[Originally published on The Media Co-op.] Nina Newington is an organizer based in rural Nova Scotia. In recent years, her grassroots work has focused on protecting forests in the province. Newington says that her political consciousness “really emerged from being a queer kid in England in the 1970s” and not knowing that there was anyone …
I have read several books by this author before, all middle-grade, and really, really liked them, so there was no way I wasn’t going to read this one, her first book aimed at adults. The titular Delilah, a big-city photographer who doesn’t do relationships, goes back to the small town where she grew up to …
Literary fiction that is both historical and has a bit of a speculative element. Coming of age in the impoverished, queer, artistic fringe of the Black Atlantic in the 1990s, coupled with an unexpected look at the burgeoning surveillance culture of that era. Captures the feel of a moment that is passing, of a time …
YA contemporary. Traces the experiences of two young women (and their respective best friends) at a massive music festival, and their trajectory from strangers to much more. Sweet and funny, and it certainly provides the kind of emotional journey that one reads this sort of book to have, so I’m sure it will have many …
YA contemporary with a sprinkling of the fantastical. Follows a teenage girl – Mexican-American, queer, a high school student, works in her family’s pastry shop and has a knack for knowing the perfect baked good to meet the needs or fulfill the desires of anyone who comes in. At a party at the home of …
An unfortunate photo that seems to show more than it actually does starts rumours about a Hollywood powerhouse and her assistant, leading to gossip, paparazzi…and maybe something more. Sweet, fluffy, heart-warming, and fun. Felt reasonably plausible in terms of the character journeys, which is not always true of this sort of book. One smaller plot …
YA historical fiction. I don’t read much historical fiction, but I’ve been a fan of this author since her first novel, the Cinderella retelling *Ash*, and I’ve followed her as she has worked her way across a range of genres. This book traces the story of a teen Chinese-American girl in 1950s San Francisco as …
Memoir – I’d even say lyric memoir, a la Maggie Nelson. Not sure I’m using that category quite correctly, but it seems to me that there are two broad areas of writing that distinguish lyric memoir from more conventional life-writing: the artfully (if intermittently) nonlinear flow of ideas, images, events, and reflections, and the play …
Lyric memoir. By a queer Cree poet, writer, scholar. Intense, compelling. Memory, poetry, theory, love, lust, rage, grief, joy, opacity, play. Keenly situated in the painful space between worlds violently unmade and worlds straining to grow. As is often true with this kind of book, I feel a pull to find a “right way” to …
YA fantasy. This author’s take on the secret British magic school and the ‘chosen one.’ Was pretty skeptical before I picked it up, but it drew me in fairly quickly. It manages a good balance of taking things seriously and poking a little bit of fun at, ahem, a certain similar series. The book enters …