This is a really interesting sci fi novella that works beautifully with the concept of stories within a story.
Anima is a watcher in the city of Ora and switches between animal bodies whenever aer help is needed through the use of fascinating biotech. Then a mysterious visitor arrives, who carries various items and memories from other cities and offers to tell Anima stories from outside aer city in exchange for memories of aer own.
This is a story that exists in a dialogue of narratives and masterfully weaves the various stories that are being told together. The stories themselves touch on many aspects of life: grief, mental health, assimilation, colonialism and agency and I adored every single one. There's one about hunting mermaids and exploitation, one about sports and colonialism, one about grief and resurrections, one about a corrupt government official, one about suicide and loss and more.
The writing style is viscerally beautiful, guiding me through all these short stories in a somewhat dream like fashion despite the darkness in them. The trans representation is nearly everywhere, there's three different sets of neo pronouns (ae/aer/aer, se/ser/ser & e/em/eir) as well as a trans woman character.
At times it feels like a collection of fairytales from a strange new world and I was utterly enchanted by it. Definitely recommended for fans of short stories, fairytales, stories as framework for other stories, anticolonialist narratives, weird and experimental storytelling and trans representation.

This is a very sweet and lovely trans romance. It's t4t4t, poly, bisexual and very lovely.
Madeline is an author, who struggles to make it in the New York art scene without having to compromise her bodily integrity as more famous authors there expect "favors" in exchange for their help. This scary part of her past is only lightly touched upon, but the narratives manages to showcase very well the exploitation and oversexualisation trans women are often faced with.
She manges to find a save haven in the house of fellow trans writer Victor. Victor is already a successful author, but still struggles with wether or not his audience will accept everything he writes. He also experienced the judgement of the New York art scene, but was able to escape, mainly living as a shut in on the country side now. As these two get closer and Madeline finally starts to believe she's found somewhere she can finally write, she meets Victor's neighbor, the farmer Audrey and finds herself drawn toward her.
This is when the story moves through a variety of romance tropes. Madeline is a virgin, who finds herself swept of her feet by handsome Victor and equally intruiged beautiful Audrey. The sex is always fantastic and there's lots of it. But Madeline can't decide who she wants more and fears that her desires are unnatural and shameful. There is some conflict around that, but that is rather quickly resolved and in general there is very little conflict in this story.
At points the lack of conflict made the story feel a bit flat, despite the interesting characters and the sweet romance, but if you enjoy your vibes saccharine it is definitely still very lovely. There's also a lot of sex, which is obviously great, but not something I had expected going in. So uh... be aware or be intruiged, depending on where your preferences lie. There's also less wooing and more quickly falling in love and lust than I expected. All in all I found myself really liking this story, but it is only a four star read for me. But if you enjoy quiet sweet high heat t4t4t romances with incredible vibes and lush prose that really draws you in this is a book to check out.

This is an incredible collection of poems and essays centered on Black imagination where Black people describe their origin story, how they heal themselves and finally a world where they are safe, valued and loved. The incredible diversity in voices collected for this was wonderful. I listened to the audio book and I also really enjoyed that multiple voice actors participated to tell all these people's stories. It is a very hopeful but also heartbreaking book and I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to listen to the ideas and stories shared in here.

My first read of this year and I'm happy that I got to start 2024 on such a high note!
It is a unique format of a fictional memoir being told split in two halves. Side A follows Tracy St. Cyr, a trans woman who hasn't realized she's trans yet, her coming of age in a small town before moving to a city, where she befriends a few transgender artists until she realizes she is trans herself and needs to do something before the city swallows her. Side B follows her years later as she returns to the city, now a famous front woman of a trans riot grrrl band and how she finds connection in the town again.
There are so many things I love about this story: The format, the fact that the author has a self insert as a fictional memoir writer, the female friendships, the dealing with trauma and healing from it through art and music, the sexy scenes (oh I loved the fisting and a trans woman uses a strap on here, which was incredible to read!) and the wonderful queernormativity and trans love everywhere but most importantly I loved the art. Oh the art described in this story! It is incredible and wonderful and astounding and it made me feel grief that I cannot visit the exhibits described here, cannot read the books or view the performances. This is a book that manages to describe fictional art with such detail and care that I found myself googling the art multiple times to see if this one at last would be art that actually exists.
The story is also told in the format of letters to Tracy's two exes, sometimes speaking directly to them and I really enjoyed this way of story telling. Definitely will be checking out more art by the author. I also listened to the audio book narrated by the author herself and I really adored that, especially since she effortlessly ages the character between Side A and Side B in a way that I found really intruiging.
All in all this is a love story to trans women and the art they create and I absolutely adored it.
TWs for self harm/suicide attempt, abusive relationships and dysphoria + related bad sex due to it.

