gay.

Another story that has a nice balance is titled “Lumber Me Mine” by CB Lee. It has the rawness of a fresh breakup out of a toxic relationship with a person who is incredibly manipulative but then it also has a super swoon-worthy girl our lead character meets in Woodshop class. She’s only in Woodshop because she is avoiding the Nutrition and Household Planning class since that’s where her ex will be. I don’t want to give too much away but I really enjoyed this story.

One of my absolute favorite stories in this whole book is “Victory Lap” by Julian Winters. It is so sweet and I absolutely cried multiple times which is silly because it’s a short story! I would cry on one page, be fine for the next, and then start crying all over again a paragraph later. Luke Stone, our protagonist, is looking for a prom date with the help of his friends. We learn that Luke recently quit the cross country team to help his dad out more at his dad’s well-known barber shop. We also learn that Luke’s mother had passed away and also that Luke hasn’t come out to his dad yet. This story could totally be a recipe for disaster but it is filled with so much goofy dad goodness and I have a soft spot in my heart for dad jokes as well as for really good dads.

One of the many things I appreciate about this collection is that the characters are also all along different points in their queer journeys. Some are already well-established in their identities and some are figuring things out still and some figure things out by the end of the story and some don’t and that’s okay. There’s so much more in this anthology as well. A story that features LSD, a story including a few Greek gods, a story featuring a kitchen witch which is also another one of my most favorites in this book. Aliens! Selkies! Dystopian futures! A super fun read that has something for everyone.

Rebekah Taussig tells very personal stories and through them, teaches readers so much about her experience as a person who uses a wheelchair and about ableism and how ableism punishes all of us. The author does not pull punches when she writes about how awful people can be. She breaks down a lot of really crap behavior in films and television, such as when a character with a disability has that dream sequence where they suddenly don’t have that disability anymore which is based on the audacious assumption that all people with disabilities would be happier without them. There is also the common thinking that they would do anything to get rid of them, even evil things. I’m looking at you, Detective Pikachu.

She also tears into “inspiration porn” such as the promposals of the captain of the football team asking the disabled girl in class to prom. “Inspiration porn” is a term for using disabled people as props for videos for likes and clicks because “everyone” wants to see the heartwarming videos of these heroic people being so heroically kind. The rest of that chapter is absolute fire as well. Kindness is complicated and this book makes readers take a step back and think about acts of kindness and when they are actually selfish acts versus when they are something someone actually needs. Taussig gives the example of seeing a person using a wheelchair trying to reach a napkin from a pile of napkins on a high counter. The world doesn’t need the sort of kindness of another person handing them a single napkin. We need someone who will move the whole pile of napkins to a place where they are accessible to everyone all the time.

The author talks about how she was around a group of women and they were talking about experiences that are assumed universal experiences for women, such as catcalling or being told to smile; however, the author hadn’t because what, she’s less of a woman? Because the assumption that a person in a wheelchair has no reason to smile? This is not the author saying all women deserve to be harassed but what she is saying is that we really need to think about all women when we start to assume things about all women.

In another chapter I really appreciated she writes about the capitalist equation that hours + production + wages = value but when a person is disabled, their production amount might be different, the hours you can work might be different, and the wages you’re getting paid are likely to be different which, in a capitalist society, means they are valued less.

This book was thoughtful, enraging, and an absolutely essential read.

In this time-travel historical fiction, Kiku imagines herself as a teen. She and her mother are visiting San Francisco from Seattle. They go to Japantown to try to find the home where Kiku’s Japanese American grandmother and her parents lived in the city before they were forced into an incarceration camp during World War II. We learn that Kiku and her mother don’t really talk about Kiku’s grandparents or her mother’s upbringing much. Her grandmother passed before she was born and she never got to know her. Kiku knows very little about her grandmother’s experiences.

At one point, Kiku’s mother goes into the mall and Kiku gets sucked back into time for the first time. She describes it as “displaced.” Once she gets her bearings, she realizes she is seeing someone who might have been her grandmother, having a violin recital. She is able to look around briefly before being shoved back into the present. Kiku gets displaced another couple of times, again, back in time to her grandmother’s experiences. Kiku ends up being in the same incarceration camp as her grandmother, age 17, and great-grandparents. Kiku quickly realizes that there is so much she didn’t know about this completely heinous act by the U.S. government and she is learning it all firsthand.

Personally, I learned nothing about this in school. The only reason I knew about the Japanese incarceration camps is because my grandmother’s half-sister was forced into one. If a person was 1/16th Japanese or more, they were forced into a camp. My family was also in San Francisco and I wonder if they were sent to the same camp as Kiku’s family. As Kiku explores, she learns there is so much shame around what happened, especially by the people who experienced it and it doesn’t get talked about in many families nor taught in schools.

I had no idea that people protested within some of the camps and that some folks refused to sign paperwork that said they would join the U.S. military. I didn’t know that there were a lot of differences of opinion between the older generations who immigrated from Japan and the younger generations who were born in the U.S. Reading this was enraging on so many levels, from the fact that this happened, to the fact that this kind of awfulness continues to happen in different ways to different groups by this same government, and the fact that most of us were taught so little about it. This graphic novel is so important and a great read.

For folks who are socially — and/or environmentally — minded, trying to “do the right thing” is a never ending battle and it is really easy to fall into despair from overwhelm and hopelessness. While major changes need to be made via policies and business practices, this book gives readers some insight as to how we can each be consumers more mindfully and in ways that do the least amount of harm.

Fair warning, this book may tell you a lot of things that you don’t want to hear, like how much of what you put into your recycling bins doesn’t actually get recycled and goes into landfills. This is also true for items that are donated to thrift shops. While the primary advice is to consume less, that is, to buy fewer disposable items and to reuse what you already own, the author recognizes that it is impossible for most if not all of us to live a zero-waste lifestyle. Such a lifestyle is not what the author is promoting anyway and that’s what I appreciate about this book. We are in a capitalist society and so, how do we make decisions that do the least amount of harm while also remaining realistic for us to do as individuals?

The answers to how we consume are going to be different for each of us and this book offers resources for us to make the most informed choices. Is being vegan actually better for the environment? What if I can’t avoid fast fashion? Is buying organic important in the grand scheme of things? Am I causing harm by buying things from large department stores or multi-billion dollar websites? Is the bank I use evil? This book helps readers tease out the often complicated answers to these questions and more while giving us additional questions to ask ourselves when we make decisions about how we spend (or give) our money.

While so many folks are very heavy-handed and “black and white” about these things, this book does an excellent job of exploring the grey areas to help us each make decisions that we can feel good about.