Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! A queer, iconoclast, anti-fascist, anti-war comic artist, and joyfully adventurous woman, the Tove Jansson brought to life by Boel Westin’s considered pen is a complicated, innovative creative in resolute pursuit of independence—in both her art and romances. Meticulously researched but rarely dry, this is a book for Moomin fans and art history lovers alike. It provides a deep look into both the personal life and recorded experiences of Tove Jansson, as well as the historical circumstances that gave rise to her singular a ..read more

Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! This review contains spoilers. The Seep might be one of the most refreshing takes on alien invasion I’ve ever read. This novel follows Trina FastHorse Goldberg-Oneka, a middle-aged trans woman, as she and her wife Deeba, along with almost everyone else in the world, are forced to live with something called the Seep. The Seep is an alien unattached to concepts like linear time and physicality that invades humanity and simply… makes life perfect. People can alter their appearances at will, ingesting the Seep feels lik ..read more

Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! After winning the lottery, Opal Devlin puts all her money in a failing flower farm, only to find an angry (albeit gorgeous) Pepper Boden already living there. Though she’s unable to find her grandmother’s will, Pepper claims she’s the rightful owner of Thistle and Bloom Farms. While they agree to cohabitate, Opal and Pepper clash at every turn. Can something softer blossom between these polar opposites, allowing a new dream to take root and grow? Oh. My. (Sappho.) Goddess. You may think you know Mazey Eddings’ writing st ..read more

Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! I was so excited to pick this up. I read Eat Your Heart Out by Dayna Ingram more than 10 years ago (!) and I’ve been searching for a similar fun and gory sapphic zombie adventure ever since. At first, I thought I’d found it with this, but I couldn’t suspend my disbelief enough at the ending to recommend The Z Word. Something about me as a reader is that I can hang with almost any weird premise and will sail over plot holes without hesitation, but I care deeply about characterization, and that’s where this one fell short ..read more

Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! Content warnings: violence, death A note: I listened to the audiobook of Star Splitter. It’s a good one, but may have led to misspellings in this review. Let’s say you lost all memories of the past three days. You’re still you, right? You’re just you minus a few days. You’re still the same person in the same body. But what if you weren’t? What if a body died with those memories, but an older version of you remained—would you still be you? Would the dead body be you, and would you have died? These sorts of questions defi ..read more

Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! When I was younger, I wasn’t aware of many f/f manga about adults, so I’m glad to be able to enjoy series like She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat by Sakaomi Yuzaki. After reading the first three volumes of this ongoing series, I’m gobsmacked by how exponentially my investment in it grew over the course of just three volumes.  Usually, if I find it difficult to express why I like a work without spoilers, it’s because the initial premise is in some way flipped on its head. She Loves to Cook, and Sh ..read more

Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! The Crowded comic book series tells the satirical story of a dystopian world not too far in the future where the gig economy has become unhinged. In this world, everything has a price, including putting out hits on someone’s life through an app called Reapr. Anyone can be a target and anyone can crowdfund a kill, and loopholes in technology laws make it easy to get away with it while law enforcement and government officials look the other way. Following the antics of Charlie, the hit in question, and her hired ..read more

Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! Ava just broke up with her partner, Jules. They both work at an Ikea-like furniture store, but they’ve been managing to work different shifts after the breakup… until today. That’s already awkward enough before they discover a portal and are tasked with going through it together to retrieve a customer’s grandmother who wandered into it and is now lost in the multiverse. Don’t worry: in exchange for risking their lives, they will receive a gift card from corporate. This was exactly what I was hoping it would be. Finna is ..read more

Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! Earlier this month, during a trip to Portland, Oregon to cheer on the UConn Women’s Basketball team in the Sweet 16/Elite 8 (Go Huskies!), my partner and I visited the renowned Powell’s City of Books.  We were perusing its gorgeous shelves when You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat (she/her) caught the eye of my partner, who has a knack for making book recommendations that are right in my wheelhouse.  I had been looking for a queer book that highlights the female Arab American experience and the fro ..read more

Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! Pretty much as soon as I discovered Emma R. Alban’s Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend, I was excited to read it. From the frothy cover to the Taylor Swift lyric title (admittedly I don’t actually know Taylor Swift’s music well enough to recognize that on my own, but I generally love the vibe of song lyric titles) to the actual book description, it seemed incredibly up my alley. A hijinks-filled sapphic historic romance? Sign me up! To my absolute delight, the actual contents of the book completely delivere ..read more