Buy this from Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and the Lesbrary! “And keep drawing, too. Draw what you see, what happens here. It’s important. They can scare us, but they can’t make us forget.” In this simply illustrated yet poignant graphic novel, Kiku Hughes reimagines herself as a teenager who is pulled back in time to witness and experience the Japanese internment camps in the U.S. during World War II. There, she not only discovers the truths of what life was like within these camps but also follows her late grandmother’s own experiences having her life turned upside down as her a ..read more

Amazon Affiliate Link | Bookshop.org Affiliate Link “August believes in nothing except caution and a pocketknife.” I first have to establish that I never read Red, White, and Royal Blue. I know that everyone and their sister was raving about that book, but as you probably can guess, I tend to centre women in my reading. Also, at a certain point the hype became overwhelming. So when I picked up One Last Stop, despite the author’s reputation, I was fully ready not to like it in some sort of defiant stubbornness. Instead, I am here to tell you that this author has earned the hype. Although I rea ..read more

Time War reminded me a lot of Good Omens in the sense that two agents–on opposing sides of a high stakes global war that is being fought out across time (yes, time travel) and space and universes, while also only forming a backdrop to the lives of regular unwitting humans–are not as invested in the outcome of that war as they maybe are expected to be by the leaders of those forces. And then they meet, and find they are not indifferent to each other. Red and Blue maintain communications throughout this story, and their communications are central to the development of both the plot and the char ..read more

I think I would have liked The Tea Machine a lot more if I had read it back in 2015, when it came out. That was the height of the Doctor Who craze (and the height of my love for the show), which clearly influenced the story of this book. However, where Doctor Who keeps its stories somewhat episodic and grounded in the real world, The Tea Machine goes off the rails and takes big swings at establishing alternate timelines. Here’s the story: a steampunk lady in Victorian London named Millicent messes around with her inventor brother’s time machine. She ends up in an alternate timeline where the ..read more

Bookshop.org Affiliate Link As a current Pittsburgh resident, as soon as I saw that the Lesbrary had received a review copy of Pride and Prejudice and Pittsburgh by Rachael Lippincott, I knew that I needed to read it. A fun sapphic romance mixing regency and the steel city with added time travel? Sign me up. And it did not disappoint. Pittsburgh native Audrey feels stuck. Her first choice of art school has waitlisted her. Her high school boyfriend has dumped her after trying to persuade her to abandon art as a career after he didn’t get accepted. And she feels stuck and unable to cr ..read more

Bookshop.org Affiliate Link Pride and Prejudice and Pittsburgh by Rachael Lippincott begins with two women, both of whom find themselves quite lost in life. Audrey Campbell lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the year 2023, and a recent breakup and loss of her artistic spark has left her floundering, with no clear path to the future she’s dreamed of. Lucy Sinclair, who lives in Radcliffe—her family’s estate in England—in the year 1812, is being pressured into a marriage with a rather unpleasant man, for her father’s financial benefit. Neither woman is happy with their lot, but have settled i ..read more

Bookshop.org Affiliate Link The first thing I have to say about Isle of Broken Years is that I didn’t want it to end, and it’s been a while since I felt that way about a book. The second thing you should know is that this isn’t just a book about pirates, though the cover and description, if not carefully read, may lead you to believe that’s where you’re headed. To be fair, we do begin the adventure with lots of swashbuckling and a bit of kidnapping, but this book is really more of a time travel story with lots of unexpected surprises. If Lost, Gideon the Ninth, and Their Flag Means Death had ..read more

This was such a let down. I used to be a big fan of Doctor Who (see my review of Queers Dig Time Lords) and am currently trying to catch up on the newest seasons. So when I saw a queer sci-fi book coming out that drew inspiration from Doctor Who, it sounded like the perfect entertaining audiobook listen.  When I read the description, it seemed even more fun. The Doctor character, the Argonaut, doubled as a David Bowie-esque singer! Instead of the Tardis, there’s Argo, a shapeshifting sentient spaceship that is often a muscle car. The main character, Harper, and her best friends Peggy, we ..read more

There aren’t many stories that can truly say they’ve done time travel in a unique way. Going back to the past or ahead to the future have already been done dozens of times. A fish out of water, or out of time, is going to make for an interesting story. But Radiant Days does time travel differently, and in a way that felt very compelling to me.  Radiant Days takes place in two different time periods. The 1870s storyline follows French poet Arthur Rimbaud through the trials and tribulations of his youth. The other storyline takes place in the 1970s, and follows Virginia art student Merle a ..read more

Amazon Affiliate Link | Bookshop.org Affiliate Link Casey McQuiston’s first novel, Red, White and Royal Blue, changed the new adult literary romance genre with its compelling love story of the prince of England and First Son, cementing queer stories’ places on bestseller lists, bookstore shelves and the general public’s hearts. Their follow up, One Last Stop, lives up to all the hype surrounding the release and surpasses it, crafting a beautiful romance in the heart of New York City, all tied up in that beautiful pastel cover. August rides the Q Train to and from her minimum wage job at a loc ..read more