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by ire’ne lara silva and singing in the night singing in the daysof want and singing in the days of plentysinging alone and singing with ghostssinging old songs and singing new songs wewill remember songs we haven’t heard yetsongs that haven’t been dreamt yet songs noone has found the words for songs sung onthe road and songs sung in bed songs sungwhile weeping and songs sung while waitingsongs for breath and sun and light and moon and earth and water songs for sustenance we will sing impossible songs indecipherable songs songs that cannot be heard and songs that cannot be shared we will sing songs…
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by Saara El-Arifi I just finished reading a Young Adult trilogy called Ending Fire. It was pretty far outside of my comfort zone and will probably be the only YA I read for some time now, but I thought the worldbuilding was incredible, and I hope to read more of the author’s work in the future. The trilogy consists of three books: The Final Strife, The Battle Drum, and The Ending Fire. The entire series is fantasy, but the first one leans more towards the romance genre and incorporates traditional romance tropes, such as enemies to lovers and a love…
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“There is a spot for you in Heaven, but only if you’re willing to open your heart like a door to Him,” Pastor Samuel had said that morning in his East Texas drawl, leaning on his podium. “Open your heart and let Him in.” Susannah was trying. She wanted to be close to Him. She saw the joy in her friends’ eyes when they spoke of their journeys. “I was afraid to let Him in,” Isabella told her, “but when I did, it was like I turned into this whole new person. A whole new me.” Sarah, Susannah’s best friend…
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by Vijay Seshadri Orwell says somewhere that no one ever writes the real story of their life.The real story of a life is the story of its humiliations.If I wrote that story now—radioactive to the end of time—people, I swear, your eyes would fall out, you couldn’t peelthe gloves fast enoughfrom your hands scorched by the firestorms of that shame.Your poor hands. Your poor eyesto see me weeping in my roomor boring the tall blonde to death.Once I accused the innocent.Once I bowed and prayed to the guilty.I still wince at what I once said to the devastated widow.And one…
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by Emma Copley Eisenberg 2/5 I wanted to like Housemates so badly. It was recommended by several people, and it sounds like exactly the type of thing I would usually love. A queer roadtrip? Yes, please! Unfortunately, this book missed the mark for me. To start, the narration style was nonsensical, chaotic, and inconsistent. It’s seemingly told by a mythical elder lesbian artist who is sometimes omniscient, sometimes not. If you haven’t read this book and think this sounds cool, I promise, it’s not. It’s incredibly distracting and feels voyeuristic in a deeply unsexy and uncomfortable way—one of the worst…
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It’ll happen like this: You will scrape the ice off the windshield. Slow, at first, carefully. You will shovel the snow into neat little piles for your kids to scavenge for snowmen after school. You will climb into the mid-size SUV, silver,and wring out your dripping wet jeans. You will turn the key but the car won’t start. The car won’t start. You will sigh, and sit back, and sigh. You will sit for a long time. You will think about the failures that preceded this one and the minor destinies that led you to this episode of the multiverse. You’ll think about your wife, 29, blonde hair, brown eyes, five-foot-five in her kitten…
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by Meg Freitag I have loved. I haveLoved like someone leavingAll the lights on All night long. Like even the white cottonSun was stuck at its cruxAbove the houses, perpetually Swabbing the iodine sky,And no one the whole world overSlept for four years. I have loved Like being very small, swimming In a saucer of warm milk, with no eyes.I have loved like a glass Of water on the bedside tableWith no water in it.I have loved like a ghost Wearing a bedsheetGhost costume, as a disguise. Last weekThere was still a buoyant spot On the wall, from the faceOf his…
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by Travis Baldree 4/5 This was one of the coziest fantasies I’ve read in a long time. If I’d managed to time my reading to be more in tune with the seasons, I would have saved this for the middle of winter. It’s as warm and comforting as one of the cups of coffee served at the books’ namesake fictional cafe. As far as fantasies go, I thought this was incredibly accessible. There’s not much mental labor required to make sense of the worldbuilding, and the coffee shop that the main narrative focuses on is similar enough to a real…
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The room is painted blue. The wooden bed frame, the quilt, the sheets, the nightstand, the lamp, the doorknobs, the window panes, the slippers by the bed. All blue. She remembers the color before she remembers her own name. Blue. Then, Clara. Is that her name? No, someone else’s. She looks at her reflection in the mirror. No, Clara is someone else. There is a knock on the bedroom door, and the door swings open. A man with a swirled mustache, wearing an early-20th-century butler’s uniform, stands in the doorway, holding a silver tray. “May I come in?” he says.…
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by Wisława Symborska They say I looked back out of curiosity,but I could have had other reasons.I looked back mourning my silver bowl. Carelessly, while tying my sandal strap.So I wouldn’t have to keep staring at the righteous napeof my husband Lot’s neck.From the sudden conviction that if I dropped dead he wouldn’t so much as hesitate.From the disobedience of the meek.Checking for pursuers.Struck by the silence, hoping God had changed his mind.Our two daughters were already vanishing over the hilltop.I felt age within me. Distance.The futility of wandering. Torpor.I looked back setting my bundle down.I looked back not knowing where to…
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Emily Vance Brown 