sashahc's reviews
169 reviews

That Self-Same Metal by Brittany N. Williams

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adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I have a fun #book for you today.  “That Self Same Metal” by Brittany N Williams is about Joan Sands, a queer Black teenager who is a fight choreographer for The King’s Men in Shakespeare’s time.  She is blessed by the Orisha Ogun with power over metal and when Ogun’s agreement with the fae expires, she and her family need to find a way to keep the fae from invading London.  It’s fun and clever and thoughtful, full of fight scenes and mischief and teen crushes.  Not to mention Shakespeare’s actors.  A great YA read.

Brittany N Williams: “just felt like the fact that I could give a teenager like me something that I didn't have but would have loved when I was a teen, that just makes me feel so warm inside. I love being able to do that. It feels like my small way of making the world a better place for the younger generation. It's like, I had to search high and low for this. I didn't get this until I was an adult. I'm not gonna let you go through that same struggle. Here you go. I did this for you.”

Brittany N Williams (she/her) is a queer Black American author and classically trained actress based in New Orleans. She is a Shakespeare nerd and violinist and D&D player.  She is married to Daniel José Older and their child is going to be ridiculously talented.
The Deep Dark by Molly Knox Ostertag

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dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective relaxing sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

“The Deep Dark” by Molly Knox Ostertag is a graphic novel about Magdalena Herrera, a queer teenager in a small Southern California desert town.  Mags has an ailing grandmother, a kinda girlfriend, and a secret in her basement.  When her childhood best friend Nessa reappears, it upends everything.  It’s beautifully drawn, spooky, and dives deep into self acceptance, the weight of responsibility, and allowing yourself to show weakness.  It’s a story that will stick with you for a while.

Molly Knox Ostertag: “I think there’s this really big fear with queer artists that if I portray a queer person being less than perfect, then that will somehow lead to someone else becoming prejudiced against me or my rights being taken away, and it was my fault. I think that that’s a really legitimate fear, but it’s just a fear that I don’t want to give a voice to, so it’s been this long process of unlearning that I will continue to be on probably forever.”

Molly Knox Ostertag (she/her) is a queer white writer and illustrator.  She wrote for The Owl House as well as her own graphic novels.  She likes to cook and hang out in her garden with her spouse, queer cartoonist ND Stevenson.  She has a perfect dog and two perfect cats.
The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

“The Archive Undying” by Emma Mieko Candon is deeply influenced by post-war Japan - specifically mecha and kaiju and anxiety about mutation.  It follows Sunai, a backcountry guide and traumatized disaster queer, through a world full of corrupted and dying organic AI. They are near-gods who used to rule city-states and who destroyed those cities as they died.  Sunai has reasons to stay out of sight, but there are gods to kill and there is Veyadi, an appealing doctor and pilgrim with his own secrets.  The landscape is deeply creepy and everyone’s intentions are inscrutable.  At times, it has a hallucinogenic quality, and it’s not always clear whose consciousness is whose. 

Emma Mieko Candon: “[The heart of the story is] being alive, despite it all. Being sweet because of it. I have spent a lot of time thinking I needed to justify breathing. I think that’s very sad. I want people to protect and nurture themselves and each other, and I hope they find some of that in this book.”

Emma Mieko Candon (they/them) is a queer author and mixed race fourth generation Japanese settler in Hawaii.  They are an escaped academic drawn to tales of devouring ghosts, cursed linguistics, and mediocre robots.  They are an anime editor and remain academically haunted by identity, ideology, and imperialism.
Lunar Boy by Cin Wibowo, Jes Wibowo

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emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

“Lunar Boy” by Jes and Cin Wibowo is an Indonesian inspired middle grade graphic novel.  It’s about Indu, a trans boy rescued from the moon.  After spending his early years growing up with his adoptive mom on a spaceship, they move to Earth with her new husband and step kids.  But Indu is still learning Indonesian and unsure how to relate to this new large community and wonders if it was better if he didn’t come at all.  It’s about family and community and learning to be confident in who you are and open yourself up.  It deals with the scars of colonization and its effect on queer community and indigenous practices.  It’s also beautifully illustrated and very sweet.  Get it for all the graphic novel folks in your life.

