Beefy and Booky

my main is @beefstatic, but hey this is where i talk about the books i'm reading and what I think about them! (Header is by @trashflags, 'peaches and cream ace'. couldn't think of a good pic lol).

[thecooler]

hey if you like sci-fi and wlw This is How you Lose the Timewar is only 200 pages long and very neat

[thecooler]

also ive been thinking about their joint author photo since i read it

[themightylizardking]

Day 9: books

I honestly don’t read a whole lot of books these days ever since I made the switch to podcasts. There is one book with queer characters that I can highly recommend though. And funnily enough it is actually based on a podcast.

The book and podcast are both called Alice Isn’t Dead. The story centers around an anxious woman of color, Keisha, searching for her wife who had been presumed dead until she saw her one day in the background on the news. Her journey to find her missing wife leads her to a trucking job which leads her across the continental U.S. Along the way she encounters every day people, monsters, heroes, and mysteries, all while becoming entangled deeper and deeper in a secret war happening on the open roads.

I truly love this book. Its so profound yet unexpected. It delves very well into what life is like for people with anxiety and shows the unique power that can come with it. It has a message that I will let you figure out for yourself, but I will say this, it is extremely relevant to the times we live in. Also a bit of a content warning, this book does contain gore. Not a whole bunch of it, but what it does have is very explicit.

I’ll leave you with a quote from chapter 2.

“Two years after the funeral, knowing Alice wasn’t dead, there were times Keisha hated her, of course. But through all of that she loved her. Loved her more than she had ever loved anyone. And so she would continue to look for the wife she loved and hated.”

[superheroesincolor]

Frankenstein in Baghdad: A Novel (2018)

From the rubble-strewn streets of U.S.-occupied Baghdad, Hadi—a scavenger and an oddball fixture at a local café—collects human body parts and stitches them together to create a corpse. His goal, he claims, is for the government to recognize the parts as people and to give them proper burial. But when the corpse goes missing, a wave of eerie murders sweeps the city, and reports stream in of a horrendous-looking criminal who, though shot, cannot be killed. Hadi soon realizes he’s created a monster, one that needs human flesh to survive—first from the guilty, and then from anyone in its path. A prizewinning novel by “Baghdad’s new literary star” (The New York Times), Frankenstein in Baghdad captures with white-knuckle horror and black humor the surreal reality of contemporary Iraq.

By Ahmed Saadawi

Get it now here

Ahmed Saadawi is an Iraqi novelist, poet, screenwriter, and documentary filmmaker. He is the first Iraqi to win the International Prize for Arabic Fiction; he won in 2014 for Frankenstein in Baghdad, which also won France’s Grand Prize for Fantasy. In 2010 he was selected for Beirut39, as one of the 39 best Arab authors under the age of 39. He was born in 1973 in Baghdad, where he still lives.

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[sapphicbookclub]

The Lost Coast by Amy Rose Capetta

The spellbinding tale of six queer witches forging their own paths, shrouded in the mist, magic, and secrets of the ancient California redwoods.

Danny didn’t know what she was looking for when she and her mother spread out a map of the United States and Danny put her finger down on Tempest, California. What she finds are the Grays: a group of friends who throw around terms like queer and witch like they’re ordinary and everyday, though they feel like an earthquake to Danny. But Danny didn’t just find the Grays. They cast a spell that calls her halfway across the country, because she has something they need: she can bring back Imogen, the most powerful of the Grays, missing since the summer night she wandered into the woods alone. 

But before Danny can find Imogen, she finds a dead boy with a redwood branch through his heart. Something is very wrong amid the trees and fog of the Lost Coast, and whatever it is, it can kill.

Genres: paranormal, urban fantasy, romance

Get the book from The Book Depository here!

[sapphicbookclub]

Contemporary F/F Audio Books

Here’s a list of contemporary wlw books you can listen to on audiobooks.com. You can also check my list of sci-fi & fantasy audio books.

Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour

It’s Not Like It’s a Secret by Misa Sugiura

The Brightsiders by Jen Wilde

Winning by Lara Deloza

Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden

We Are Okay by Nina LaCour

You Know Me Well by Nina LaCour & David Levithan

Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli

Lies My Girlfriend Told Me by Julie Anne Peters

Her Name in the Sky by Kelly Quindlen

Girl Mans Up by M-E Girard

Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee 

Ask the Passengers by A.S. King

The Summer of Jordi Perez by Amy Spalding

People Like Us by Dana Mele

Happy listening~ 🎧 

[superheroesincolor]

Nocturna (2017)

To Finn Voy, magic is two things: a knife to hold under the chin of anyone who crosses her…and a disguise she shrugs on as easily as others pull on cloaks.

As a talented faceshifter, it’s been years since Finn has seen her own face, and that’s exactly how she likes it. But when Finn gets caught by a powerful mobster, she’s forced into an impossible mission: steal a legendary treasure from Castallan’s royal palace or be stripped of her magic forever.

After the murder of his older brother, Prince Alfehr is first in line for the Castallan throne. But Alfie can’t help but feel that he will never live up to his brother’s legacy. Riddled with grief, Alfie is obsessed with finding a way to bring his brother back, even if it means dabbling in forbidden magic.

But when Finn and Alfie’s fates collide, they accidentally unlock a terrible, ancient power—which, if not contained, will devour the world. And with Castallan’s fate in their hands, Alfie and Finn must race to vanquish what they have unleashed, even if it means facing the deepest darkness in their pasts.

by Maya Motayne (Author)

Pre-Order it here

Maya Motayne decided to be a writer when she was four years old and hasn’t stopped writing since. She lives in New York City where she pursues her passions of petting as many dogs as possible and buying purses based on whether or not they can fit a big book in them. Nocturna is her first novel.

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[wizardysseus]

the thing about people who are like “i don’t like tolkien that much, fantasy should move on and be better” is that i AGREE that fantasy has all the wrong holdovers from lotr. but when you ask those people what contemporary fantasy they think is better, they’ll say shit like name of the wind or game of thrones, and i do not relate to that…..at all?? or even, like, brandon sanderson, whose books i REALLY like. but if you’re still naming mostly white straight male authors, what is it about tolkien you wanted to leave behind exactly???

[ofstarstuff]

If y’all’s “moving on from Tolkien” is still centered in reading fantasy written by cishet white men, y’all are missing out.

Martha Wells, Books of the Raksura. Shapeshifting gargoyle-dragon-lizard people in a matriarchal society. About finding a new home and a new family. Really evocative world building that hints at much older civilizations in a luxuriant setting.

NK Jemisin, The Broken Earth series. Post-apocalyptic setting. People of color actively dismantling systems of oppression. People of color being justifiably angry at what has been done. People of color being powerful. A black woman as the main character and multiple queer characters. She won THREE Best Novel Hugos for this series.

NK Jemisin, The Inheritance Trilogy. An empire has imprisoned and enslaved multiple gods, and is using them to further their oppressive systems. The mixed race female protagonist helps them find liberation. Some polyamory and non-binary themes.

Aliette de Bodard, Dominion of the Fallen series. “Dark Gothic fantasies set in a ruined turn-of-the-century Paris devastated by a magical war.” Fallen angels, Asian dragons, Viet culture, and queer PoC in positions of power. Her website has lots of free fiction as well. Special mention to The Tea Master and the Detective, a Sherlock Holmes retelling where Sherlock is a WoC and Watson is a sentient spaceship.

Fran Wilde, The Bone Cycle. Beautiful worldbuilding, tradition, (mis)information, climate change. This series is so gorgeous I have deliberately not finished reading it yet, because I am saving the last few chapters of the final book for when I’m going through a rough patch and need something lovely to escape into.

Amal El-Mohtar, Seasons of Glass and Iron. Fairy tale heroines going “nah, fuck this nonsense, we’re making our own story”. Amal mostly writes poetry and short fiction, and all of it is beautifully lyrical. Her words are so beautiful they make me angry.

Charlie Jane Anders, All the Birds in the Sky. It blends several genres in one, and honestly you are better off reading it than reading any summary I could make about it.

And so many, many, many more in the fantasy/sci-fi/horror genres. Ursula Vernon/T. Kingfisher, Alyssa Wong, Ken Liu, Rebecca Roanhorse, Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant, Daniel José Older, RF Kuang, Nnedi Okorafor, Jeannette Ng, Ann Leckie, Ted Chiang, Mary Robinette Kowal, Ruthanna Emrys, Louise Erdrich, Elizabeth Bear, Saladin Ahmed, Nisi Shawl…

If you can’t afford them, that’s okay, you have options:

Make sure to check them out at your local library.

