Aug 12 2021
A coming-of-age novel with a queer country girl narrator playing sports and learning to interrogate her internalized misogyny while embracing who she is despite the opposition of certain members of her small town, including her nearest and dearest? I was wholly on-board even before I started reading Britta Lundin’s terrific, lived-in prose, and now I …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/08/12/like-other-girls-by-britta-lundin/
Aug 05 2021
I really enjoyed the feminist lessons of this novel — girls, don’t be afraid to be angry, to be wild, to scream! — but oh my goodness, did I want to take a red pencil to the fantasy aspects and just tighten everything up so it all fit into its own internal logic! Centuries ago, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/08/05/the-wild-ones-by-nafiza-azad/
Jul 30 2021
I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish this charming, body positive tale of a 16 year-old at an inflection point in her life, trying to figure out what’s going on with her parents, her best friend, her sister, the boy she thinks she loves and the boy she most definitely does not love, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/07/30/what-i-like-about-me-by-jenna-guillaume/
Jun 25 2021
This slim volume of short stories punches far above its weight class as it examines the lives of loosely connected characters in and around the turn of 21st century America. The opening story Dinner Conversation is one of the strongest, revolving around three couples out to dinner and the weight of expectations felt by the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/06/25/life-and-other-shortcomings-by-corie-adjmi/
Jun 09 2021
What if Thelma and Louise were scared teenagers in love with one another? That’s the intriguing premise of this book as best friends Trixie and Lux set out for a quick getaway from their stifling lives in Blue Bottle, West Virginia, only to find themselves on the run after Trixie stabs a guy who tries …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/06/09/trouble-girls-by-julia-lynn-rubin/
May 27 2021
I am a total sucker for mysteries set in the art world, so I was already inclined to love this book even before I was seduced by, first, the unusual-for-the-art-world LA/West Coast setting, then by Maria Hummel’s gorgeous prose. Still Lives follows Maggie Richter, one-time investigative journalist turned PR flack for the prestigious Rocque Museum. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/05/27/still-lives-by-maria-hummel/
May 10 2021
I thought I had a fairly good knowledge of obscure Victorian women who became explorers against the odds, so I was pleasantly surprised to learn of yet another one via this beautiful picture book for children (tho I continue to be chagrined by eras and societies that deny people opportunities on the basis of sex …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/05/10/fearless-world-traveler-adventures-of-marianne-north-botanical-artist-by-laurie-lawlor-becca-stadtlander/
Apr 27 2021
I found this book shockingly, uncomfortably relatable, and would fight anyone to defend its heroine, the precocious 15 year-old Gracie Welles. I, too, was sent to a “prestigious” boarding school at that age by a well-meaning dad who didn’t really understand the realities of what I needed to survive it, and I too spent countless …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/04/27/slingshot-by-mercedes-helnwein/
Apr 16 2021
This book was such a struggle to get through, and I might not have done it if I hadn’t been grimly determined to see how Heather Walter made good on the terrific premise of Sleeping Beauty’s true love actually being the dark fairy who cursed her. In the land of Briar, bordering on the fae …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/04/16/malice-by-heather-walter/
Apr 06 2021
In 1999, Gail Simone made a list “when it occurred to [her] that it’s not healthy to be a female character in comics. … These are superheroines who have been either depowered, raped, or cut up and stuck in the refrigerator. Some have been revived, even improved — although the question remains as to why …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/04/06/the-refrigerator-monologues-by-catherynne-m-valente/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire