My November Reading Wrap-Up

I finally had a chance to sit down & pull together my reviews for the books I read in November, so let's jump right in! I read 6 books by and about Black, Latine, and Indigenous queer folks. I was really in my anthology bag this past month, which means I have plenty of new to me authors to check out! Here are the books I read and my reviews of each:

This horror anthology has a lot of fantastic stories within! One of my faves is "The Brides of Devil's Bayou" by Desiree S. Evans which is about a girl named Aja who returns to her family home in Louisiana for her 19th birthday despite the alleged curse on her family.All of the stories are captivating and perfectly creepy! Some have sci-fi elements or magical realism, while others feed on modern experiences like "Black Girl Nature Group" and "Queeniums for Greenium!"This is a great book to add to any collection.

Scout's Honor is a dark yet playful paranormal story that is great for folks who have ever wondered what it would be like to have a girl scout-esque organization in which girls take down monsters feeding on human emotions. The plot was original and I loved the way Prudence thought about her role as a former ladybird scout as she trained the newbies. Her compassion and instinct to hold onto humanity made her a worthy MC.There were just a couple of things that made this book a bit hard for me to enjoy sometimes: the pacing and repetitiveness. It felt like the story spent a bit too much time on world-building and not much on the chemistry between Prudence and her boyfriend. There were also times when I sped up the audiobook to get through the slower/repetitive dialogue.I recommend this book to teens (and anyone else) who is intrigued by this review!

We Belong is a beautiful addition to my (small, but mighty) collection of graphic novels! Many of the stories are filled with community, love, and joy. I love that there are plenty of stories that don't center around hardship and take place in queer-normative worlds or spaces. More of this, please!Although a few of the stories were hard to follow, I think this is a solid anthology. Each story/piece includes a brief artist/author bio, which is great for those of us who like to follow artist's work online.I recommend this book to folks who love visual arts and/or need to see Black queer folks thriving.

Love After The End is a fantastic anthology that should be a must-read for lovers of Speculative Fiction!I absolutely loved almost every story in this book, which is impressive because I usually don't favor anthologies as they tend to lack the space to explore their themes as much as full-length novels.It felt so good to read queer-normative stories that center resistance and community.My fave stories are How to Survive the Apocalypse for Native Girls by Kai Minosh Pyle and Seed Children by Mari Kurisato.

Skyn by Nikki Payne is a humorous and sexy take on dystopian sci-fi! Fawl is a regular degular woman who spent her life living in the Underground while dreaming of feeling the real sun on her skin. When her ex leaves her for her stepsister, Fawl is devastated & angry. They’d been working to get the money/upgrades to leave the Underground together for years & suddenly her future is ripped away. Not one to give up so easily, Fawl agrees to spy on an Elite family of emotionless cyborgs to finally touch some grass. In a twist of events, she ends up married to one of the sons, who happens to have an obsession with her skin.I love Nikki Payne's writing because her characters always have hella funny & relatable internal monologues. There's jokes, philosophical questions, super sexy scenes, & a revolutionary heart. I think this is one of my fave stories from the After The End project.

Taken is a wild ride from the start! Rhen is an artist who was recruited to be a part of a project to re-establish/repopulate the Earth after the devastating fall of civilization. Each of the participants were placed in pods programmed to wake them after 11,000 years. Our MC wakes up early thanks to a malfunction in the system. She faced w/ a couple of choices: Live out her life alone in the bunker or take a risk by leaving. Rhen decides to leave & finds out that there are some humanoid creatures who take her w/ them. She has an undeniable attraction to one of them & they're bound to one another, but she can't quite leave her old life behind just yet...This novella was very entertaining to me! I think Rhen is funny & the storyline is clever. Spice-wise, I'd say this is about 3.5 out of 5 chili peppers. If you're looking for a fun, short, and steamy monster romance, you should pick this one up!

As always, you can purchase any of these books, with the exception of We Belong and the last two through this link:

https://bookshop.org/lists/my-november-reading-wrap-up

For We Belong go to this site: https://stackeddeckpress.com/product/we-belong-the-all-black-all-lgbtq-sci-fi-and-fantasy-comics-anthology/

For the novellas from After The End: A Dystopian Romance Anthology, visit this site: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ahpublishing/after-the-end-a-dystopian-romance-collection?ref=ksr_email_backer_backer_confirmation