Don’t want to go to the library, or don’t have a means to do so regularly? Ebooks! Overdrive/Libby is your friend–you just need to get a library card and then you can borrow ebooks through their ever-growing database.  You can even recommend books to them–authors will get a sale if the library buys the book! They also have a growing audiobook supply, and you can recommend those to your library as well.

Libby has a phone app that is perfectly functional, so if you don’t have a dedicated e-reader but own a smartphone, you can get your books that way too.

Do you prefer short fiction? So many of these authors have stuff available online, be it on their website or on zines. A brief search will supply you with more fiction by non-white-dudes than you know what to do with.

tl;dr:

Read diverse authors.

[superheroesincolor]

Sulwe (2019)

From Academy Award–winning actress Lupita Nyong’o comes a powerful, moving picture book about colorism, self-esteem, and learning that true beauty comes from within.

Sulwe has skin the color of midnight. She is darker than everyone in her family. She is darker than anyone in her school. Sulwe just wants to be beautiful and bright, like her mother and sister. Then a magical journey in the night sky opens her eyes and changes everything.

In this stunning debut picture book, actress Lupita Nyong’o creates a whimsical and heartwarming story to inspire children to see their own unique beauty.

by Lupita Nyong'o (Author), Vashti Harrison (Illustrator)

Pre-Order it here

Lupita Nyong’o is a Kenyan actress and producer. Her first feature film role was in the film 12 Years a Slave, for which she received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as well as multiple accolades, including the Screen Actors Guild Award, the Critics’ Choice Award, the Independent Spirit Award, and the NAACP Award. She has since starred in Mira Nair’s Queen of Katwe, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Ryan Coogler’s record-breaking box office hit Black Panther, and most recently in Jordan’s Peele’s critically acclaimed horror film Us. Nyong’o earned a Tony nomination for her Broadway debut in Danai Gurira’s play Eclipsed. She lives in Brooklyn.

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[superheroesincolor]

Children of Virtue and Vengeance (Legacy of Orisha) (2019)

After battling the impossible, Zélie and Amari have finally succeeded in bringing magic back to the land of Orïsha. But the ritual was more powerful than they could’ve imagined, reigniting the powers of not only the maji, but of nobles with magic ancestry, too. 

Now, Zélie struggles to unite the maji in an Orïsha where the enemy is just as powerful as they are. But when the monarchy and military unite to keep control of Orïsha, Zélie must fight to secure Amari’s right to the throne and protect the new maji from the monarchy’s wrath.

With civil war looming on the horizon, Zélie finds herself at a breaking point: she must discover a way to bring the kingdom together or watch as Orïsha tears itself apart.

Children of Virtue and Vengeance is the stunning sequel to Tomi Adeyemi’s New York Times bestselling debut Children of Blood and Bone, the first title in her Legacy of Orïsha trilogy.

By Tomi Adeyemi

Pre-Order it here

Tomi Adeyemi is a Nigerian-American writer and creative writing coach based in San Diego, California. After graduating Harvard University with an honors degree in English literature, she studied West African mythology and culture in Salvador, Brazil. Visit her at tomiadeyemi.com. Follow her @tomi_adeyemi

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[ainewrites-blog]

YA Books With Queer Girls

This maaay be stemming from anger, as all my best ideas are, but I figured it might help someone find a really awesome book, and so I shall be your unofficial librarian for a sec. 

I can vouch for all of these books; yes, some are better than others (I mean, yes, Of Fire and Stars has an overly simple plot), but they are all very much enjoyable, especially if you’re not in constantly book-reviewer mode like I am whenever I read. 

Also, I’m focusing this specially on books with queer girls, because I feel like YA has a bit of a problem with wlw. They tend to fly majorly under the radar, while books like Simon Vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda and Carry On get majorly hyped. Don’t get me wrong, I love both those books to bits, but still. I want to read all the books about girls who love girls. 

-

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman: I need to put on of my all-time fav books here, first, don’t I? But, seriously, this book is fucking fantastic, and I love it to bits. It’s got all the amazing things: podcasts, nerdy people being nerdy, geeking out over sci-fi, it’s fantastic. Bisexual female MC/narrator + demisexual male MC + gay male side character + gay female minor character. 

