Girls That Never Die: Poems

by Safia Elhillo

Fine: A Comic About Gender

By Rhea Ewing

Looking for something to read after Maia Kobabe's award-winning graphic memoir, Gender Queer? Fine is a beautifully diverse and nuanced collection of 56 illustrated interviews that explore gender and expression. There is so much good stuff to dig into here, with sections on masculinity/femininity, hormones, language, relationships, bathrooms, and building community. Thoughtful and thought-provoking, Ewing asks questions we should all be exploring.

Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century

by Kim Fu

It’s rare that I find a book of short stories that really works for me, but when an advance copy of this collection showed up with local author Kim Fu’s name on it, I had a good feeling. I was lucky enough to attend two different readings where Fu performed new work: first, at Hugo House, and again, here at Phinney Books. I was struck by her voice and imagination, both of which translate beautifully to the page. Each of the twelve stories is well-written, wonderfully surreal, and distinct. I felt particularly moved by the stories that explore the consequences of possible near-future technologies—"Pre-Simulation Consultation XF007867," "Time Cubes," and "Twenty Hours" (think: Black Mirror, but infused with more hope and curiosity than cynicism and dread)—and the ones that read like modern creature myths: "June Bugs" and "Bridezilla." It’s hard to pick a favorite, and that makes it all the easier to recommend.

The Last White Man

by Mohsin Hamid

“One morning Anders, a white man, woke up to find he had turned a deep and undeniable brown.”

Kafkaesque from its opening line, Hamid's novel feels simultaneously fantastical and familiar. In this world, everyone's white skin turns to dark, inevitably, though not all at once, and people react accordingly: confusion, denial, anxiety, conspiracy, violence. This beautiful book feels incredibly timely, with parallels to pandemic life and our nation's continued reckoning with the injustices of systemic racism. Through Anders and Oona, Hamid shows us, intimately, and with rather hypnotic prose, how people are transformed by experience, made different by context, not only as they transition from white to black but as their lives change in other, perhaps more predictable, ways.

The Crane Wife: A Memoir in Essays

by C.J. Hauser

Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language

by Amanda Monte

Body Grammar

by Jules Ohman

Sometimes, though rarely, I will read a book and feel like I'm watching a movie as I read. Reflecting on this beautiful funny sweet melancholy moving book, I experienced something rarer still: feeling like the story I read was a life I got to live, among characters who felt like real people. Lou had planned to stay in Portland post-graduation, but after a freak accident that was "the worst thing that's ever happened to her" she changes her mind, finally giving into modeling recruiters who have been hounding her for years. While she's catapulted into this new, glittering career and world—which gave me satisfying America's Next Top Model vibes—she's reckoning with questions of who she is and what she wants, the girl and friends she left behind, and the trauma that put her on her current path.

I Miss You, I Hate This

by Sara Said

Fruit of Knowledge

by Liv Strömquist, translated by Melissa Bowers

This punchy work of graphic nonfiction reads like the best of stand-up comedy in its presentation of the feminist history of "the female genitalia." It highlights the absurd and infuriating; for instance, the actual size of the clitoris wasn't discovered until 1998! Filled with delightful illustrations and fun facts (that are admittedly not always super fun in content but always entertaining in delivery), this book is every bit as humorous as it is educational. I learned so much about how religion, science, and language have shaped our understanding of sex and gender and bodies—and not all of it is infuriating! A good bit is actually encouraging and empowering. Have you ever heard of "menstruation envy"? Neither had I! Everyone should read this.

Annihilation

by Jeff VanderMeer

VanderMeer has created such an atmospheric and foreboding landscape in Area X, and I found myself drawn deeper and deeper into it by the beauty and mystery there. Instead of seizing up with dread or shouting at our protagonist, the biologist of the twelfth expedition, to stop, turn around, and go back when encountering the strange and horrifying, I was eager to stay on her heels and inside of her head. I love a good slow burn and unreliable narrator, particularly when I can tell that even if I don't know exactly what's going on—and especially if the protagonist doesn't—I'm certain the author does. While I'm more than satisfied with Annihilation as a standalone novel, I'm excited to dive into the next installment, to venture further into Area X and embrace more of what I don't and can't know.