Hello Cozy Family!!

Back in 2023, I posted what turned out to be a rather controversial list of books that I thought should be studied on the school curriculum to help inspire and create readers from an earlier age. Here’s my updated list of recommendations. 

I will post a deep dive into each age group and the books I’ve chosen in separate posts (to come soon). I have used the English (UK) classification of school groups, as that is what I am familiar with, and then added the age ranges in brackets so everyone, wherever you may be based in the world, will be able to understand and apply to your own school age group classification systems. 

So without further ado, here is a list of what I think should be on schools' English Literature curriculums:

Primary School (8 - 10 years old)

• Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

• A Kind of Spark by Elle McNicoll

• Best Friends Forever by Lisa Williamson

I would also recommend a graphic novel at this age too, though I am still searching for what I think my ultimate recommendation for one would be. So stay tuned for that update, hopefully soon. Please share any recs you may have!!

Lower Secondary School (11 - 13 years old)

• Narnia (The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe) by C S Lewis

• The Hobbit by J R R Tolkien

• A Good Girls Guide To Murder by Holly Jackson

• A Language of Dragons by S F Williamson

Upper Secondary School (14 - 15 years old) 

• The Grace Year by Kim Liggett

• Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

• Herc by Phoenica Rogerson

• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

A-Level / College (16 - 18 years old)

• Morgan Is My Name by Sophie Keetch

• The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

• The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E Harrow

• Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb

Until next time,

Charlotte xx

Science fiction doesn't have to be filled with pages of physics, complicated technology, or scientifically accurate space travel. Sometimes, the future is simply the backdrop, and the real story is about the people living in it.

That's what soft sci-fi does so well. Rather than asking, Could this happen?, these books ask, What would happen to us if it did?

These books are emotional, philosophical, political, and deeply character-driven, which is why they're often my recommendation for readers who think they "don't like science fiction."

What Makes a Book Soft Sci-Fi?

Soft sci-fi uses speculative technology or futuristic settings to explore human experiences. Instead of focusing on scientific realism, these stories ask questions about identity, relationships, morality, society, and what it means to be human.

The science supports the story, not the other way around.

The Core Themes of Soft Sci-Fi

1. Humanity in Extraordinary Circumstances

At its heart, soft sci-fi is about people.

The futuristic setting simply creates new ways to examine timeless questions about identity, love, grief, family, morality, and belonging.

Whether the story takes place on another planet or centuries in the future, the emotional journey is what stays with you.

2. Society, Politics, and Power

Many soft sci-fi novels use imagined futures to explore the world we're living in today.

They ask questions like:

• Who deserves power?

• What happens when technology outpaces ethics?

• How much freedom are we willing to sacrifice for security?

• What makes someone human?

The science is there to challenge the way you think.

3. Relationships Come First

While hard sci-fi often spends time explaining how a world works, soft sci-fi spends that time developing the people living inside it.

• Friendships.

• Found family.

• Romance.

• Rivalries.

• Moral dilemmas.

If you're someone who needs to emotionally connect with characters before you care about the plot, this genre is probably going to work for you.

4. Big Ideas Without the Homework

One of the biggest misconceptions about science fiction is that you need to understand science to enjoy it. You don't.

Soft sci-fi is usually much more interested in the consequences of technology than the mechanics behind it. That's what makes it such an approachable entry point into the genre.

📖 If You Usually Read Other Genres...

Soft sci-fi is one of my favorite science fiction subgenres to recommend because it meets readers where they already are. Instead of asking you to memorize scientific concepts, these books focus on characters, relationships, philosophy, politics, and the emotional impact of new technology.

If you've ever thought science fiction "wasn't for you," this is probably where I'd tell you to start.

⚔️ Fantasy Readers

Start with: Red Rising by Pierce Brown

If you love epic worlds, political intrigue, unforgettable characters, and impossible odds, Red Rising is an easy transition into science fiction. It has all the emotional highs of fantasy, just with planets instead of kingdoms.

❤️ Literary Fiction Readers

Start with: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

This is science fiction at its quietest and most devastating. The speculative premise is subtle, but it raises profound questions about memory, mortality, and what it truly means to be human.

