Atwood's most prominent work is the most prominent for a reason. Timely in its era and timely now, it has both a bite and a squishy sincerity. Offred is a complex character that's easy to empathize with. Most of the other characters only exist in her psyche so she colors the whole narrative in a way powerful protagonists do. Some of the aspects of Gilead felt a little goofy (namely "The Underground Femaleroad") but it was mostly grounded in the realism of religious zealousy. I don't know how I felt about the addendum and mostly skimmed it but it did add some color to the world. It's imperfect and wonderful and engrossing. 

"Rubyfruit Jungle" is a rollicking novel. Molly is a spitfire protagonist I loved spending time with. Brown has a way with dialogue. Every conversation felt grounded in both reality and the character's personalities. I enjoyed some pieces of the book more than others but was engaged throughout. This book is simultaneously heartbreaking and heartening. A classic in queer literature.

For a celebrity memoir, this was well written, engaging, and fairly grounded. It isn't the next great American novel but it is good for what it is. Paris doesn't evade recognition of her privilege but also details the horror she's been dealt in terms of her early and persistent sexualization and the stripping of her autonomy in a variety of ways. The story of her time in various "therapeutic boarding schools" will no doubt help other victims of the troubled teen industry. I'm glad this book is out there.

Klune has a distinctive and enjoyable writing style. It is somewhat reminiscent of Stewart's "The Mysterious Benedict Society" in its mix of the fantastical, the bureaucratic, the ordinary, the juvenile, and the profound. You can tell Klune is growing as a writer from "The House on the Cerulean Sea". He still maintains his voice but is able to differentiate the books so they can each stand on their own merits. I found the first quarter of the book to not be very engaging and, in fact, a little exasperating. After that, I was sucked into the world and finished the rest in one day. The only thing I found discordant, although amusing, was the mention of sex. I didn't clutch my pearls, but it felt a little goofy in a book written in a very childlike style. A great read.

Nevada is a bold book. Its characters are complex, flawed, and relatable. It gives you a lense into the messiness that comes with being trans, not just because you're trans but because you are a silly, messed up little human. Maria and James are challenging characters, both compelling and exasperating. As a trans-masculine person, the pervasive "shit on trans men" throughline frustrated me a bit. I think Binnie is right to call out the privilege we have in the trans community, but I feel like it could have been done in a way that doesn't alienate a whole swath of trans people. This book wasn't for me, but I can recognize its power. 

I can't fully express how much this book means to me. This isn't the first time I've read it and it won't be the last. Bechdel layers literary allusions with stories both floaty and heavy. It's an exploration of queerness, relationships, and how we make sense of the lot we're given. The graphic part of the graphic novel is just as captivating. I particularly loved the whole page of little drawings of Bechdel and her father in the car. A coup de maître in the truest sense of the words.

I think I might be too dumb to properly appreciate this. Some poems fall flat but the later half of the book hit me hard. I happily recognized similarities between this and "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous". Vuong is a virtuoso. I look forward to seeing more of him.

An expansive and moving piece of work. Henning calls on her experience with the legal system for powerful anecdotes. This book is heavy, but it never felt heavy-handed. You come away from it angry yet frustratingly impressed at the resilience no young person should ever be required to display.

Well-researched and well-delivered. It does what it sets out to do by myth-busting, but there is little more to it.

This book is hard to follow in the form I read it (audiobook). The map of characters is vast and hard to separate. The first part is wonderful and written deftly and the second part gets more tangled. Still, I love the themes of the cyclical nature of abuse and how we internalize it and let it affect your self-worth. We need as many queer stories as possible and this is a complicated addition.