A really interesting story that combines grief and the way fandom can help us heal as well as the ways in which we consume media through and with other people. I really enjoyed the way we were drawn into the world of Little Blue and especially everything it told us about Vivian and the narrator.
This book definitely is one of the most interesting character studies I've read in a while and I liked the way the story was centered around an encyclopdia of characters. This forced the story to be very minimalist in it's scope and yet it managed to show us glimpses and insights into hurt and grief, but also love and healing. Little Blue is very fleshed out and fascinating and I also adored the way trans friendship was portrayed between Vivian and the narrator and the grief that follows losing this often unique connection.
I also really enjoyed the end of the story and found myself weepy eyed at times.
TW for death, grief and drug use.

I've read this book twice by now, once two years ago and again this year for my queer bookclub since we we're looking for a trans sci-fi story.
I am very happy to have gotten around to rereading it. While I still remembered most of the plot twists, there were enough things I had forgotten to be charmed by them all over. And of course I really love Lem and Spock. Once of the biggest parts that changed for me in between my two reads is that I have consumed a lot of Star Trek since and so I could appreciate a lot of the reference in a new light and found myself even more excited by them than I did when I only knew that they were referencing something nerdy.
I really like the characters and how different they all are. Since most of the story takes place on a space ship and with a limited number of characters, I found that really important and really enjoyed the level of detail that went into each member of the crew. As the summary shows we see a lot of interesting and fascinating alien races and I really liked that.
The trans rep is wonderful and effortless (and lets be real: how often do we find transfem nonbinary characters that use she/her pronouns in media? Not very often) and I found the idea to only use she/her pronouns for every single alien interesting (which to me felt like a little nod to the left hand of darkness and I enjoyed that as well).
I also enjoyed the humor and the whimsyness of the story and I think if you are ready for a weird, funny space adventure with a sidedish of queer rep and talking dogs please check this book out!

This is an incredibly interesting short story collection showcasing a variety of trans women and their experiences. So far it is definitely my favorite book by Casey Plett.
The characters are complex, yet feel organic. They are flawed and hurting and messy and real. I've found myself enjoying every short story, but what I really adored was the fact that there was one bigger story that we kept coming back to in short stories throughout the book. This made the book feel a lot more cohesive and while I also enjoyed a lot of the stand alone short stories, I remember being incredibly excited and surprised the first time a character made a repeat appearance and I got to figure out what had changed in between stories. And most importantly besides this one repeated story the main characters were all different and unique, facing a variety of struggles and experiences and I really enjoyed that this book explored the messiness of small social circles and relationships.
I also like that some of the characters are flawed and act horribly at points, it made the story feel even more varied and interesting than if every character only had horrible things happen to them.
If you are looking for a short story collection exploring (some) experiences of trans women, filled with emotion and many interesting women, I can absolutely recommend you to check out this book.

This book features a bunch of essays and poems and letters dedicated to a variety of people and topics. I found myself really enjoying it. At times I was moved, at time inspired, but always enamored by the writing style and the love and resilience that shines through every single piece.
This is mainly a book about healing, a book that looks at the dark and upsetting things in this world and decides to approach even those with grace and love. Kai Cheng Thom's writing style is lyrical and evocative, deeply personal and briming with emotion that I found myself having to pause between poems sometimes to truly let it all sink in. There is definitely something there to take away from the book for anybody that has experienced opression, to let yourself be inspired and uplifted and healed, but especially for trans women of color.