👨‍👩‍👧 Found Family Readers

Start with: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

If your favorite part of a story is watching characters become a family, this one is for you. It's warm, hopeful, character-driven, and one of the coziest science fiction novels you'll ever read.

📚 Beginner Pick

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

If you've always been curious about science fiction but aren't sure where to start, this is one of my favorite gateway books.

Why it works:

• incredibly fast-paced and addictive

• easy-to-understand science fiction concepts

• a high-stakes treasure hunt that keeps the pages turning

• nostalgic pop culture references woven throughout

• balances action, humor, and heart

It's the kind of book that's easy to pick up and even harder to put down.

📚 Advanced Pick

Dune by Frank Herbert

Once you're comfortable with the genre, Dune is one of the most rewarding science fiction novels you'll ever read.

Why it works:

• masterclass in political intrigue and worldbuilding

• explores religion, ecology, power, and destiny

• richly layered cultures and histories that reward close reading

• complex characters whose choices shape entire civilizations

• one of the most influential science fiction novels ever written

This isn't a book you rush through...it's one you sink into. The deeper you go, the more you'll discover, and it's easy to see why it continues to inspire science fiction decades after it was first published.

Let's Talk

What's your favorite kind of science fiction?

• 🚀 Character-driven stories that explore humanity?

• ⚙️ Or science-heavy stories where the technology is the star?

"The dead collect in low places."

GENRE: Sporror
RATING: 4/5
FORMAT: eBook ARC

Review:
If there's a Sporror book, I have to have it and The Midnight Muse was a fun clash of Mushroomcore with Metal Horror and a focus on who we are.

The Midnight Muse starts with a search of well, a muse, by the lead singer (Brynn) who eventually vanishes. Her band continues to exist and the story takes place a year after she vanishes. We follow along with the band members and see all of their lives unfolding. We see how and what motivates them and really, we see how far some of them would go to get what they want.

My favourite parts are that The Midnight Muse is set in an isolated forest/wood area and how on the edge this has us as we are reading it. There are the sporror part, which I loved and there is the exploration of who we are as humans and what is worth giving up some part of us to get what we want.

This is a great sporror book to read, one that leaves you wondering if everything that you are reading has really happened or not!

I was provided a free advance reader copy and I’m sharing my honest thoughts.

"...the one thing that makes me smile now, laugh even, is the notion that the Spaniards conquered us. Oh, they say, it only took five hundred men to conquer the Mexica, as if their thousands of Indigenous allies had been as useful as clouds of dust. It only took a year, they say. And I laugh, even now, I laugh at their bold-faced stupidity. For it was not those men who conquered us."

GENRE: Historical Fiction
RATING: 5/5
FORMAT: eBook Arc

Overall Impression: Easily became one of my favourite Historical Fiction & reads!

Review:
What a book! I loved everything about The Other Moctezuma Girls, from the historical aspect of it, to the characters and the story telling/writing style. It is descriptive and so emotionally powerful that it breaks your heart a little in the best of ways.

We follow Isabel's POV mainly but we get journal entries from her mother, Tecuichpoch and follow the journey of her life and how everything came to be. It genuinely was such a captivating story that broke my heart, reading about how everyone was harmed with colonialism. It also dives into how colonialism can happen with the help of people living in the area and we get to read about why people make the decisions they do.

I also loved reading about Catina, who is deaf after getting sick (coming from someone who is deaf too) and how they developed a way to communicate with her. All the characters in this book were written so well that you couldnt help feel an emotional connection to them or dislike them. We get to explore the family dynamic and watch Isabel find her footing and who she is in the world as someone who doesn't appear "ladylike".

I am so excited to read more from the author and to continue reading books set in the same time period. I was provided a free advance reader copy and I’m sharing my honest thoughts.

"I tried not to think about my body most of the time, or even about being in a body. I'd often thought I would have preferred not to have one at all if I'd had the choice. To be able to just exist, floating around the world, quietly, observing, never being perceived."

GENRE: Psychological Horror with Scottish Folklore
RATING: 3.5/5
FORMAT: eBook & physical ARC

Overall Impression: Overall, I did like Home Sick as the writing was atmospherical and descriptive while the story left me wanting to know more. I think I just went into it expecting something different and it's definitely because I didnt realise it was heavily a psychological Horror. I'm not a huge thriller reader but I will say that the book felt more of a mesh between Psychological Thriller with some horror and folklore in it. We also have a little bit of an unreliable narrator, which was very fitting for the story too, but I dont usually read a lot of Psychological Horror OR books with unreliable narrators so this was an interesting experience for me in wondering what the point of the book was (and getting the answers in the end, which tied everything up to make it a good read).

