I'm not much of a romance reader, but the premise of this one drew me in. The romantic leads, Eva and Shane, are both writers, and more than that, they've both been writing books about each other since an emotionally charged and brief relationship in their teen years ended in tragedy. Though both of their stars have been rising in the literary world, they've been avoiding any direct encounters. As adults, Eva is a single mom raising a smart, creative daughter in Brooklyn on the proceeds of her erotic supernatural romance series. Shane, two years sober, has started teaching and mentoring unprivileged youth in whom he sees himself. When they meet unexpectedly at a literary event, sparks fly. Their connection seems as immediate and overwhelming now as it did when they were young, but are either of them ready to try again? Can their romance fit into their real, adult lives? Eva has chronic pain, an invisibly disability she has struggled with her whole life, and I really appreciated that as an element of her character. Like many romances, most of the setting in this book are lush, glamorous and give scenes a heightened sense of reality. I had to suspect my disbelief about some things, but I enjoyed the book a lot. 

In the far future, a spaceship built on earth travels through distant reaches of our galaxy building a serious of wormhole gates for the hypothetical use of humans who will come after them. Except the ship as been traveling for hundreds of thousands of years and no one has ever come out through the gates. The lives of the 30,000 humans on board are artificially extended because they spend the majority of their time cryogenicly frozen, with only brief times spent awake to help out when the ship runs into a problem that the onboard AI can't handle. The ship is also riddled with strange little mysteries: a hidden valley of data crystals; gardens of mutant modified plants; graffiti on the walls in which people leave messages for others who might not wake up and see them for hundreds of years. Amidst all of this, some of the ship's crew want to rebel, tired of their endless missions. But how can they rise up when they spent nearly all their time asleep? I loved the premise of this novellla, and enjoyed the ship setting, but found the character development rather thin. If I had really loved any of the characters the twist at the end would have hit a lot harder. 

Boyfriends Yuujirou and Rui are reaching the end of high school. Yuujirou is ready to commit to living together and to coming out to their families-- but Rui wants to chase his career dreams by studying abroad. A more serious story than the first about a couple facing their first really big challenge. Also spicier than book one! 

Yuujirou rescued Rui from a childhood scrape, and they've been friends ever since. Also, Yuujirou has nursed a crush all the way into high school... and is dismayed that cute, kind-hearted Rui grew a whole head taller than him! It's extremely obvious that the feelings are returned, but it takes a couple chapters for these two to get their shit together and confess. Silly and sweet. 

Quick, fast, silly short comics about cats who share characteristics with Japanese Yokai ghosts. I was particularly charmed by the cat with the extremely long extendable neck and the cat that grew to the size of a wall and blocked roads. Goofy and sweet! 

I read this for my book club, and we won't be holding our discussion of it until late April, so I might come back after that with more thoughts. For now, I'll say there were aspects of this book which I really enjoyed (the focus on the damage caused by colonization, the diverse cast, the unique magic system, the Oxford setting) but also multiple ways it felt bogged down by it's own length and some of the plot decisions. I'm normally a huge fan of a quirky or educational footnote (see: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell) but in the second half I felt like the footnotes were bleeding the tension out of the action and really taking away from my reading enjoyment. I wanted more from several of the lead characters emotional arcs. I wanted the plot turns of the second half to come sooner. I wanted some of the multiple main character deaths to be given a bit more space to breath. Still, I'm glad I read this and I think it's a very thought provoking book, maybe more so because it's so far from perfect. 

This candid, conversational memoir is read by the author in the audiobook and I really loved hearing it literally in her voice. Mock begins the book writing of being a freshman in college in her native Hawaii, of working briefly in a strip club as a dancer, of meeting the man who she would marry and live with on and off through her twenties, of following her academic ambition and writing skills to Rhode Island and then New York City, of friendships, boyfriends, heart breaks and career breaks. Mock pursued the goal of becoming a culture magazine editor with remarkable clear-eyed practicality and worked her way into higher and higher positions even as a recent grad. Along the way she gained confidence in herself, her place in the world, and her unique voice as a trans woman of color. She went from living stealth to deciding she wanted to share her story calmly and compassionately with the world. 

At the start of this military thriller, set in 2010, a sergeant dies in a mysterious fire on a US base in the UK. Around the base, dozens of objects appear ranging from familiar, nostalgic childhood toys, to a full American style diner in the middle of an empty field. A pair of unique agents are called in to investigate these circumstances: reserved, rule following Colonel Adam Rubenstein, and chaotic Sunil Rao, unranked, pulled from rehab after an overdose attempt. Rao as the ability to spot fakes and forgeries at a glance, and also to tell when anyone is lying. Except Adam. Adam is the only person who confounds Rao's power, and the only one who can manage his unpredictable moods and whims. This unlikely team chase the threads of the mystery back to Colorado, into an experimental government lab, where they find a bizarre substance effecting people's psyches to produce physical objects linked to memory. Everyone seems to react to it in the same way... except Rao and Adam. The book is a little over long, but full of witty dialogue, very original, and the plot intrigue is underpinned by the emotional tension between the two leads, who are pulled together by curiosity, attraction, and increasingly, by real feelings. There were a few missed opportunities that I think could have ramped up the romantic stakes even farther, but still, I loved that a cautious queer romance formed the emotional core of the story. 

Another book I finished all in one day for the Trans Right Readathon (March 20-27 2023!) This Gatsy retelling casts Nick Carraway as Nicolás Caraveo, a 17-year-old trans boy from Wisconsin. He wants to move to New York not for the glamour but because he has a head for numbers and wants to make money working on Walls Street to support his parents and establish himself as a man. His cousin Daisy finds him a cottage in West Egg, but when he reunions with Daisy he's shocked to realize she's passing as white and lying about her past to her sort-of fiancé, Tom, a man who pretends at tolerance while exhibiting casual racism. Then Nick meets his other neighbor, the infamous Jay Gatsby, who throws outrageous and extravagant parties but is more similar to Nick than most people can see. This retelling adds an insurance investigation about a missing $350,000 pearl necklace; a visit to an underground gay club; and cast full of queer characters, all trying to make some kind of safety or place for themselves in the world. I'd love to see this version added to school reading lists along side the original! 

It's been a while since I read a novel all in one day! I picked this up for the Trans Rights Readathon (running on all bookish social media near you from March 20-27 2023) and I absolutely loved it. The two main characters, Bastian and Lore, are both nonbinary, both Mexican-American, and both neurodivergent. Bastian lives by the shore of a lake, the source of many myths, but only Bastian seems to be able to access the liminal, magical space beneath its surface. Until they meet Lore, who can also see the way the waves lift off the shore to become a path. But Bastian and Lore both end up pouring things into the lake they're unwilling to face- bad memories, traumas, and the hateful whispers of cruel classmates. The lake can only hold so much, and soon these painful things start flooding the shores, into the streets and homes of the teens. The only way to quiet the waters is to face what they've tried to drown. This a fast, engaging read and one of the best books about living with ADHD and dyslexia I've ever encountered. It makes me want to seek out more stories with this kind of representation, and this kind of emotional, visual language!