When The Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore: Guys. GUYS. This book is gorgeous. One of the most beautiful books I’ve read in a long time. Anna-Marie McLemore is already one of my top ten favorite writers and she’s only written two books, and this…I love this book and I want everyone to read this amazing book SO JUST GO READ IT, OKAY? AND it’s about QPOC, AND it very much respects and embraces true magical realism, AND the author is literally the sweetest person ever. Queer female MC + trans male MC.

Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova: This book is like a mix of Alice in Wonderland and a crazy fever dream. BUT IN A GOOD WAY. And can I mention the worldbuilding??? I’m in love with it. Bisexual female MC + queer female MC

Everything Leads to You by Nina Lacour: THIS BOOK IS FREAKIN’ ADORABLE. I mean, it’s about romance and movies and mysteries and it has a beautifully built slowburn romance and everyone is adorable and the romance is adorable and just ALL THE YES. Gay female MC + Gay female MC

Tash Hearts Tolstoy by Kathryn Ormsbee: This book is all about the internet! I mean, if you exist on a creative plain of the internet, you’ll see yourself in this book. PLUS all the amazing and totally important conversations about asexuality. Asexual romantic female MC.

Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert: I am SO ANGRY about how much this book has flown under the radar, because it’s amazing and so important and it addresses so many amazing things, and I just…Brandy Colbert writes the most fantastically realistic, flawed characters and I love it. Bisexual female MC + queer female side character.

Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst: I need to mention the cover of this book, first, because OH THE GORGEOUSNESS. Also, can I say NON-HOMOPHOBIC FANTASY WORLD??? Gay female MC + gay female MC

Lumberjanes by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, Shannon Watters, and Brooke A. Allen: I shriek about this graphic novel/s every single time someone asks for a comic recommendation. It’s ridiculous in the best way and lighthearted and has the most lovable characters and can I mention the cast is ENTIRELY FEMALE? Gay female MC + Gay female MC + Trans female MC

As I Descended by Robin Talley: Gay modern day Macbeth retelling with ghosts. Want to hear that again? LESBIAN MACBETH. WHY HAVEN’T YOU READ THIS ALREADY? Gay female MC + Gay female MC

10 Things I Can See From Here by Carrie Mac: Okay, yes, this book has an awful cover but don’t let that sway you because I love this book to pieces. For one, it’s set in Vancouver, and I love Vancouver, and also it has probably one of the most realistic portrayals of anxiety I’ve ever read, AND THAT ANXIETY DOESN’T GET CURED WITH ROMANCE. Gay female MC + Gay female side character

The Cursed Queen by Sarah Fine: Okay, yes, this is a sequel, but I had to add it to the list because I’m in love with this series and this world and I LOVE IT SO MUCH. It’s gloriously stabby. Bisexual female MC + queer female MC

Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde: This book is a love letter to fandom and nerd culture and everything, AND I LOVE IT TO PIECES. I’m so, so happy this book is getting so much hype because it stands up to the hype and crushes it and I just love it, okay?? Also, I love all the characters. ALL OF THEM. They’re so fantastically written and adorable and I REALLY, REALLY LOVE THEM. Bisexual female MC + Queer female side character.

Get It Together, Delilah/The Flywheel by Erin Gough: It’s set in a bakery/cafe, which is enough to get my heart beating, but this book is just straight-up adorable. Also, if you don’t think I’m making panna cotta gelato the first chance I get YOU ARE SADLY MISTAKEN. Gay female MC + Gay female MC.

BONUS: These books don’t have queer girls as MCs, but they do have queer girls and are just overall fantastic. The Upside of Unrequited has a sideplot about the MC’s gay sister and her pansexual girlfriend, plus the most adorable moms in YA, The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue has a female character whom I’m like 99% sure is asexual, A Tyranny of Petticoats has a couple of stories that are about queer girls, as does Meet Cute. 

Also, did I miss any important books??? Tell me if I did because I want to know about ALL THE BOOKS with queer girls. 