Review:
I picked up Home Sick as it was folk horror with a cottage setting (cottagecore), which I love in most genres. After reading this, I can definitely say it had some folklore and it definitely played a role in the story but to me, Home Sick is definitely much more heavier on the Psychological Horror/Thriller than the Folk Horror.

All in all, the story was very atmospherical in the first half, which I loved and it gave us that whole Cottagecore vibes and added to the folklore aspect of it. The author does descriptions really well, whether it's nature based on of the cottage. We also get to know Tamsin and there's a lot of conflicting feelings about who she is and we, as the readers, feel that with her. You go back and forth with Tamsin, wondering if she is a good person, what the violent incident was at work and why did she need to escape to a remote cottage. You almost get to feel what she is feeling, her fear, paranoia, anger and have to question why she's feeling this way.

At the core of it, Home Sick is about not fitting in anywhere and the effect of it on Tamsin after a whole life time of trying to fit in and it never working out. The book takes you on a Tamsin's journey to discovering who she is, why she is the way she is and most importantly, maybe learning to accept herself. I think in the first half of the story, I did wonder if Tamsin was Autistic and reading the reviews, I can see that I wasn't the only one who picked up on this.

The horror elements were quite fun to read. It was scary in the way that is very realistic kind of scary, where our fears and insecurities come to life, with a little of folklore to help it. I think I would have loved a deeper dive into the folklore aspect as I am a huge fan of adding folklore in horror and learning more about it. I would recommend this book to people who enjoy both psychological horror and thriller generally as it might be a great book to expand into folk horror as a sub-genre as well. It's also a good book for people who want a mesh of both thriller and horror, as there are some external horrors in here but Home Sick is mainly about Tamsin and her internal fears with it manifesting externally.

I was provided a free advance reader copy and I’m sharing my honest thoughts.

Vampires will forever be relevant, because let's be honest...they do live forever. If you are a huge Vampire fan, you'll VANT to sink your teeth into these five books releasing this year.

What other topics would you like some recs/release info on? Drop some suggestions in the comments!

Milkteeth by Caitlin Starling-- October 20th

The only thing more terrifying than a brood's hunger . . . is its mothers.

Beatrice is a broodmother: a vampire responsible for nursing newly made fledglings through the first years of their unlife. She nests in an abandoned, isolated warren of office space beneath her patron's skyscraper, where she raises her fledglings—two difficult, hungry children of the night.

But when she takes on a third, the balance ruptures. Her hunger swells beyond control. Her body alters, betraying its purpose, transforming her into something even more monstrous.

Desperate to master herself once more, Beatrice courts a mortal OBGYN who might be able to unravel the secrets of her unnatural anatomy. But soon their connection threatens the secrecy of her vampiric coven as well as the safety and development of her dependent nurslings… and in a world governed by secrecy, even the smallest revelation could prove fatal.

The Brides by Charloette Cross-- July 7th

1884. When Mafalda journeys to Budapest to care for her grieving aunt, her secret love, Lucy, hurries from London to comfort her, with chaperone and lady's maid in tow.

But lady's maid Alice, blessed and cursed with the Sight, is tormented by terrifying visions. When chaperone Eliza falls prey to a disturbing wasting illness, the women hope to seek the healing waters of Transylvania. At a nobleman's invitation, they set out for Castle Dracula.

In the depths of the forest, miles from civilization, their host reveals his true intentions; a monstrous ambition which will tear the women apart.

And not all of them will survive.

The Red Sacrament by Sara Hinkley--July 7th

Paris, 1869. The Théâtre Saint-Siméon is the place to be, if you can get in. The black slips of paper that guarantee entry are rare and highly desired, and given only to certain persons. The actors on stage are magnetic and ageless, performing only at midnight and never seen during the day…

Arnault and his clan of vampires have survived for as long as they have by observing a rigid set of rules. At night, they perform on stage at the Théâtre Saint-Siméon, picking off just enough people in the audience to survive. But they understand the city, and how to live in it without being noticed. 

