Thank you to One World Books for the free advance copy of this book.

✨MINI REVIEW✨ [ @oneworldbooks #partner ]

Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn't hate. But then her girlfriend detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. When Ames's boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she's pregnant with his baby, Ames wonders if this is the chance he's been waiting for. Could the three of them form some kind of unconventional family? (via Goodreads) 📚

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📚 This book is messy, beautiful and thoughtful. It's a deep exploration of the thousands of tiny things that add up to make gender, and what happens when your understanding of those building blocks shifts.

📚 It really showcases how fluid gender and sexuality are and the joy that can bring, but doesn't shy away from exactly how mentally and physically hard it can be to exist publicly as a trans person.

📚 I honestly can't think of one aspect of the idea of womanhood or the margins of queerness this book doesn't touch on - it has so much packed in and yet it remains compellingly readable.

📚 Also, it covers all this heavy, complicated stuff and is still very funny!

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📚 I am almost certain DETRANSITION, BABY will be polarizing. On the surface, before reading it, it seems to be endorsing the idea of detransitioning and that transness is a choice - much like the idea of being an ex-gay. Keep in mind that I am a cis person, but I don't think it's doing that at all. The central tension of Ames' story is that he detransitioned but can never not be trans, even if it doesn't show outwardly. Please read it if you're in a place to do so - it's a wonderfully nuanced portrait of the complexity of trans life.

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Content warnings: biphobia, body shaming, child abuse, deadnaming, death, domestic abuse, drug use, emotional abuse, grief, hate crime, homophobia, infertility, infidelity, miscarriage , misogyny, physical abuse, self harm, sexism, sexual content, sexual violence, suicidal thoughts, suicide, toxic relationship, transphobia, and violence. 

Thanks to Saga Press for the free advance copy of this book. 

 📚 Mix together a little bit space western, a little bit space opera, and a lotta badass queer women and nonbinary people, and you've got the start of PERSEPHONE STATION.
📚 The plot is vast and the characters are all easy to root for, even when you're not sure if they're the good guys. (Seriously, there's no way I could succinctly sum up the plot, but it's also not too hard to follow.)
📚 There are some truly excellent battle scenes.
📚 PERSEPHONE STATION also poses some interesting questions about artificial intelligence and the Singularity without getting too 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY about it.
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What I didn't like:
📚 The characters are pointedly racially diverse but that doesn’t really have any bearing on things - I'm not entirely sure if race doesn't mean anything in this universe (the same way it's a queernorm universe) or if the author just wasn't sure how those identities would play into the story.

 After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC–Chapel Hill seems like the perfect escape—until Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus and a secret society of so called “Legendborn” students that hunt the creatures down. (via Goodreads) 📚
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📚 I am not entirely sure I can write a review for this book that isn't INCOHERENT THAT WAS SO GOOD SCREAMING. Huge thank yous everyone who championed this book.
📚 Not only does LEGENDBORN have a huge, multilayered magical world inside it, but it is using those ancient systems and societies to discuss how privilege - money, class, power - and their opposites - generational trauma, racial oppression, bigotry - get passed down under the tight control of white male elders. In addition to all this, I loved the underlying points about masculine vs. feminine power and how the world views the differences.
📚 Bree is headstrong and prickly and loving and dealing with so much internally. She's one of the most complex women I've read in a long time.
📚 Please come shout about the end with me! I will never get over how genius it is!
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Content warnings: death, grief, misogyny, physical abuse, racial slurs, racism, rape, sexism, slavery, torture, and violence. 

 📚 What a page turner! Right from the start I had to know what happened to Frannie every step of the way, even as things got increasingly dark.
📚 This book does feature a forbidden sapphic romance, but I appreciated that neither party had an existential crisis over it.
📚 This book is full of complex, complicated characters and it doesn't let anyone off the hook for the choices they made.
📚 It's a gothic novel not in the sense of the supernatural, but in that the truth of our racist history is grim and unspeakable.
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Content warnings: addiction, alcoholism, child abuse, child death, death, domestic abuse, drug abuse, emotional abuse, incest, homophobia,medical content, medical trauma, miscarriage, misogyny, physical abuse, racial slurs, racism, rape, sexism, slavery, sexual violence, suicide, torture, trafficking, and violence. 

 📚 I've so missed Brosh's ability to draw out the absurd in everyday, mundane situations.
📚 Her drawings are just as goofy and giggle-inducing as ever.
📚 She's also able to turn on a dime and transform a silly childhood anecdote into an exploration of mortality and love.
📚 Unfortunately, a lot of the chapters seemed to tail off with no real conclusions, I felt like a lot of them needed one more page to wrap up the thought.