[beefsbooks]

FINALLY FINISHED SASSINAK

[beefsbooks]

@grumpyoldsnake YEAH I thought the ending felt off too but I just attributed that to the fact I kinda dropped the book for awhile haha

[beefsbooks]

FINALLY FINISHED SASSINAK

[superheroesincolor]

Trail of Lightning (The Sixth World) (2018)

While most of the world has drowned beneath the sudden rising waters of a climate apocalypse, Dinétah (formerly the Navajo reservation) has been reborn. The gods and heroes of legend walk the land, but so do monsters.

Maggie Hoskie is a Dinétah monster hunter, a supernaturally gifted killer. When a small town needs help finding a missing girl, Maggie is their last best hope. But what Maggie uncovers about the monster is much more terrifying than anything she could imagine.

Maggie reluctantly enlists the aid of Kai Arviso, an unconventional medicine man, and together they travel the rez, unraveling clues from ancient legends, trading favors with tricksters, and battling dark witchcraft in a patchwork world of deteriorating technology.

As Maggie discovers the truth behind the killings, she will have to confront her past if she wants to survive.

Welcome to the Sixth World.

by William Jones

Get it  now here

Rebecca Roanhorse is speculative fiction writer and Nebula, Hugo, and Sturgeon Award Finalist. She is also a 2017 Campbell Award Finalist for Best New Science Fiction and Fantasy writer. Her novel Trail of Lightning is the first book in the Sixth World series, followed by Storm of Locusts in 2019. She lives in northern New Mexico with her husband, daughter, and pug. Find more at RebeccaRoanhorse.com and follow her on Twitter at @RoanhorseBex.

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[makingqueerhistory]

I’ve been writing this queer dieselpunk webnovel for a good bit now. It’s about thieves who steal dreams from their former masters in a city where not everything is as it seems… 

[superheroesincolor]

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe: A Novel (2010)

Minor Universe 31 is a vast story-space on the outskirts of fiction, where paradox fluctuates like the stock market, lonely sexbots beckon failed protagonists, and time travel is serious business. Every day, people get into time machines and try to do the one thing they should never do: change the past. That’s where Charles Yu, time travel technician—part counselor, part gadget repair man—steps in. He helps save people from themselves. Literally. When he’s not taking client calls or consoling his boss, Phil, who could really use an upgrade, Yu visits his mother (stuck in a one-hour cycle of time, she makes dinner over and over and over) and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished. Accompanied by TAMMY, an operating system with low self-esteem, and Ed, a nonexistent but ontologically valid dog, Yu sets out, and back, and beyond, in order to find the one day where he and his father can meet in memory. He learns that the key may be found in a book he got from his future self. It’s called How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, and he’s the author. And somewhere inside it is the information that could help him—in fact it may even save his life. 

 Wildly new and adventurous, Yu’s debut is certain to send shock waves of wonder through literary space–time.

by Charles Yu

Get it now here

Charles Yu, born in 1976 in Los Angeles) is a Taiwanese American writer. He is the author of the novel How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe and the short-story collections Third Class Superhero and Sorry Please Thank You. In 2007 he was named a “5 under 35” honoree by the National Book Foundation.

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[incidentalcomics]

My Holiday Wish List

For the NY Times Book Review. You can also add my book, THE SHAPE OF IDEAS, to your list!

[superheroesincolor]

The Emissary (2018)

Japan, after suffering from a massive irreparable disaster, cuts itself off from the world. Children are so weak they can barely stand or walk: the only people with any get-go are the elderly. Mumei lives with his grandfather Yoshiro, who worries about him constantly. They carry on a day-to-day routine in what could be viewed as a post-Fukushima time, with all the children born ancient―frail and gray-haired, yet incredibly compassionate and wise. Mumei may be enfeebled and feverish, but he is a beacon of hope, full of wit and free of self-pity and pessimism. Yoshiro concentrates on nourishing Mumei, a strangely wonderful boy who offers “the beauty of the time that is yet to come.”

A delightful, irrepressibly funny book, The Emissary is filled with light. Yoko Tawada, deftly turning inside-out “the curse,” defies gravity and creates a playful joyous novel out of a dystopian one, with a legerdemain uniquely her own.

by Yoko Tawada (Author), Margaret Mitsutani (Translator)

Get it  now here

Yoko Tawada was born in Tokyo in 1960 and moved to Germany when she was twenty-two. She writes in both Japanese and German and has received the Akutagawa Prize, the Adelbert von Chamisso Prize, the Goethe Medal, and the Tanizaki Prize.

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