Their peace is shattered first with a visit from Béatrice, a witch who forms a strange connection to Arnault; then with the arrival of Victor de Rouvray and his sister Françoise, vampires from a very different world. And, as Arnault grows closer and closer to the beautiful, enigmatic Victor, he risks becoming distracted from the constant bickering of his immortal friends, from the daily running of the theatre, and worse, from the premonitions of blood, death and starvation that he receives at night. 

For a terrible change is on the horizon, revolt and revolution are brewing in the streets and soon, the city, and Arnault will never be the same again.

Blood Rising by Markus Redmond--August 25th

Kwadzo Okoro never believed the bloody legend of Ramanga was real. Now, he stands as the leader of a new Ramanga Tribe, one that sieged the Barrow plantation in a storm of righteous carnage, liberating its formerly enslaved Africans. Reclaimed as the Crimson Plantation, it is now also home to the wronged Natives who fearlessly aligned with the Ramangans.

But Kwadzo knows that freedom is not secure. Bartholomew and Constance Crabtree, the most influential slaveholders in the region since the demise of Big Jim Barrow, are galvanizing the Lakeside community to strike back—violently. The threat they pose, however, pales in comparison to the insidious menace of Penelope Knudsen. Her white-hot hatred, now fueled by Ramangan blood, and an ability to survive the sunlight—a power Kwadzo doesn’t have—threatens to upend Kwadzo’s advancement of Ramangan might throughout the colonies to free his people.

But the gravest threat comes from within: Rafazi. His blood fathered the rebellion, but he will not take orders from his own creation. And when Rafazi makes a deadly deal with the Crabtrees, Kwadzo is forced into a battle with his maker that he may not survive, while the everlasting freedom of every enslaved person in the colonies hangs in the balance.

In Carolina and beyond, a reckoning is coming that will change the colonies forever.

Mothersucker by Kim Bohyun--September 1st

When a man’s body is discovered in a park outside of Seoul, Detective Noh Jin-seon is called to the scene, but she soon discovers this case is unlike anything she's seen before. The man, who had been accused of stalking and harassing his ex-girlfriend, was killed with startling force, set on fire, and drained of blood. There are no footprints, no murder weapon, and no leads. Weeks later, another man is discovered murdered in the same way.

What follows is a chorus of characters grappling with the emergence of a serial killer. Among them are women haunted by past abuse who become collectively plagued by visceral dreams of vengeance; a female-led police force tasked with solving the perplexing murders; men who fear their own judgement day will come; and, at the center, Geum-hong, a mother reeling from the loss of her only daughter, brutally murdered by her ex-boyfriend. Her daughter is gone and the trial has passed, but her rage remains, simmering and threatening to consume her...

A brisk, lacerating exploration of power, privilege, and the pursuit of justice—and a foray into the dark underbelly of gender-based violence in Korea—Mothersucker reveals just how far a woman will go to avenge the ones she loves.

Behind Have You Seen Him: Identity, Secrets, Storytelling & the Journey to Finding the Truth

Welcome back to another exclusive Book Club Conversation from The Page Ladies Book Club.

Today we're sitting down with Kimberly Lee, award-winning author of Have You Seen Him, to talk about writing thrillers, crafting unforgettable twists, deleted scenes, publishing, creativity, and what's next for David's story.

📖 Featured Book

Have You Seen Him

What if everything you believed about yourself was totally wrong?

Attorney David Byrdsong has spent most of his life trying not to think about the day he was abandoned at an airport as a child.

When he unexpectedly discovers his own face in a missing-child advertisement, his search for answers leads him into a deadly web of corporate conspiracies, long-buried secrets, dangerous truths, and questions about the people he trusts most.

Fast-paced, emotionally compelling, and impossible to put down, Have You Seen Him blends psychological suspense with a moving exploration of identity, family, belonging, and resilience.

💬 The Conversation

1. Three words to describe Have You Seen Him?

Page-turner. Twisty. Touching.

2. Why explore identity and belonging?

Kimberly shares that every piece she's written eventually circles back to belonging.

"We're all searching for answers to 'Who am I?' and 'Where do I belong?'"

