Month: June 2021

Each of Us a Desert by Mark Oshiro

This book is a fantasy set in (you guessed it) a desert! I don’t know what it is about desert fantasies, but I’m on quite a kick for them lately. This book follows two women – one a magical storyteller and one the daughter of a bandit terrorizing the other’s village – as they navigate a terrifying world that really wants to kill them in an effort to find themselves and follow a buried line of poetry. It’s so exciting and moving and well-written. It is a sapphic story and has strong Latin-American inspiration and weaves lots of Spanish into its telling.

Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger

This was one of my favorites this year! It’s written by a Lipan Apache geoscientist and author and is from the perspective of Indigenous people in a world just a little different from our own – one in which the main character, Elatsoe, can summon the ghosts of dead animals (including ancient trilobytes) and is set on a path to figure out who murdered her brother. This book features an asexual main character (a person who does not experience sexual attraction or only experiences it under specific circumstances), which is explicitly stated in the text, and is an identity that is a bit harder to find in traditionally published work.

Hazel’s Theory of Evolution by Lisa Jenn Bigelow

This one is a middle grade that deals with SO MANY difficult things. Hazel is a girl with 2 moms, and one of them is pregnant again after suffering pretty devastating miscarriages in the past. She’s also trying to get through her last year of middle school while drifting apart from her best friend and finding new ones. It is a simple book that packs a powerful emotional punch that really had me by the heart by the time I finished reading it.

This book has a ton of representation, too: lesbian parents, a trans friend, and a main character portrayed as asexual and aromantic (someone who does not experience romantic attraction or only experiences it under specific circumstances). It’s a really wonderful array of experiences written in a heartfelt, emotional way.

Mooncakes by Wendy Xu and Suzanne Walker

If you want a tremendously cute graphic novel with all the fall feels (in fact, I read this to put me in the mood for Pie-Jinks!), then this is it. It follows a young witch with hearing loss and her childhood crush, a werewolf named Tam, as they confront an evil together to save each other and the town. I loved the art and the story, and it really has all the cozy autumn feels to it!

The representation in this book is awesome, too. The main character, as I said, has hearing loss, and Tam is non-binary, there is a romantic relationship between them, and they are both Chinese-American characters. The young witch also lives with her two grandmas, a lesbian couple.

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

Last but certainly not least is this body horror, nature horror, young adult sapphic book that was *chef’s kiss*. I don’t know what it was exactly: the atmosphere, the mystery, or the characters, but this book grabbed me and didn’t let go. It was another I could not put down, and it gave me ALL the feelings. It’s just a touch creepy and a touch disturbing, but I just loved every bit of it!