books about love – Equal Opportunity Reader

[REVIEW] Crossfire, by StaceyAnn Chin

(Buy this book here.) Read time: about 3 minutes Back in the day, I used to attend poetry performances almost as often as church. (And I went to church a lot!) Unsurprisingly, I was especially drawn to the words of other Black women, and while like most people I’m made up of a million differentContinue reading “[REVIEW] Crossfire, by StaceyAnn Chin”

[REVIEW]Once Upon A Marquess, by Courtney Milan

The Kindle cover of Once Upon A Marquess depicts a young white woman in a Victorian dress sitting in a grassy field. The Kindle lies on a speckled ceramic table, nest to a saucer with a blue ceramic cup of milky coffee and a half-eaten scone on it.

(Buy this book here!) Read time: 2 minutes After her father’s death and her brother’s disgraced exile, Judith Worth is tasked with caring for her three younger siblings and keeping the family name in good, if socially lowered, standing. When a challenge to her hard won domesticity arises, there’s only one person she can turnContinue reading “[REVIEW]Once Upon A Marquess, by Courtney Milan”

[REVIEW] Miss Major Speaks, by Miss Major Griffin Gracy and Toshio Meronek

My Black lady hand holds up a paperback copy of Miss Major Speaks. The cover depicts Miss Major at her most glamorous, sometime in the 1960s. The book is held up in front of a row of laundromat washing machines. Gotta get those pages in whenever you can, right?

(Buy this book here.) It’s always weird when someone tries to use demographic as an emblem, rather than a descriptor of experience. It’s reductive and robs us of genuine relationships and the understanding our own history(because like it or not, marginalized history is everyone’s history.) It makes small, unremarkable people too big in our minds,Continue reading “[REVIEW] Miss Major Speaks, by Miss Major Griffin Gracy and Toshio Meronek”

[REVIEW] Gaysians, by Mike Curato

(Buy this book here.) AJ arrives in Seattle, fresh out of the closet and dreaming of art school and self-discovery. On his first venture into a gay bar, he spills a drink on drag queen K, who introduces him to John and Steven. The four of them (and a few others) become a found familyContinue reading “[REVIEW] Gaysians, by Mike Curato”

[REVIEW]The Free People’s Village, by Sim Kern

The bright orange cover of the hardback edition of The Free People's Village, depicting a punk rocker hitting a robot dog with a baseball bat, sits on a blonde wooden table on top of a booksleeve printed with 1940s Black debutantes.

[Buy this book here.] whew This is a BOOK, y’all. The year is 2020, and COVID-19 doesn’t exist. In 2000, Al Gore became president, declaring a War on Climate Change and ushering in 20 years of Democrat control. Infrastructure is totally green, and carbon taxes keep it that way. Sounds great, right? NOPE. Instead ofContinue reading “[REVIEW]The Free People’s Village, by Sim Kern”

[REVIEW] Condomnauts, by Yoss, translated by David Frye

A paperback of Condomnauts is held up against a cloudy night sky. The cover shows a red mouth open to reveal a starry galaxy, all on a sky blue background.

(Buy this book in the Equal Opportunity Bookshop) Whew this was a weird book. But, here goes. Josué is a queer, light-skinned AfroCuban with locs, a survivor of the cutthroat slums of future Havana, and part of a highly specialized intergalactic ambassadorial sex worker class. Known as “condomnauts”, Josué and his colleagues are responsible forContinue reading “[REVIEW] Condomnauts, by Yoss, translated by David Frye”

[REVIEW] The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni, by Nikki Giovanni

The Kindle cover of The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni, depicting a black and white line drawing of a book, rests on a squishy yellow cushion

(This should be on your bookshelf if it isn’t already. Find it here.) we all start/as a speck/nobody notices us/but some may hope/we’re there When I was small, I stumbled upon a poem that made me feel like I was 10 feet tall. It gave me pride in my African ancestors, pride in being BlackContinue reading “[REVIEW] The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni, by Nikki Giovanni”

[REVIEW] The Truth According To Ember, by Danica Nava

The Kindle cover of The Truth According To Ember, depicting a long haired, smiling, attractive Indigenous couple facing each other, sits on a balcony, propped against a potted plant, with stripes of sunlight splashed across it.

(Buy this book here.) Before I begin, let’s all please clap a little for this, the very first romance novel about Indigenous people by an Indigenous writer published by a traditional publisher. Then, let’s all boo those publishers for depriving us all of something so good for so long. And then, let’s clap again becauseContinue reading “[REVIEW] The Truth According To Ember, by Danica Nava”

[REVIEW] The Idea of You, by Robinne Lee

The Kindle cover of The Idea of You, showing the very pretty kissing couple from the film adaptation, is propped up on a dining table against a woven handbag behind a wide green mug of milky coffee, next to a blue and white chinaware planter.

(You can find this book here.) I wasn’t really planning on reviewing this age-gap, popstar, Amazon Prime-adapted romance but it’s weirdly icky, so let’s discuss. It’s fine that French-American gallery owner Soléne is 20 years older than her 20-year-old lover Hayes. It’s fine that he’s a member of the world’s biggest boy band. It’s fineContinue reading “[REVIEW] The Idea of You, by Robinne Lee”

[REVIEW] That Time I Got Drunk And Saved A Demon, by Kimberly Lemming

A Black woman's hand holds the Kindle cover of That Time I Got Drunk And Saved A Demon, featuring a pretty Black woman and a sexy elf in a passionate clinch, up in front of a lush potted basil plant.

(Buy this book here.) You’ve probably already heard of this smash-hit monster romance about a pink-haired sistah named Cinnamon and a demon (but not really?) named Fallon. While tarrying on the path home to her family’s spice farm after a drunken festival to celebrate the band of heroes sent to kill the demons threatening theContinue reading “[REVIEW] That Time I Got Drunk And Saved A Demon, by Kimberly Lemming”