The missing-child premise offered the perfect way to examine those universal questions through suspense and romance.

3. Where did the idea come from?

Kimberly explains how a real missing-child advertisement, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and a simple writing prompt asking "What if?" all collided to inspire David's story.

4. Can you silence your inner editor?

Not really!

Even though she encourages writers not to edit while drafting, Kimberly admits she's constantly revising as she writes and she's learned to embrace that process.

5. Favorite part of writing?

Polishing.

Returning to finished chapters with fresh eyes and refining every sentence is where she finds the most joy.

6. Plotter or pantser?

Kimberly doesn't create detailed outlines.

Instead, she often knows the beginning and ending, allowing her characters to discover the journey in between.

7. Favorite deleted scene?

One cut chapter featured a school custodian secretly helping Gayle escape campus while telling eerie local folklore surrounding the school.

Although it didn't survive edits, Kimberly hopes readers may see it appear in a future book.

8. Do you plant clues?

Absolutely.

She intentionally added subtle clues during revisions for observant readers hoping to solve the mystery early.

9. What makes an unforgettable thriller?

Kimberly believes memorable thrillers combine twists, pacing, surprises, humor, emotional connection, and characters readers genuinely care about.

10. Biggest literary influences?

Maya Angelou inspired her voice and courage.

John Grisham inspired her love of legal thrillers and ultimately encouraged her to combine her legal background with fiction.

11. Best writing advice?

Write every idea down.

Even the ones that seem silly.

You never know which one will become your next novel.

12. Biggest publishing surprise?

Kimberly shares a deeply personal reflection about fear, losing her father unexpectedly, and choosing to pursue publication despite feeling uncomfortable with self-promotion.

She leaves readers with Audre Lorde's powerful reminder:

"When I dare to be powerful…it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid."

13. What's next?

Have You Seen Him is only the beginning.

Kimberly is currently writing the second book in the trilogy during an upcoming writing residency and can't wait to reunite with these characters.

👩 About the Author

Kimberly Lee, JD, is an award-winning novelist, editor, workshop facilitator, and creative guide dedicated to helping others discover their authentic voice through writing, expressive arts, mindfulness, and reflective practices.

She is a graduate of Stanford University and UC Davis School of Law and serves on the faculty of Hugo House, The Loft, Arts & Healing Initiative, and Women on Writing. Her workshops have been featured at Esalen Institute, Hollyhock Retreat Centre, Omega Institute, The Huntington, and numerous organizations throughout North America.

Her writing has appeared in Literary Mama, Carve, F(r)iction, LA Parent, The Ekphrastic Review, BetterSleep, and many other publications.

Kimberly lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

🌿 Beyond the Novel

In addition to writing fiction, Kimberly leads expressive writing workshops, SoulCollage® retreats, and creativity experiences designed to help participants reconnect with imagination, intuition, and authentic storytelling.

🛒 Purchase Have You Seen Him

📚 Amazon

📚 Barnes & Noble

📚 Bookshop.org

🌐 Connect with Kimberly Lee

Website:
https://www.kimberlylee.me/

Instagram:
@klcreatrix

Newsletter:
https://www.kimberlylee.me/contact

Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/234889217-have-you-seen-him

📅 Upcoming Appearance

Book Reading & Signing

📍 Vroman's Bookstore

Pasadena, California

🗓 Sunday, July 19

⏰ 4:00–6:00 PM

Thank you for supporting The First Editions. Your membership makes conversations like these possible while helping us connect readers with the authors behind the stories we love.

Until next time…

Happy Reading!

—The Page Ladies Book Club

Book Club Conversations • Author Interview • Thriller Books • Mystery Books • Psychological Suspense

Welcome back to The Page Ladies Book Club! One of our favorite parts of reading is getting to step behind the story and hear directly from the authors who created it.

This month, we're thrilled to welcome Kimberly Lee, author of the award-winning thriller Have You Seen Him. In this exclusive preview, Kimberly shares the inspiration behind her unforgettable debut, her writing process, and why themes of identity and belonging continue to shape her stories.

📖 Featured Book

Have You Seen Him

What if everything you believed about yourself was totally wrong?

Attorney David Byrdsong has spent years trying to leave the past behind. Abandoned as a child and later adopted by a loving family, he's learned to keep his emotions guarded.

