Hooray, It’s Time for New Books!

This is a humorous and heartfelt coming of age memoir about Gao’s life as a Chinese immigrant in Texas. She and her family moved when she was a toddler, and she spent her youth trying to fit in, including changing her name to Laura, and trying to figure out her feelings towards girls. Gao is from Wuhan, which she says most people in America had never heard of until the Covid-19 pandemic. The end of the book covers the rise in anti-Asian violence, which has Gao wondering about her place in America. It’s a sweet and powerful look at trying to discover who she is when so many people are ready to label her. (CW for racism, homophobia.)

Backlist bump: Almost American Girl by Robin Ha

En garde! This is a gender-bent retelling of The Three Musketeers (which I admit to never having read, but I know they had big floppy hats and poked things with swords). In Lainoff’s exciting version, Tania de Batz is the daughter of a famous former Musketeer. She has Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, which makes her dizzy quite often. All she wants is to stop being treated as ‘weak’ and learn to fight like her father. When he’s mysteriously murdered, Tania carries out his dying wish: to attend L’Académie des Mariées, a finishing school. Finally, she’s taught the art of sword fighting and she’s trained to be a dangerous assassin. When she meets a charming young man who may have the answers to her father’s death, she’ll have to decide how far she’ll go to get them—and who she can trust. (CW for violence, death of a loved one.)

Backlist bump: Scavenge the Stars by Tara Sim

And last, but not least, Gutowitz puts her immense knowledge of lesbian pop culture down on the page for this commanding collection of essays. It includes a look at how it took a lot longer for lesbians to be represented in mainstream culture than gay men, what it was like for her growing up with hardly any lesbian role models, and a lot of funny experiences she’s had because of her writing and the internet. (Including a visit from the FBI!) It also includes serious events from Gutowitz’s experiences growing up, including her search for her identity and an abusive relationship with a partner. (CW for mentions of bullying, sexism, outing, homophobia, sexual assault, drug abuse, mental illness.)

Backlist bump: We Are Never Meeting in Real Life.: Essays by Samantha Irby

I have been having some recurring health issues and was feeling pretty down this weekend. And then I discovered a galley of this book in my TBR and it brightened my whole day! I am not saying this is the best book of the year, but I am not *not* saying it. It is a freaking delight!

In this wonderful middle grade graphic novel, the planet is in trouble when something starts eating the moon. The culprits: Rats, who live on the dark side of the moon. The government knows that the destruction of the moon needs to be stopped, so it sends the best secret defense that it has: a domestic short hair. Given the name First Cat in Space, he bravely blasts off, prepared to do battle with the rotten rodents. On his journey, he discovers a stowaway, LOZ 4000, a verbose robot who vows to help him with his mission.

The two of them meet the Moon Queen when they land. She tells them it will be a dangerous trip to the dark side of the moon, fraught with peril. But together, they can do anything! There will be giants, monsters, more robots, whales, and yes, pizza. I liked how the Moon Queen insists everything on the moon is different, but it’s all just the same things, but with the word ‘moon’ in front of them. Like moon sand, moon bread, moon shoes… (Except for fruit. Let’s not get ridiculous.) This is hilarious, and delightfully illustrated. Harris has a very Dav Pilkey-like illustration style and it’s so fun. And it’s 360 pages long, so that’s a lot of fun packed into one book! Related: I also recommend Binky the Space Cat by Ashley Spires.