Queer Chaos

[Thirsty Mermaids] isn’t just high-concept fun....It’s a very down-to-earth kind of magic and a visual parallel to the inclusive world [Leyh] writes....a joyful universe.
—The Comics Journal

Helen Oyeyemi isn't for everyone, but if she is for you, congratulations because you are correct. Peaces follows an eccentric couple and their pet mongoose on a fever-dream of a train ride through the English countryside during which they encounter mysterious figures from their past. At times it has the feel of an old fashioned train mystery that has warped into a wacky romp of absurdity. At others it is an insightful meditation on relationships - the people who stay in our lives as well as those who cease to be real as they fade into the stories we tell ourselves about  them. The casual queerness throughout is the cherry on top that will likely cement Peaces as my book of the year. Have you read it? If so let's talk!
—Esmé, Firestorm Collective member 

Big Swiss is a dark party; a hilarious romp through new age pop psychology, romantic obsession, sapphic acrobatics, dogs, and the desire to end it all. Beagin’s voice is an engine all its own, and I delighted in this cynical, sexy, hopeless, hopeful, Hudson Valley jubilee. Come for the bees, stay for the donkeys!
—Melissa Broder, author of So Sad Today

The Thick and the Lean flips our known world inside out and, in doing so, exposes familiar seams of subjugation—from purity culture to capitalist exploitation. Chana Porter is a brilliant engineer of speculative societies and vivid far-flung realms, but she is also an author who reminds us what matters most in our real lives: the urgency of living our highest truth. This novel is a feast of ideas I didn’t want to end.
—Allegra Hyde, author of Eleutheria

I was instantly charmed by this wryly funny vampire novel/ mature trans romance. For a character who is technically already dead, the protagonist—a melancholy vampire and archivist named Sol—jumps to life on the page. With evocative characterizations (we know that Sol sounds like Steve Buscemi and looks like Clea Duvall in "But I'm a Cheerleader") and thoughtful world-building, Isaac Fellman immerses us into the underground and refreshingly subdued life of a vampire.
—Esmé, Firestorm Collective member

Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl is playful, sexy, smart, and like nothing else I—or you—have ever read before.
—Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties

Probably the best-looking comic I've ever seen. A brilliant, inspired, ridiculous work. I treasure it already!
—Casey Nowak, author of Girl Town

Hilarious but serious time-travel gambol with Frankenstein: modern doubles into AI, cryogenics, and sexbots. (Hint: Mod. Byron does not come out of it well.)
—Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid's Tale

My favorite book of this century so far! I keep putting off writing this blurb because every time I pick up Open Throat I re-read it and fall back in love with this gay-ass big cat and then I have to spend the whole rest of the day thinking about mountain lions and humans and sex and bodies and death and climate change and bad dads and NY v. LA and what is even possible in this world. Henry Hoke is a magician.
—Andrea Lawlor, author of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl

Sharply written and filled with richly drawn, complex characters that I genuinely cared about, The Z Word is one of the most innovative and deeply affecting novels I’ve read in a while. Playful, acerbic, and utterly engrossing, it’s astonishing to realize that this is Lindsay King-Miller’s debut. I’m ravenous for more!
—Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke And Other Misfortunes

Patricia Wants To Cuddle juxtaposes campy cryptid horror against the backdrop of a dating competition show. It is a combination so unexpected yet SO delicious you'll never watch The Bachelor the same way again!
—Esmé, Firestorm Collective member 

I loved seeing [Detransition, Baby] on other people’s lists because, you know, Torrey Peters, she went there. It was just irreverent, [referencing] so many things that queer people don’t necessarily want to talk about. And she made a story out of it instead of sitting and making the discomfort the only story.
—Roxane Gay, author of Difficult Woman