Then everything changes.

One ordinary day, David discovers his own face staring back at him from a decades-old missing child advertisement.

Determined to uncover the truth, David is pulled into a dangerous investigation involving corporate conspiracies, shocking secrets, murdered witnesses, and questions that threaten everything he thought he knew about himself.

Blending psychological suspense with emotional depth, Have You Seen Him explores identity, family, belonging, and the lengths we'll go to uncover the truth.

💬 Book Club Conversation

For readers discovering your work for the first time, how would you describe Have You Seen Him in just three words?

Kimberly Lee: Page-turner. Twisty. Touching.

Identity is at the heart of this novel. What drew you to exploring those themes?

"No matter our background, we're all searching for answers to 'Who am I?' and 'Where do I belong?'"

Kimberly explains that the theme of belonging has appeared throughout everything she's written from flash fiction to essays to novels. The missing-child premise became the perfect vehicle for exploring those deeply human questions.

Did the story begin with David or the premise?

Kimberly reveals that everything started with a real missing-child advertisement featuring both a young boy and an age-progressed image decades later.

Combined with reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and a writing exercise centered around asking "What if?", the idea slowly transformed into David's unforgettable journey.

What's your favorite part of writing?

Polishing.

Kimberly loves revisiting completed chapters, refining every sentence until each word says exactly what it needs to.

Do you enjoy hiding clues for readers?

Absolutely.

During revisions, Kimberly intentionally planted subtle clues throughout the novel that mystery lovers may discover before the final reveal.

📚 Continue the Conversation

These questions are only the beginning.

Inside The First Editions, members can read Kimberly's complete interview featuring:

✔️ Her deleted scenes

✔️ Balancing editing and writing

✔️ Her biggest publishing surprise

✔️ Favorite thriller ingredients

✔️ Influential authors

✔️ Writing advice

✔️ What's next in the Have You Seen Him trilogy

...and much more.

👩 About the Author

Kimberly Lee, JD is the award-winning author of Have You Seen Him, a writer, editor, workshop facilitator, and creative guide passionate about helping others discover their authentic voice through storytelling.

A graduate of Stanford University and UC Davis School of Law, Kimberly has worked with organizations including Esalen Institute, Omega Institute, Hollyhock Retreat Centre, The Huntington, Hugo House, and The Loft. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications and anthologies, and she lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

🛒 Purchase Have You Seen Him

📚 Amazon

📚 Barnes & Noble

📚 Bookshop.org

🌐 Connect with Kimberly Lee

Website:
https://www.kimberlylee.me/

Instagram:
@klcreatrix

Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/234889217-have-you-seen-him

Newsletter:
https://www.kimberlylee.me/contact

📅 Upcoming Event

Book Reading & Signing

📍 Vroman's Bookstore

Pasadena, California

🗓 Sunday, July 19

⏰ 4:00–6:00 PM

✨ Unlock the Full Conversation

Want the complete interview?

Join The First Editions to access the full 13-question Book Club Conversation with Kimberly Lee, along with exclusive author interviews, printable book club resources, discussion guides, bonus content, and more.

Happy Reading,

The Page Ladies Book Club

Waaaughhh how is this year half over already?! These are my 11 faves so far (yes, 11, I could absolutely not narrow it down any further than that)! They're in no particular order, and I've popped in my mini reviews for each just in case you missed them the first time around. Books marked with a * are books that were gifted to me.

Shapes of Love by L.V. Peñalba* - SHAPES OF LOVE is my new favorite book featuring an aspec character. This book so beautifully covers the many nuances of aromantic and asexual identities and the various forms their close relationships can take. I really loved how Sasha pushed hard against the idea that friend love can’t be as meaningful and important as romantic love. The book lets her make some mistakes around that belief as well, which I liked. Everyone in this book makes mistakes, learns, and has complex conversations about it all. The characters are racially diverse as well, adding yet another layer to the complexity of coming out. 

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell - This is the most devastating book I've read in years. Just absolutely a tear your hair out and lay on the floor crying kind of book. I didn't want to keep reading it but I also couldn't stop reading it. Somehow, it feels like the events of the book are happening to you as you read it. I particularly loved how it both mattered and didn't matter at all that Agnes' husband was William Shakespeare. Who cares, when you're that in the depths of grief? Agnes' touch of the supernatural also added another beautiful, painful layer to her story. I think I can say I've never quite met a character like Agnes.