Jes & Cin: “We need to expand what ‘the queer narrative’ can look like.  What queer escapism looks like outside a white lens.  I wanted my first book to be hopeful, but I didn’t want the world of Lunar Boy to just ignore the years of colonialism and systemic homophobia that queer Indonesians of the past and present experienced.  So Lunar Boy became a wish.  Lunar Boy is a wish for a distant sci-fi future where things are better.  A world where queer Indonesians grapple with the scars of colonialism and violence.  Where queer people are welcome to join cultural rites of passage.  Lunar Boy is a story where even a trans boy from the moon can find belonging.  It wasn’t going to be a perfect world, but it was a healing one.”

Jes and Cin Wibowo are queer identical twin Indonesian sisters.  One of them likes toast and the other is hooked on potatoes. They love cute, magical, and empowering stories for middle grade readers.
Godly Heathens by H.E. Edgmon

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I’m going to end as I began with a Turtle Island Indigenous author.  “Godly Heathens” by H.E. Edgmon, is a dark and biting YA.  It follows Gem, a non-binary mess of an indigenous teenager in Gracie, Georgia.  He has been having visions and dreams of magic and violence, and somehow, the new girl in town not only knows about the dreams, but knows that Gem is  the reincarnation of a kind of nasty god,  Also, they are not the only one.   It’s full of teenage bad decisions, trauma, ancient vengeance, and reincarnations of a pantheon from another realm.  

HE Edgmon: “My Indigenous characters have their worldview, beliefs, morals, and actions shaped by their identities, like we all do, and that in turn shapes the way the story unfolds. But they’re also just… vibing. Living contemporary Native lives and getting dragged into the nonsense of my stories. You know? When fantasy world-building, I have to tackle it from a decolonial lens. Not only do I have the obligation to do that, to question every decision I make and interrogate my work for colonizer ideas I might unintentionally be regurgitating, but, to a certain extent, I can’t do world-building any other way. Like the Native characters I write, my identity shapes my worldview. And it bleeds through in the way I tell stories and create fantasy systems.”

H.E. Edgmon (Seminole, they/he) is a non-binary trans man who lives in the Pacific Northwest.  They have an eccentric little family of their own design, several very sensitive pets, and a lot of opinions.  It is always their goal to make fascists uncomfortable.
The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

"The Traitor Baru Cormorant" by Seth Dickinson is about the terrible choices that colonization forces on the colonized in the name of resistance.  The eponymous main character is taken from her family and raised by the colonizers in a school, where her brilliance is trained in the service of Empire.  That is where she decides that she is going to rise high enough and gain enough power to burn it all to the ground.  It's grim and twisty and very engrossing.  I will read the second one, but I'm going to take a moment to breath first. 
Otherworldly by F.T. Lukens

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adventurous emotional lighthearted mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

"Otherworldly" by F.T Lukens is another YA about a town abandoned by its goddess and stuck in a forever winter.  It's also about the little queerdo found family in that town that adopts a mysterious stranger who, it turns out, is a familiar from another world.  It's sweet and neurotic and I love the lesbian side kick duo.  It's grompy one + sunshine one.  Kind of a teenager romance meets American Gods, maybe?  Anyway, I'll read all of FT Lukens' #book s, and so should you.
The Ghost of Us by James L. Sutter

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adventurous emotional funny tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

"The Ghost of Us" by James L. Sutter is a YA about Cara, a ghost hunter who is being haunted by a wise-cracking dead guy from her high school who is convinced that his reason for remaining on Earth is to set Cara up with his sister.  It's got a bevy of quirky characters, plenty of young sapphic yearning, terrible teenage decisions, a Very Good best friend, and a dollop of generational trauma.
Midnight Rooms by Donyae Coles

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I just finished Donyae Coles’ “Midnight Rooms.”  It’s a gothic fantasy filled with uncomfortable dreams, howling foxes, and the forest taking all.  It has an arranged marriage, a mysterious rotting manor, and a family with glittering eyes.  It’s deeply creepy and absorbing.  Perfect book to read in the bath surrounded by candles with a glass of red wine.
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The Mars House by Natasha Pulley

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I WILL READ ANYTHING NATASHA PULLEY WRITES.  "The Mars House" is her newest one and it's science fiction and gloriously queer.  It's about the difference between nice and good and how power differentials come in many forms, and how culture and language intertwine.  It has a good helping of emo yearning and is also a great twist on the sham marriage romance trope.  The main character is January, a ballet dancer from Earth forced to be a refugee on Mars when London finally floods entirely who is then caught up in global politics against his will when he sarcastically threatens a Mars Senator on live camera.    The sense of humor is glorious (especially in the footnotes), I would die for the baby Mastodon, and I read multiple passages out loud to Nyx.  Don't sleep on this one.