I love a book where all the actual protagonists are loveable. Honey & Spice gives DRAMA and mess and good food and tunes and romantic friendship and straightening your crown and shutting down shit. Also, Babalola deals very tenderly with the difference between what you think you see and what is actually going down. Everyone is challenged to consider their assumptions and no one is worse off for it.

This co-authored series of short stories brings to life many aspects of Janelle Monae’s discography. Their vision of Dirty Computers who do not conform to the totalitarian regime they are controlled by is so clever. I’ve never read a set of short stories that are cumulative before. As you progress through, more and more becomes apparent about the world and who does and does not fit. Themes of queer liberation, Black power, and social justice thread all the way through it. There is also emphasis on the radical and transformative power of small communities and of making art to resist conformity. These are all big words for saying that the layers of the dysptopia get richer and your love for the different characters and modes of resisting get more powerful the more of the book that you read.

I loved this collection. It has many funny, heartful, sad, bittersweet, sexy poems for readers of different interests. The introduction and approach to amassing the voices is beautifully expressed. I really enjoyed coming across familiar authors, including people I didn’t know wrote poems. Equally, I’ve taken lots of time to get to know the new poets I didn’t know. It’s a collection that feels full of love for queer people but without being sentimental or cliché about many, many different ways of existing and feeling. 

These short stories could have been really gossip-y and full of judgment. But instead this is collection full of compassion towards mess and care for the moments of rest, relief and intimacy these Black women and girls experience. I haven’t heard anyone highlight that there is queer rep in these stories. Given the associations with goodness and Godliness that you might conjure from the title, I really wanted to say how much I loved to see sapphic/bisexual representation as part of the fabric of Black womanhood. I also love the really clear distinction between messy behaviour and being toxic, cruel, and/or abusive. 

I completely understand why “Peach Cobbler” is the favourite chapter but I loved “Eula” and “How to Make Love to a Physicist.” My favourite is “Instructions got Married Christian Husbands”

This is such a needed graphic novel. Because it’s a memoir, you really vibe with the author/illustrator Maia but simultaneously, e has included so many generous and helpful signposts and little factoids to help readers who are not deeply involved in conversations about their gender identities. I screamed twice because I felt seen in ways that I hadn’t ever prepared to see in print. This novel is for everyone and I hope that lots and lots of people read it.