This is definitely a really important book and I just wish I had enjoyed it more than I did.
I want to start my review with what I really liked about the book: I love the cover. I like Tara a lot, she's a really interesting character and even though I sometimes felt frustrated with her being so completely unable to express her wishes and desires to anybody else the further I got into the story, the more sense it made. And at least thats something she managed to develop over the course of the story. She is definitely a character you can find yourself rooting for, even though your heart breaks for her constantly as she doesn't really have any real friends and even the few people she starts to form bonds with often cross boundaries or act inconsiderate, which made me feel for her a lot. I like that not everything is black and white and especially Tara tries to be comfortable in these inbetween zones even if it isn't always easy at times. This made for an interesting story. In general I enjoyed that a lot of characters existed in this tough inbetween place of being somewhat prejudiced while trying to do the right thing, but failing. Some of them managed to do better by the end and that felt really good to see. I also liked the sapphic relationship, that was cute. And finally I really enjoyed that Tara's existence as a trans girl who is unable to go on blockers or hormones is discussed. While others may doubt her gender, she knows who she is. There are also one scenes that deals with arousal causing further dysphoria and I found the frankness around that discussion refreshing. And I enjoyed that she was able to find gender euphoria in her relationship, despite being unable to eliviate it in every aspect of her life.
Now to what I did not enjoy: the writing style was stillted and awkward at times. Some dialogue especially was just weird. And the plot was choppy and so scenes that I wish had been explored more fully just weren't. The characters fell a bit flat for me due to that. And I disliked how Tara treated Liam at points. She once thinks that he could have been a really pretty girl and ignores how he must feel as the only out trans guy at an all girls school and only believes that he faces transphobia in his own family after a cis girl confirms it to her, even though he has complained about it multiple times. The first comment really shocked me and it just feels really weird for a trans character, who understands how painful it is to be misgendered by other people, to just randomly have a thought like that without ever examining it. I also disliked that the first time we are introduced to Liam she immediately decides he is overexaggerating the transphobia of his own family. Her thinking might have made sense if we had seen him overexaggerate things before (and we definitely do see him cross her boundaries repeatedly later on) and so this scene just really did not make me feel like they have any real form of friendship besides the fact that they are the only trans kids. Plus I didn't really enjoy the way the Sybils were seen as Oh So Different from the vapid normal girls, the only ones who care for truth and justice, when everything they did in the book are things that could have happened without a secret social club (shopping, reading books & picking fake names are something that doesnt have to be confined to a secret club...) and so I did not really understand their appeal and why Tara was willing to risk so much just to join them especially in the beginning of the story. I would have liked her to have some further motivation or exploration why she thinks her desire for female friendship cant be fullfilled elsewhere and in general I think this book would have profited from more depth, especially with pretty much every characters' motivations (but especially Angel, Tara & Liam) and the way the school works in general.
This unfortunately kept me from really being drawn into this book as I had hoped I would and so I can unfortunately only give it two stars, but I do enjoy that we have a book that really examines the pain and prejudice that can be caused by an unjust government, transphobia and racism and why it is important to stand against that (even if it is only through seeking joy and self-acceptance as Tara does).

This is a collection of poetry focussing on trans issues. Some poems wish for a trans utopia, others focus on the trans joy that already exists and again others deal with issues surrounding antisemitism and racism and the dangers conversatives and Nazis pose to marginalized communities and why it is important for all of us to stand on side by side with other marginalized people.
The poems are not really anything spectacular on a technical level and there is a lot of very surface level trans history repeated here, so I did not find myself particularly invested. The most interesting poems were the personal ones and not the ones dealing with history.
I was hoping for something more emotional, but there were still some pieces that I enjoyed such as "On my way to liberation", "Giovanni's room" and "Trans Lit". Unfortunately otherwise it was not really my style.