This Inevitable Ruin by Matt Dinniman -  How does this series get exponentially better with every book? Also, sorry to my spouse for the high levels of stress I radiated while reading THIS INEVITABLE RUIN. 

There Is No Place For Us by Brian Goldstone* - THERE IS NO PLACE FOR US shines a light on a population that usually gets entirely ignored. These families are working their butts off, only to get slapped down again and again. Goldstone is great at weaving statistics and research in with the individual stories in a way that contextualizes and humanizes them. One thing I haven’t seen discussed about this book is that four of the five families are headed by single moms. Of those four moms, for three of them, the road to being unhoused began with an abusive husband, boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend. 

A Sharp Endless Need by Mac Crane* -  You know when you read a book and you can’t form words for how you feel about it? Yeah, that’s A SHARP ENDLESS NEED. Crane is so good at writing painful longing. Add in being unsure of your sexuality in a small town, and whew. The longing is so intense it’s hard to look at straight on. My one knock-a-quarter-star-off-quibble is that the ending feels kind of like a throwback. That’s all I’ll say to avoid spoilers. Honestly, I can’t write any more about this. It feels like I want to keep it secret so no one says mean things about it, but I also want the whole world to read it. 

Whidbey by T. Kira Madden* -  We’ve waited a long time for new work from T Kira Madden, and wow, was WHIDBEY worth the wait. This book follows several women who are all impacted by the actions of one man. We see them through rage, grief, shame, defensiveness, love, fear. There’s a little bit of a mystery element to it, but it’s still deeply personal and introspective. Please look at the content warnings before reading. It’s a heavy book, but worth it if you’re up for it.

Luminous by Silvia Park* -  LUMINOUS is the kind of story that sci-fi is best at: what does it mean to be a human? To be a man? To love? To be loved? Siblings Jun and Morgan have both spent their lives trying to make sense of their childhood experience of having a robot brother who got taken away from them during the war the reunified Korea. Everyone in this book is deeply flawed, and trying to build relationships on a cracked foundation. My favorite thing, though, is that in this story of what makes a human (and a human man specifically) is that Jun is a trans man. It adds so many additional layers to what might otherwise be a straightforward robot tale. 

Kin by Tayari Jones* -  My goodness, Tayari Jones is a master of her craft. KIN is so beautiful, loving, and heartbreaking. We follow Niecy and Annie’s story in a way that’s both about the details of their lives and the larger story of being a Black woman in the South. The women in this book all have taken different paths through life, but they have so much common experience as well. I haven’t seen it discussed much yet, but this is a queer story. I’m trying not to give plot away, but know that there are just so, so many layers to this book. I already want to reread it. 

The Maidenheads by Benny B. Peterson* - Listen. As a girl who grew up in the DC suburbs who was very into the local music scene and didn't understand her sexuality at the time...I AM IN THIS PHOTO AND I DON'T LIKE IT. But also, hell yeah. Johnson name checks all my favorite venues in DC and Baltimore and perfectly recreates the grimy love we all had for our local faves. The Maidenheads is messy and mean and full of yearning and good god please go to therapy, my guys. Everyone makes the worst decisions at every turn and I loved them for it.

Searches by Vauhini Vara - I need everyone who uses the internet to read this book. Vara traces the path of her life and the life of the internet, how they overlap and interact, and increasingly, how they have become inseparable. There is so much to think about here regarding how much of our lives we have given over to tech companies, sometimes knowingly, sometimes not. Please read it! 

Hold Me Like A Grudge by Celine Ong* - Celine Ong said to herself, "how can I make sports enemies to lovers as gay as possible?" and HOLD ME LIKE A GRUDGE was born. I'm obsessed with everything about this book. Enemies/rivals/pining/coming out/found family/spicy chemistry/soft love/etc etc etc omg can I hug them please! Not to mention all the Supernatural, Fall Out Boy, and various other pop culture references that are hidden about oh so casually. And listen, I know everyone and their mom is going to compare this book to Heated Rivalry...but also it's true! If you're looking for more tender sports yearning, THIS IS IT.