“What matters most to me, is that I know how I feel, and the rest of the world might catch up one day, even if it’ll be a quiet revolution over longer than my lifetime, if it happens at all."
"Girl, Woman, Other," was overwhelming good. The way Bernardine Evaristo seamlessly intertwines 12 women and queer's stories was unexpected. I've never read a book that centers the Black British experience and I learned so much entering the world of these complex people's stories. These stories, about abuse, sexuality, gender, success, teendom, pregnancy and motherhood, health, and history, are so full of life and love and optimism. Evaristo reminds us of how far we've come, and yet how far we have left to go. She pushes boundaries not just with her poetic, imaginative writing style, but with her progressive mind and steadfast love for people and their untold stories.

“I can not find what’s missing. I am trying and trying, and I cannot; as I fail, I shrink. I shrink down into dirt, wood, and worms.”
TW abuse
A brave thing it is, to share your story in all it’s beauty and ugliness. “In the Dream House,” is the best memoir I’ve read; it’s one of the best books I’ve read. Vulnerable, artistic, scary, and wonderful, Carmen Maria Machado elicits just about every emotion one can feel reading this collection of short stories meets single story memoir. She seamlessly moves between first and second person, making you feel for her and like her. Interspersed are descriptions and themes from literature and film and history that are not only relevant to Machado’s story, but to everyone’s. Her feelings are intense and striking, as she shares the additional barriers of being queer and a person of color in an abusive relationship and the pressure to not fail the “queer community.” “Dream House as Noir,” “Dream House as Choose Your Own Adventure,” and “Dream House as Death Wish” were among my favorites. Machado’s writing is poetic and strong and imaginative and honest and diverse- all the things she hoped it would be and all the things that she is.

This book had so much potential. The basic plot is so compelling- transwoman wants baby with transwoman partner, transwoman detransitions to man and knocks up cis woman boss, detransitioned man proposes raising boss’s baby with transwoman ex because being a father is too masculine for him- and yet, Torrey Peters more or less blundered the telling of it. Her writing style is sort of off beat. The heart of the story is the characters and their growth and all too honest truths, and yet I still feel like I never really got to know Reese and Katrina. I did, however, learn a lot about the inner-workings, for a lack of a better phrase, of the trans community (the race discussion was particularly interesting). An interesting read for sure, but not one I would subject just anyone to.

god this makes me feel things

“Like vast clouds of steam from thermal springs in winter the years of things unsaid and now unsayable—admissions, declarations, shames, guilts, fears—rose around them.”

“There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe, but nothing could be done about it, and if you can’t fix it you’ve got to stand it.”

"The first time you share tea, you are a stranger. The second time you share tea, you are an honored guest. The third time you share tea, you become family." I didn't buy this book the first time I saw it when I was in Kramers, and I almost didn't buy it last time either, but I am so glad I did. I was incredibly moved by Klune's first book, so the way Under the Whispering Door pulled at my heartstrings wasn't surprising, but it felt just the same. About life and death, family and love, compassion, growth, forgiveness (for others and oneself), and selflessness, Under the Whispering Door is a heartwarming text that follows Wallace's life after death. He's an asshole, which is an understatement, and when he arrives at Hugo and Mei's tea shop, you just about want to kill him (again!). And then Wallace grows and you can't help but learn a few things about life and who you want to be with him. Nelson is a delight, Apollo is easily the most important character, Mei is ferocious and I love her, and Hugo is exactly who is meant to be and who we should all hope to be. I'm so happy to know them.